Sandawe people

The Sandawe are an indigenous ethnic group of Southeast Africa, based in the Kondoa district of Dodoma Region in central Tanzania. They were predominantly hunter-gatherers before Europeans colonized Africa in the 18th and 19th centuries. In 2000, the Sandawe population was estimated to be 40,000.

The Sandawe language is a tonal language with clicks, similar but unrelated to the Khoe languages of southern Africa.

Although, the Khoisan were thought to possess the oldest DNA lineages, those of the Sandawe are older. This suggests southern Khoisan originated in East Africa.

The Sandawe today are considered descendants of an original Bushman-like people, unlike their modern neighbors, the Gogo. They live in the geographic center of old German East Africa, the 'Street of Caravans' crossing their southern edge.

The Sandawe language may share a common ancestor with the Khoe languages of southern Africa. It has clicks and the surrounding Bantu peoples find it difficult to learn. It is unrelated to the neighboring Bantu languages, though it has been lightly influenced by neighboring Cushitic languages.

Sandawe are small, light-boned, and light brown-skinned, or as Lieutenant Tom von Prince of the German East Africa Company wrote, 'small and yellowish'; they are also noted for having thin lips, an epicanthic eye fold, and excessive wrinkling of the skin in old age. Some, particularly women, show signs of steatopygia, or accumulated fat in the buttocks and haunches.

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