These functioned as a legal code for the canals, enforced by the meni mifongo and backed by possible punishments. The following are bylaws enforced for canals in Kilema:64
• One is not permitted to break the timetable.
• One must close one’s own canal after irrigating so that others may use the waters.
• One must attend all activities of the canal, such as maintenance.
• One must not deliberately dirty the canal.
• One must not accidentally dirty it by washing clothes or eleusine in or near it.
• One must not bathe in the canal.
• One must obtain cooking water in the mornings.
• One must dig a pit for the disposal of dirty water so that it will not flow back into the canal.
Violation of these bylaws by anyone, including women and children, resulted in punishment. The most common was a fine; if one violated a bylaw, the entire family would be banned from the canal until one or more barrels of mbege were delivered to the meni mfongo.65 For severe transgressions, the violator and his or her family could be banished from the mfongo entirely. Children were taught from a very early age to respect the bylaws of the canals, and if they were caught urinating in them, playing in them, or in any way fouling them, they could be punished by whipping. Furthermore, special prohibitions existed for pregnant women. Aside from the normal restrictions against women’s performing any labor on canals, expectant mothers were prohibited from crossing canals or approaching their intakes.66
While conflict among the users of a canal fell to the jurisdiction of the meni mfongo, the mangi played a role in conflicts among users of different canals within a chiefdom. For example, if a canal drew too much water from a river, leaving downstream canals dry, the mangi could set limits on the upstream canal or order that the intake be reconstructed to reduce flows. These sorts of conflicts were more prominent in the dry months, when the rivers were lower and farmers needed to irrigate eleusine. Disputes over a water source between chiefdoms could be adjudicated through negotiation or warfare. By the nineteenth century, wars stemming from control of mifongo became increasingly common, the victorious chiefdom winning the right to claim as much water as it wished.67 The wamangi had little direct involvement in water management, aside from these limited roles, until the twentieth century. Rather, these duties remained in the hands of local specialists and societies of users.
SPIRITUAL AND CULTURAL MANAGEMENT
While physical management of water resources was extremely important, this was not the only way in which these resources were managed. Given the centrality of water to cultural and spiritual practices, we must think of water management and of those who manage it in much broader terms. By looking in depth at the spiritual and cultural dimensions of water, and how these properties were managed, we see that management of water resources on Kilimanjaro encompassed a wide range of actors and therefore was inherently local and decentralized.
Managing the spiritual properties of water was vital in these communities. It was the abundant streams, rivers, and rainfall that allowed people to grow bananas, brew beer, and construct mud houses. Water, more than anything else, distinguished the vihamba from the foothills and the lowlands. Lack of water meant death. Knowledge of water’s importance had brought the people to Kilimanjaro and, in their minds, separated them from dryland peoples such as the Maasai. In popular imagination, the mere idea of leaving the mountain for the plains generated tremendous anxiety. Charles Dundas observed:
Not only is the magnificence of the mountain such as [to] compel attachment, but as soon as the mountain dwellers leave it, life becomes intolerable for them. The plain affords them neither their accustomed food nor abundance of water, down there they become the victims of malaria, a prey for the ferocious lion, the blundering rhinoceros and the crafty buffalo, or the loathsome crocodile, all of which are unknown on the mountain, and finally they are exposed to the burning heat. Nothing affrights the mountain dweller more than the threat of being sent to a dry country.68
The association of the mountain with all that was good and the plains with evil and danger was so powerful that it persisted into the twentieth century.
The association of water with life and lack of water with death fostered other dichotomies, including the mountain versus the plains, civilized versus uncivilized, and pure versus impure. The most powerful of these was good versus evil. Mountain peoples believed not only that water was inherently good, but also that it had the power to eliminate evil by purifying both the landscape and its people. According to accounts from elders, Ruwa created the mountain itself as a way to distinguish good from evil and reward those peoples he considered to be good.69 He also used the powers of water to keep evil from reclaiming the mountain. One example, recorded by Dundas, is a fable very similar in style to that of the great flood in the Bible’s book of Genesis.70 It involves a great man, Mkechuwa, who died and left behind much wealth to his children. They showed little sympathy for the poor. Ruwa, angered by this, sent his minister to the community disguised as a man with boils all over his body. The man went to the people and begged for food, as well as fat to anoint his boils. Most turned their backs on him, saying, “Have you no shame?” At last he came to a man of mercy, who offered him food, washed his whole body, and anointed him with fat for his boils. At this time, the minister revealed himself to be the minister of Ruwa. He told the man to bring people of his clan, his family, and his friends to live at his home, for “events are at hand.” He then warned the man by saying, “If you hear a noise as of a great water running fiercely, hold fast to the supports of the hut. And on hearing this noise, remain in silence. For Ruwa shall pass among men in his strength.” Eight nights later, Ruwa brought a great flood from the forest:
The water carried away the evil people and all others, and their huts and their food and all their possessions. And the merciful man when he heard this noise, did everything as he had been commanded. And they were saved, all who were with him. The water by its force carried all those people with their cattle, sheep and goats far into the plain. And those people Ruwa turned into elephants. And their cattle became buffalos and eland and their like. And their sheep became pigs and porcupines. And their dogs became leopards and hyenas and their like.71
When the man of mercy awoke, he found the whole country empty. He and his people then set out to repopulate the mountain and build a great society. This fable aligns the powers of water with those of Ruwa. Through Ruwa’s actions, water acts as an agent with the power to cleanse, reward, and punish. As water flows from the forest to the plains, evil is washed away and the landscape is recreated for the benefit of the virtuous, thus reestablishing the dichotomy of the mountain as good and the surrounding lands as evil.
The cleansing power of water arises in relation to the body as well as the landscape. Several cultural and religious practices involved using water to purify the body when it was harmed. On Kilimanjaro, wrongdoings were considered to be the actions of spirits, and as such they were not merely temporal concerns. Rather, they implied a continuing evil influence on the victim of the transgression, one that could only be eliminated with a rite of purification. Dundas notes numerous examples of grievances subject to rites of purification. Victims included a man bitten by a woman, a man struck by his wife with a cooking pot, a man greeted while carrying a carcass on his head, a man wounded by a leopard, a man who pronounced a curse, a betrothed girl who became pregnant by another man, a woman who bore twins, any goat that bore twins in its first delivery, and any sheep or cow that bore twins at any time.72 In order to right these wrongs, the victim needed to undergo purification. These rites were the responsibility of specialists, members of a particular clan who possessed knowledge to placate the spirits. In many chiefdoms, certain clans developed a reputation for their purification skills, such as the Wako-Mariwa of Marangu.73
