The "Masai walls of moa" : walled towns of the segeju

This article is in effect a continuation of the series “The Defensive Measures of Certain Tribes in North-Eastern Tanganyika”, which appeared in Nos. 35, 36, 37 and 39 of this journal, and records information which provides a possible link between the last tribe dealt with in the series, the Sonjo, and another small but intensely interesting tribe, the Segeju.The Segeju are one of the best documented tribes in Tanganyika from the historical point of view. They live on the coast in the Tanga area, extending from a point a few miles to the North of the Kenya border at Vanga and thence stretching southwards to a few miles to the south of Tanga. Another small section lives at the north-east foot of the Eastern Usambaras at Bwiti. In the 1957 census they numbered 11,070 in Tanganyika; a further 698( ) live in the adjoining Kwale District of Kenya. Their history over several centuries has been fully recorded by Baker (1949) whilst Gray (1950) has amassed an impressive number of references from the Portuguese literature which reveals the close contact maintained between them and the Portuguese in the 16th Century(2). f The most noteworthy episode in their history was when they allied themselves to the Portuguese in 1586 and so saved Malindi from the ravages of the cannibalistic Zimba who, working up from the south, ravaged the coast from Kilwa northwards.