The Ndamba are an

ethnic An ethnic group or an ethnicity is a grouping of people who identify with each other on the basis of shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Those attributes can include common sets of traditions, ancestry, language, history, ...

and linguistic group based in south-central

Tanzania Tanzania (; ), officially the United Republic of Tanzania ( sw, Jamhuri ya Muungano wa Tanzania), is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It borders Uganda to the north; Kenya to the northeast; Comoro Islands and ...

whose population was 79,000 in 1987. They are found in everywhere in Tanzania especially south central, the

Morogoro Region Morogoro Region (''Mkoa wa Morogoro'' in Swahili) is one of Tanzania's 31 administrative regions. The region covers an area of . The region is comparable in size to the combined land area of the nation state of Ireland. Morogoro Region is border ...

, northeast of Bena, southeast of Hehe, west of Pogolo and southwest of Mbunga.

Language

The Chindamba language has a

lexical Lexical may refer to: Linguistics * Lexical corpus or lexis, a complete set of all words in a language * Lexical item, a basic unit of lexicographical classification * Lexicon, the vocabulary of a person, language, or branch of knowledge * Lexical ...

similarity of 69% with Mbunga and 56% with Pogolo. Speakers also use Swahili. Although it has been reported that Ndamba and Mbunga are two different tribes, the reality is that they are one tribe and the difference between them is purely dialectic. All three are

Rufiji–Ruvuma languages The Rufiji–Ruvuma languages are a group of Bantu languages established by Gloria Waite (1979) and subsequent researchers: N10 (less Manda Manda may refer to: Places * Kafr Manda, Arab town in the Lower Galilee * Manda Upazila, an upazila in ...

of the Bantu family. In recent years some Ndambas have volunteered to write a

dictionary A dictionary is a listing of lexemes from the lexicon of one or more specific languages, often arranged alphabetically (or by radical and stroke for ideographic languages), which may include information on definitions, usage, etymologies ...

on Chindamba. The first standard Ndamba dictionary was published in 2008 by Agathon Kipandula, a language researcher who was an employee of the

Bank of Tanzania The Bank of Tanzania ( sw, Benki Kuu ya Tanzania) is the central bank of the United Republic of Tanzania. It is responsible for issuing the national currency, the Tanzanian shilling. The bank was established under the Bank of Tanzania Act 1965. ...

. Linguistic texts include the 2010 Rüdiger Köppe Verlag publication .

Origin

Oral tradition states that the Ndamba people were originally an offshoot of the Pogoro people. Their first chief was Mbuyi Undole I, who led a small group westward away from the Pogoro. It was Mbuyi Undole I who registered the Ndamba as a tribe with the

German government The Federal Cabinet or Federal Government (german: link=no, Bundeskabinett or ') is the chief executive body of the Federal Republic of Germany. It consists of the Federal Chancellor and cabinet ministers. The fundamentals of the cabinet's or ...

in 1901. The Ndamba flourished and spread through the southern part of the

. The tribe is now found in

Mlimba Mlimba is a town in central Tanzania on the plains. Location Mlimba is in Kilombero District, in Morogoro Region, in south-central Tanzania, approximately , by road, south-west of Kilombero, where the district headquarters are located. This is ...

, Masagati, Chisano, Chita, Merera, Malinyi, Igawa, Biro, Ngombo, Mchombe, Mngeta, Lwipa, Mbingu, Mofu, and other parts of

Kilombero District Kilombero District is a district in Morogoro Region, south-western Tanzania. The district is situated in a vast floodplain, between the Kilombero River in the south-east and the Udzungwa-Mountains in the north-west. On the other side of the Kil ...

and

Ulanga District Ulanga District (Mahenge District) is one of the six districts of the Morogoro Region of Tanzania. the administrative seat is in Mahenge. It covers of which is in forest reserves. Ulanga District is bordered to the north and west by the Kilom ...

areas.

Customs and beliefs

The tribe, also known as Wandamba, is well known for eating

rice Rice is the seed of the grass species ''Oryza sativa'' (Asian rice) or less commonly ''Oryza glaberrima ''Oryza glaberrima'', commonly known as African rice, is one of the two domesticated rice species. It was first domesticated and grown i ...

and

fish Fish are aquatic, craniate, gill-bearing animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish as well as various extinct related groups. Approximately 95% of li ...

only. Most of them belong to the

Roman Catholic Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

. Ethnic groups in Tanzania Indigenous peoples of East Africa Bantu peoples {{Tanzania-ethno-group-stub