Mrima

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The name "Mrima" (underlined in red) on an American map of East Africa from 1890; (between Dar es Salaam and the Rufiji river; here only used for the southern part of the Mrima)

Mrima or Mrimaküste is a traditional name for the part of the East African coast, the Zanzibar opposite. The inhabitants were called "Wamrima" or Mrimaleute, although they belonged to different tribal and linguistic groups.

The sources provide different information about the delimitation of the area. In general, the Mrima was understood to be a strip of coast with a depth of about 2 days, i.e. 20 miles or about 30 km.

Ludwig Krapf , who gathered his knowledge in Mombasa from 1844 to 1851 , started the Wamrima on the north side with the Vumba, speakers of the Kivumbadialect of Swahili , who lived in the area of Shimoni opposite the island of Wasini . He then counts other groups up to the Usambara hills in the south, "the Mrimaland".

AC Madan , who gathered his information in Zanzibar around 1890, describes the Mrima as the area between Wasini and Kipumbwi at the mouth of the Msangasi, about 25 km south of Pangani . Madan suspected that the name "Mrima" could be a pronunciation variant of "mlima", the Swahili term for mountains and hills that rise inland from behind the coast.

Later authors also used the term for areas further south; for example, Stigand names the Kimrimadialect as predominant between Vanga (southern Kenya) and that of the neighborhood of Kilwa .

In southern Kenya, the name Mrima refers to a village and a small mountain about 20 km north of Vanga , Kwale County .

Fungu Mrima (also Fungu Marima) is a coral reef in the Mafia Channel between the Tanzanian mainland and Mafia Island .

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  1. ↑ Krapf quotes the British missionary Last “The coast-line opposite Zanzibar and inland for two days' march, about twenty miles, is called Mrima.” ( Krapf, Ludwig: A dictionary of the Suahili language, London 1882 , "Mrima")
  2. ↑ "Mrima, n. And Merima, name of the strip of coastland opposite and south of Zanzibar, with its own dialect of Swahili called Kimrima. The people also are described as Wamrima. (Perh. Cf. mlima, ie the hill-country , rising from the coast inland.) " Swahili-English dictionary, 1903 Oxford, Clarendon press ," Mrima "
  3. ^ CH Stigand: Dialect in Swahili: A Grammar of Dialectic Changes in the Kiswahili Language, Cambridge 1915 ; "Kimrima, or the dialect of the Mrima coast, is in use, with local variations, from Vanga nearly to Kilwa." p. 16
  4. ↑ See geonames org "Mrima"
  5. ↑ See Fungu Marima = Fungu Mrima on geonames.org