Godfather (place)

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Location Pates on the island of the same name

Pate is a traditional place on the eponymous island of Pate , which today only appears as a small village. The place is on the southwest coast of the island. For centuries, the city of Pate was a center of Swahili culture in East Africa.

history

Pates Chronicle

Godfather is famous not least for his chronicle , which goes back to the Middle Ages and thus represents the oldest written tradition in East Africa.

founding

According to this chronicle, the city of Pate was founded by refugees from Oman in the 8th century . After this settlement was abandoned, it was re-established in 1204 by members of the Nabahani family, who also came from Oman.

At that time the city had become so powerful that it ruled most of the coastal cities of East Africa. Archaeologists, however, question this early dating.

Heyday

The 18th century is considered to be the heyday of Pate. There was considerable building activity which supported a large number of craftsmen. There are remains of excellent stucco work, filigree gold jewelry, beautiful furniture and fine fabrics that were made in Pate. The decorated Siwa horns, two of which are on display in the Lamu Museum, were also known at that time.

Poetry, too, flourished in Godfather. Verses in the Kiamu dialect of Swahili went from Godfather to other places on the coast until the 19th century.

Decay

Pat's decline was the result of his ongoing disputes with neighbors at the end of the 18th century. In 1813 the leading Pates families tried to conquer the city of Lamu in alliance with the Mazrui of Mombasa . This ended with a devastating defeat in the battle of Shela, today's tourist destination on the island of Lamu. Pates' armed forces suffered heavy losses and his power was broken.

The move to Witu

This meant that Godfather had little means of evading Zanzibar's claims to power, which had succeeded the only nominal supremacy of Oman in East Africa in the 1840s . Sultan Ahmad ibn Fumo Bakari from the old Nabahani family moved to the mainland on the Tana River in 1858 and settled in Witu . When Zanzibar had occupied the godfather and took over the rule there around 1870, the sultan was able to stay on the mainland. He sought contact with European travelers and asked Clemens Denhardt and Gustav Denhardt , who traveled to Africa, to broker an alliance with Germany. This contact then led in 1885 to the establishment of a small German protected area on 1600 km², which the Sultan had left to the brothers. In 1890 the Witu area was included in the German-English agreement on the borders in Africa and evacuated by the Germans. It took another five years until English suzerainty was enforced in 1895 after several interventions by English and Zanzibari troops. The last Sultan appointed by the English, Omar-bin-Hamed, saw his powers visibly waning. With his death in 1923, the active political role of the Nabahani dynasty of Pate ended.

Godfather as a village

At the end of the 19th century there were only 300 inhabitants in Pate compared to 7000 a hundred years earlier. Today the inhabitants live mainly from fishing and agriculture.

Web links

Coordinates: 2 ° 8 ′  S , 41 ° 0 ′  E