Akie
Waakie
Total population
c. 5,268[1]
Regions with significant populations
 Tanzania

    Manyara Region[2]

      (Hanang District)
      Languages
      Massai - adopted
      Akie
      Religion
      Traditional African religions
      Related ethnic groups
      Hadza, Sandawe, Ogiek - who like their relatives in Tanzania are one of the perls of originally khoisan-speaking hunter-gatherer cultures.

      The Akie (sometimes called Mósiro, which is an Akie clan name, or Akiek, which is also used for the Okiek)[3][4][5] are a Tanzanian ethnic and linguistic people living in south western Simanjiro District of Manyara Region. In 2000 the Akie population was counted at 5,268.[1] The Akie, like other hunter-gatherer peoples in Kenya and Tanzania, are sometimes called by the derogatory and misleading term Dorobo or Wandorobo.[2] The Akie were featured by Bruce Parry in the BBC series "Tribe" (10th episode, 2007). They live around 150 miles south east of Olduvai Gorge[6]

      Exonym

      The Akie are sometimes officially called Dorobo or Wandorobo, which is a derogatory Swahili exonym for them. This Swahili exonym is derived from the Maa words "Ol‐dóróboni" and "Il‐Tóróbo," which mean "people without cattle."[2]

      Lifestyle

      The Akie are one of the last actual hunter-gatherer groups left on the African savanna. Beside hunting they collect honey, which involves 'steaming' out the bees, making it possible for to reach into the hive and grab the honey. They enjoy beer which they make from honey. Due to competition for land with the Maasai, they have recently been more reliant on maize, although this rarely produces enough food to last year around.[7]

      The Akie's closest ethnic and linguistic relatives may be the Ogiek who live farther north in Tanzania and mainly Kenya. They may have been farmers, but were forced to migrate south and resume a hunter-gatherer lifestyle after some hardship.[6] The Akie used to cover the Maasai Steppe, but now agriculture, poaching and other hunters have diminished the natural resources forcing the Akie into a bitter rivalry with the Maasai over land and water.

      Language

      Akie
      Akiek
      Native toTanzania
      RegionManyara Region
      EthnicityAkie
      Language codes
      ISO 639-3mwy (retired)[8][9]
      Glottologmosi1247

      The Akie people have their own language, also called Akie. Akie is a moribund endangered language, with only a few elders who speak it. The Akie people have adopted Maasai and Swahili, and while no official figures on the number of Akie speakers exist it is reported that younger generations are becoming less fluent in Akie.[10]

      Notes

      1. 1 2 "Tanzania". Ethnologue.(subscription required)
      2. 1 2 3 "Akie - A heavily endangered hunter‐gatherers' language in Central Tanzania" (PDF). Documentation of Endangered Languages. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2021-07-13. Retrieved June 12, 2021.
      3. ↑ Dorian, Nancy C. (1992). Investigating Obsolescence: Studies in Language Contraction and Death (Illustrated, reprint ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 30. ISBN 9780521437578. Archived from the original on 2023-05-09. Retrieved 2023-05-09.
      4. ↑ "UNESCO". Archived from the original on 2016-03-03. Retrieved 2023-05-09.
      5. ↑ Williams, Victoria R. (2020). Indigenous Peoples - An Encyclopedia of Culture, History, and Threats to Survival. Vol. 4. ABC-CLIO. p. 830. ISBN 9781440861178. Archived from the original on 2022-05-18. Retrieved 2023-05-09.
      6. 1 2 "BBC - Tribe - Akie". www.bbc.co.uk.
      7. ↑ "BBC - Tribe - Akie". www.bbc.co.uk.
      8. ↑ "Change Request Documentation: 2016-029". SIL International.
      9. ↑ Legère, Karsten (2016-08-31). "Change Request Number: 2016-029" (PDF). SIL International. Mosiro is known among the current Akie community in Tanzania as a clan name, and not as a linguistic variety mentioned by Maguire in his Il-Torobo 1948 paper, If this language variety has ever existed, it must have been some 80 years ago, but today Mosiro should only be retained as a clan name within the Akie ethnic group.
      10. ↑ "UNESCO Communication and Information: Akie". Archived from the original on 2016-03-03. Retrieved 2018-10-06.
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