House Types in Tanzania: A Century of Change

Abstract

The spatial analysis of cultural change is the focus of this study. The house types in Tanzania and changes in their spatial distribution for the century between I860 and 1965 provide an important indicator of changing cultural variations on a country—wide scale. The housing oj Tanzanians is more likely to reflect their cultural traditions than houses in the industrialized areas of the world because the overwhelming proportion of the people build their own houses. Approximately 100 references from European explorers, anthropologists and governmental records, as well as extensive personal observations in the early 1960s are used to reconstruct the spatial pattern of house types in three general time periods. The house types of some groups have changed in response to cultural contacts resulting from movements of people and ideas. House type analysis based on the systematic use of a wide variety of sources enables the spatial patterns of historical cultural landscapes to be reconstructed and trends identified. Although this methodology can be applied in a variety of geographical areas, it is especially valuable for areas such as tropical Africa where most of the material culture does not remain extant for more than about one generation.