Historically, there have been five ethnic groups, all of which referring to themselves as Wanyamwezi to outsiders: Kimbu, Konongo, Nyamwezi, Sukuma, and Sumbwa, who were never united.

According to oral tradition, the Nyamwezi are thought to have settled in west central Tanzania (their present location) some time in the 17th century.

They also started to acquire guns, and establish regular armies, with intra-tribal wars and some conflicts with Arabs on the coast throughout the 19th century.

The Nyamwezi had long been a settled agricultural and cattle-owning people, arriving on the western plateau in the 16th century, and originally living in a mosaic of small and independent chiefdoms slowly carved out by ruling dynasties.

[5] In the 19th century, settlements were described as typically large, compact, and fortified for defense with strong wooden stockades, often in high inaccessible rocky places.

When the Germans finally imposed peace, the population did not immediately disperse, but slowly, over a fifty-year period, the modern pattern of scattered settlements emerged.

In Unyamwezi itself, differing lifestyles were either absorbed into the existing order, similar to the Ngoni becoming just another chiefdom, or became isolated like the Arabs of Tabora.

Many trade routes crossed Unyamwezi, and the Nyamwezi had access to ivory and slaves, stretching from the coast to the inland, as far as Congo.

The western Nyamwezi arrived at the coast with ivory around 1800, and coastal traders soon followed this up by finally entering Unyamwezi and reaching Ujiji by 1831.

A kind of California Gold Rush took place for the ivory of the Congo's Manjema to the west of Lake Tanganyika.

Chiefs such as Isike and Mirambo, no longer being purely ritual, had found that the arrival of firearms enabled them to create standing armies and a new state organization.

They were strangled when they became seriously ill (as probably happened to Mirambo while dying of cancer), for the well being of the state and its continuation was identified with chief and his subordinate administrators.

At the top of the walls holes were curved strategically designed for ruga-ruga snipers to place weapons in defence of the fortress base.

The German authority appointed Lieutenant Tom von Prince specifically to challenge and crash Isike's resistance by any means necessary.

He also forged a coalition of the willing deserters, the skilled and experienced Arab militia with the support of princess Nyanso (Isike's rival cousin), and Ruga-ruga from other complying Nyamwezi rulers.

The Ruga-ruga mercenaries and Arab militia puppets not only strengthened the German's army personnel in size, they also volunteered all vital intelligence that could undermine Isike's defence strategies.

The Germans knew the two leaders conspired keeping in close contact and sharing intelligence in their bid to wade off foreign invasion.

Prior to 1893, the Germans launched two major unsuccessful attacks as attempt to defeat Isike and followed with intermittent multiple skirmishes.

When Isike's Itetemia fortress fell in the German's hands, his brother Swetu retreated into the miyombo forest terrain with the remaining faithful ruga-ruga platoons.

The Germans adopted a form of indirect rule in the region with chiefs becoming the administrative agents of the central government, receiving account books as a formal mark of recognition.

Grounds for a husband to claim divorce were failure of the wife to carry out household duties, visiting a doctor without permission, and possible infertility.

It had always been part or the Nyamwezi system for the chief to receive tribute, bring success and prosperity to the people, and play an active role in ceremonies.

The guildmembers believed they possessed powerful hunting medicine acquired through rigorous apprenticeships, tracking game in all types of terrain and moving swiftly and silently through thorny underbrush.

Nyamwezi staple food has historically been ugali, a porridge made from hominy and served with meat and vegetables.

Regionally traded products of importance were drums, ladles, stools, storage boxes for grain, and snuffboxes of horn.

Ironwork came from localized settlements whose products were then traded over wide areas: bows, arrows, spears, the payment of fines, and the extremely valuable hoes for bridewealth were all produced with considerable ritual by the smiths.

As with cattle, slaves were also needed and wanted for their prestige value, for men could gain influence and social connections, they could even make marriage payments with them.

Ivory porters should be viewed as free and voluntary labor, although it is true that they were at times financially abused by their chiefs, but later these people were defeated by Arabs.

With the establishment of German East Africa in the 19th century, Moravian Church missionaries arrived in the Lake Malawi region of Tanganyika.

Today, the Moravian Church In Western Tanzania (MCWT) has about 80,000 Nyamwezi adherents and many continue to evangelize among the Sukuma people.