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Comoros Society
The Comoran people are a blend of African, Arab, and
MalayoIndonesian elements. A few small communities, primarily in
Mahoré, speak kibushi, a Malagasy dialect. The
principal
Comoran Swahili dialect, written in Arabic script, is
related to
the Swahili spoken in East Africa but is not easily
intelligible
to East African Swahili speakers. Classical Arabic is
significant
for religious reasons, and French remains the principal
language
with which the Republic of the Comoros communicates with
the rest
of the world.
A number of ethnically distinguishable groups are
found: the
Arabs, descendants of Shirazi settlers, who arrived in
significant numbers in the fifteenth century; the Cafres,
an
African group that settled on the islands before the
coming of
the Shirazi; a second African group, the Makoa,
descendants of
slaves brought by the Arabs from the East African coast;
and
three groups of Malayo-Indonesian peoples--the Oimatsaha,
the
Antalotes, and the Sakalava, the latter having settled
largely on
Mahoré. Intermarriage has tended to blur the distinctions
among
these groups, however. Creoles, descendants of French
settlers
who intermarried with the indigenous peoples, form a tiny
but
politically influential group on Mahoré, numbering no more
than
about 100 on that island. They are predominantly Roman
Catholic
and mainly cultivate small plantations. In addition, a
small
group of people descended in part from the Portuguese
sailors who
landed on the Comoro Islands at the beginning of the
sixteenth
century are reportedly living around the town of
Tsangadjou on
the east coast of Njazidja.
Shirazi Arab royal clans dominated the islands
socially,
culturally, and politically from the fifteenth century
until the
French occupation. Eleven such clans lived on Njazidja,
where
their power was strongest, and their leaders, the sultans
or
sharifs, who claimed to be descendants of the Prophet
Muhammad,
were in a continual state of war until the French
occupation. Two
similar clans were located on Nzwani, and these clans
maintained
vassals on Mahoré and Mwali after the Sakalava wiped out
the
local nobles in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth
centuries . Although the clan system was weakened by the
economic and
social dislocations of the colonial era, the descendants
of clan
nobles continue to form a major portion of the educated
and
propertied classes. The pre-independence rivalry of Said
Mohamed
Cheikh and Prince Said Ibrahim, leaders, respectively, of
the
conservative Parti Vert and the Parti Blanc, was
interpreted by
some as a revival of old clan antagonisms. Yet many
descendants
of nobles live in poverty and apparently have less
influence
socially and politically on Nzwani than on Njazidja.
The present-day elite, although composed in part of
those of
noble ancestry who took advantage of the opportunities of
the
cash crop economy established by the French, is mainly
defined in
terms of wealth rather than caste or descent. This focus
on
wealth is not unusual, considering that the original
Shirazi
settlers themselves were traders and that the precolonial
sultans
were actively involved in commerce. Conspicuous
consumption
continues to mark the lifestyle of the elite.
Especially well regarded are those individuals who hold
the
grand mariage, often after a lifetime of scrimping
and
saving. This wedding ceremony, which can cost as much as
the
equivalent of US$20,000 to US$30,000, involves an exchange
of
expensive gifts between the couple's families and feasts
for an
entire village. Although the gift giving and dancing that
accompany the grand mariage have helped perpetuate
indigenous arts in silversmithing, goldsmithing, folk
song, and
folk dance, the waste involved has disastrous consequences
for an
economy already short on domestic resources. A ban or curb
on the
grand mariage was on the agenda of many reformers
in the
period preceding the radical regime of Ali Soilih, who
himself
had taken the almost unheard-of step of declining to
participate
in the ritual. However, the efforts of the Soilih
government to
restrict the custom aroused great resentment, and it was
restored
to its preeminent place in Comoran society almost
immediately
after Soilih was deposed in 1978. Although its expense
limits the
number of families that can provide their sons and
daughters a
grand mariage, the ritual is still used as a means
of
distinguishing Comoran society's future leaders. Only by
participating in the ceremony is a Comoran man entitled to
participate in his village's assembly of notables and to
wear the
mharuma, a sash that entitles him to enter the
mosque by a
special door. Few, if any, candidates win election to the
National Assembly without a grand mariage in their
pasts.
For these reasons in particular, critics of traditional
Comoran
society condemn the grand mariage as a means of
excluding
people of modest resources from participating in the
islands'
political life.
Those who can afford the pilgrimage to Mecca are also
accorded prestige. The imams who lead prayers in mosques
form a
distinct elite group.
Despite the weakening of the position of the Shirazi
elite,
one observer reports that in many subtle ways old
distinctions
persist. The descendants of slaves, formally emancipated
in 1904,
are mostly sharecroppers or squatters, working the land
that
belonged to their ancestors' former owners, although some
have
gone abroad as migrant laborers (a greatly restricted
option
since Madagascar's expulsion of thousands of Comorans in
the late
1970s). Men of "freeborn" families choose "freeborn"
wives,
holding, if possible, a grand mariage; but if they
take
second wives, these women often are of slave ancestry.
Data as of August 1994
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