Ruvu

The Ruvu are Bantu peoples of central and coastal Tanzania whose languages form the Ruvu group of Guthrie's Zone G, including the Gogo of the Dodoma plains, the Luguru of the Eastern Arc mountains, and the Zaramo nearer the sea. Most were matrilineal. The Luguru counted more than fifty exogamous clans in the Uluguru Mountains, where rainmakers such as Kingalu drew clients from across the region without any chief standing above the local lineages.

Through Ugogo and Ukaguru ran the route linking Lake Tanganyika with the Indian Ocean from the eighteenth century; Gogo chiefs levied tolls on Nyamwezi ivory caravans and kept Nyamwezi advisors at their courts.

On the coast the Zaramo took shape in the early 1800s, when the hinterland warrior Pazi drove off Kamba raiders attacking the merchant Shomvi clan and then settled among them as their ruler.