Now numbering over a million, the Chagga occupy the southern and eastern slopes of Kilimanjaro and are among East Africa’s wealthiest and most highly educated people. Their wealth – and that of Moshi – stems from the fortunate conjunction of favourable climatic conditions with their own agricultural ingenuity.

Watered by year round snow and ice melt, the volcanic soils of Kilimanjaro’s lower slopes are extremely fertile and are exploited by the Chagga using a sophisticated system of intensive irrigation methods and continuous fertilization with animal manure which permits year round cultivation and supports one of Tanzania’s highest human population densities. Arabica coffee has been the Chagga’s primary cash crop since colonial times, although maize and bananas remain staple foods. The cultivation of bananas is traditionally a man’s work, as is that of eleusine seed (ulezi), which is boiled and mixed with mashed plantain to brew a local beer (umbege or mbega) that is still used in traditional ceremonies and as a from of payment to elders in their role as arbiters in conflicts.

In the past, the potential for such conflicts was great: even today there are some four hundred different Chagga clans – indeed it’s barely a century since the Chagga finally coalesced into a distinct and unified tribe. Most are related to the Kamba of Kienya, who migrated northwards from Kilimanjaro a few centuries ago during a great drought. Other clans descend frojm the Taita, another Kenyan tribe, and others from the pastoral Maasai, whose influence is visible in the importance attached to cattle as bridewealth payments and in the grouping of men into age-sets analogous to the Maasai system.

Today, the Chagga wield considerable political and financial clout, both because of their long contact with European models of education and Christianity, both of which dominate modern-day political and economic life, and because of their involvement in the coffee business, which remains the region’s economic mainstay in spite of volatile world prices. Indeed, the Chagga are the one tribe you’re almost guaranteed to meet in even the most obscure corners of Tanzania, working as traders, merchants, officials, teachers and doctors.