1. It seems that Mombasa and the other Swahili cities of the east coast have not made much of an impression as indigenous African cities, even on specialists. Thus, in a paper on African urban studies, Mitchell (1966:37) says "towns of considerable size, outside the Arab north, existed in the Sudan and West Africa long before European industrial expansion into Africa."

2. It is likely that the preceding Swahili group, the one ruled by a Shirazi dynasty, was absorbed by the Twelve Tribes successors.

3. There is substantial disagreement about the actual role of a Persian or Shirazi element in Mombasa and more generally in Swahili history. Allen (1982:24-25) argues strongly that it is entirely unfounded to believe "that East African Shirazis must be ultimately descended from immigrants from the Persian Gulf. It is clear that, even if there were such immigrants and some of them played an important role in the early days, the Shirazi phenomenon is a purely African one which could have arisen without them." (Cf. Spear 1984, Nurse and Spear 1985:74-79).

Further, the exact reference of the term is difficult to pin down. Although "Shirazi" applied to specific families and even villages along the coast, it was used more by the colonial officials than in common speech (Prins 1967:14).

4. In addition to the Portuguese attacks and intermittent rule, the Somali-related Galla, a nomadic people from the northeast, were raiding and, sometimes, destroying

the north coastal mainland Islamic settlements, including those immediately adjacent to, if not actually on, Mombasa island (Oliver and Mathew 1963:114).

5. The term "tribe" may summon up notions of a separate ethnic group, but this is definitely an inappropriate reference for the word as it applies to the Mvita and other constituents of the Twelve Tribes. Taifa in Swahili usually refers to nation, and this gloss--with its reference to common origin and political unity--seems closer to the meaning properly assigned to the "tribes" of the Mombasa Swahili than does the usual significance of "tribe."

6. The fear of Galla attacks, which were continuing at the time, may have had a role in the Three Tribes finally moving onto the island where they were relatively more secure behind the arms of the Indian Ocean which form barriers around Mombasa (Berg 1968:47).

7. Although the Kilindini came to the Mombasa area from the south, their place of origin, as they themselves report it, is the famous Shungwaya on the mainland coast north of Mombasa from which they claim to be the advance guard of the movement of peoples to the south which began no later than the middle of the sixteenth century (Berg 1968:47). There is considerable controversy among historians as to just where Shungwaya was and what its role was in the beginnings of coastal and Swahili society (see Allen 1983 for an important review and an inclusive bibliography; also, ibid., 456-457; Spear 1974, 1977; Pouwells 1987:11).

6. The fear of Galla attacks, which were continuing at the time, may have had a role in the Three Tribes finally moving onto the island where they were relatively more secure behind the arms of the Indian Ocean which form barriers around Mombasa (Berg 1968:47).

7. Although the Kilindini came to the Mombasa area from the south, their place of origin, as they themselves report it, is the famous Shungwaya on the mainland coast north of Mombasa from which they claim to be the advance guard of the movement of peoples to the south which began no later than the middle of the sixteenth century (Berg 1968:47). There is considerable controversy among historians as to just where Shungwaya was and what its role was in the beginnings of coastal and Swahili society (see Allen 1983 for an important review and an inclusive bibliography; also, ibid., 456-457; Spear 1974, 1977; Pouwells 1987:11).

8. Cooper (1977:78) is probably right in noting that the immigrants may have married slave women, but since their descendants would lose their standing if such a marriage were admitted in their ancestry, it is to be expected that one is told that these immigrants married "noble" women.

9. Prins (1967:98-99) lists the relationships between Swahili taifa and neighboring peoples during the nineteenth century showing that like the Three Tribes, the Nine Tribes maintained patron-client relations (activated mainly for war but also involved with trade) with various of the other coastal peoples. Kindy (1972:47) lists the most important alliances as the Three Tribes with the Digo and the Duruma and the Nine Tribes with the Giriama, Rabai, Chonyi, Jibana, Ribe, Kauma, and Kambe.

10. The reason I say "if it has ended" is that although I have observed no activity involving the whole community as such since I began working in Mombasa in 1975, the framework for separate identity still exists in that most Swahili know what section they belong to. Several informants have mentioned the competitions between the two sections in the past, and, although the actual conflicts that sometimes have attended those competitions are decried, the wish to reinstate the competitions has been expressed by both younger and older men from both sections or confederations.