Maji Koi
Coleman John
Maji ka / Maji desu ka2015/3/11 12:52 Is 'maji ka' used to denote both pleasant and unpleasant surprise, or is it generally used only for when things go wrong? For example if a friend gives me a cool gift, is it okay to exclaim 'maji ka!' when I open it?by jennjett (guest)
Re: Maji ka / Maji desu ka2015/3/11 15:15 Is 'maji ka' used to denote both pleasant and unpleasant surprise,
Yes, and it means "Seriously?" or "For real?"
For example if a friend gives me a cool gift, is it okay to exclaim 'maji ka!' when I open it?
Yes, if you mean "For real?" and if it's a young friend you can talk to in a very casual tone.by Uco (guest)rate this post as useful
Re: Maji ka / Maji desu ka2015/3/11 15:48 I said it to a colleague who I'm somewhat close with but as soon as I said it I felt that I had done the wrong thing. She gave me a present and as I opened it I exclaimed 'maji ka? kore wa totemo kirei desu! bikkurishita! arigatou goazimasuhita!' etc etc. I really hope she wasn't offended by me using such casual language, it sort of slipped out because I hear my young students say it all the time when they're surprised. She knows that my Japanese is pretty bad and I'm just a beginner, but I really hope I didn't offend her or imply disrespect towards her gift!by jennjett (guest)rate this post as useful
Re: Maji ka / Maji desu ka2015/3/11 16:34 Well, you did sound like a male teenage student :) It was kind of like saying "Dammit! This is so pretty..." or even "Shit! This is so lovely..."
Actually, there is a Japanese TV drama being aired now, and a character, who is a stylish and serious female novel editor in her early 20s (a real-life fashion model plays the role), occasionally uses words like "maji-ka?!" or "baka nano ka?!" and this is supposed to imply that she is a little bit eccentric and straightforward for her elegant looks.
Teenagers often use boy-ish language, but as you get older females just say "maji?" But still, "maji" is basically a slang for the youth, so if you're old enough to be a teacher, you'd only use it jokingly. Of course, females also do use "maji-ka?" if it's meant to be said in a jokingly tone among friends.
Hope it helps.by Uco (guest)rate this post as useful
The Maji Maji Rebellion (German: Maji-Maji-Aufstand, Swahili: Vita vya Maji Maji), was an armed rebellion of Africans against German colonial rule in German East Africa (modern-day Tanzania). The war was triggered by German colonial policies designed to force the indigenous population to grow cotton for export. The war lasted from 1905 to 1907, during which 75,000 to 300,000 died, overwhelmingly from famine.[5] The end of the war was followed by a period of famine, known as the Great Hunger (ukame), caused in large part by the scorched-earth policies used by governor von Gtzen to suppress the rebellion. These tactics have been described by scholars as genocidal.[6][7]
After the Scramble for Africa among the major European powers in the 1880s, Germany reinforced its hold on several formal African colonies. These were German East Africa (Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi, and part of Mozambique), German Southwest Africa (present-day Namibia), Cameroon, and Togoland (today split between Ghana and Togo).
The Germans had a relatively weak hold on German East Africa. However, they maintained a system of forts throughout the interior of the territory and were able to exert some control over it. Since their hold on the colony was weak, they resorted to using violently repressive tactics to control the population.[8]
Germany levied head taxes in 1898 and relied heavily on forced labour to build roads and accomplish various other tasks. In 1902, governor of German East Africa, Gustav Adolf von Gtzen ordered villages to grow cotton as a cash crop for export. Each village was charged with producing a quota of cotton. The headmen of the village were put in charge of overseeing the production, which set them against the rest of the population.[9] The German government also introduced laws to protect forests and wildlife. While these measures may have been desirable in theory, they led to great hardship for the African population, not least because of an increase in wild pigs, which did enormous damage to food crops.[10]
The German policies were very unpopular, as they had serious effects on the lives of local peoples. The social fabric of society was rapidly changing: as the roles of men and women were being changed, they had to adapt for the communities. Since men were forced away from their homes to work, women had to take on some of the traditional male roles. Also, the men's absence strained the resources of the village, and the people's ability to deal with their environment and remain self-sufficient. In 1905, a drought threatened the region. All that, as well as opposition to the government's agricultural and labour policies, led to open rebellion against the Germans in July.[11]
Ultimately members of the commission disagreed on the nature of the uprising, dividing between those who saw it as an irrational movement spawned by sorcerers and headmen making use of maji water medicine, disgruntled because they had been steadily losing influence since the advent of colonial rule, and those who dismissed the role of spirit mediums and emphasized the burdens created by German administration. The governor's circle cultivated the image of an atavistic, superstitious movement rooted in traditional beliefs so as to insulate their policies from close scrutiny.[13]
In 1909 Gtzen published a history of the rebellion.[14] John Iliffe has said of this work that it is "remarkable for containing no reference whatever to the cotton scheme which the author had initiated," and he calls it "an account of atavistic conspiracy."[15]
The insurgents turned to magic to drive out the German colonizers and used it as a unifying force in the rebellion. A spirit medium named Kinjikitile Ngwale, who practiced folk Islam that incorporated animist beliefs, claimed to be possessed by a snake spirit called Hongo.[16] Ngwale began calling himself Bokero and developed a belief that the people of East Africa had been called upon to eliminate the Germans. German anthropologists recorded that he gave his followers war medicine that would turn German bullets into water. This "war medicine" was in fact water (maji in Kiswahili) mixed with castor oil and millet seeds.[16] Empowered with this new liquid, Bokero's followers began what would become known as the Maji Maji Rebellion.
The followers of Bokero's movement were poorly armed with spears and arrows, sometimes poisoned.[17] However, they were numerous and believed that they could not be harmed because the Germans' bullets would turn to water.[16] They marched from their villages wearing millet stalks around their foreheads. Initially, they attacked small outposts and damaged cotton plants. On 31 July 1905, Matumbi tribesmen marched on Samanga and destroyed the cotton crop as well as a trading post. Kinjikitile was arrested and hanged for treason. Before his execution, he declared that he had spread the medicine of the rebellion throughout the region.[16] On 14 August 1905, Ngindo tribesmen attacked a small party of missionaries on a safari; all five, including Bishop Spiss (the Roman Catholic Bishop of Dar es Salaam) were speared to death.[16]
Soon the Yao tribes started participating and throughout August the rebels moved from the Matumbi Hills in the southern part of what is now Tanzania and attacked German garrisons throughout the colony. The attack on Ifakara, on 16 August, destroyed the small German garrison and opened the way to the key fortification at Mahenge. Though the southern garrison was quite small (there were but 458 European and 588 native soldiers in the entire area), their fortifications and modern weapons gave them an advantage. At Mahenge, several thousand Maji Maji warriors (led by another spirit medium; not Bokero) marched on the German cantonment, which was defended by Lieutenant Theodor von Hassel with sixty native soldiers, a few hundred loyal tribesmen, and two machine guns.[16] The two attacking tribes disagreed on when to attack and were unable to co-ordinate. The first attack was met with gunfire from 1000 meters; the tribesmen stood firm for about fifteen minutes, then broke and retreated. After the first attack, a second column of 1,200 men advanced from the east. Some of these attackers were able to get within three paces of the firing line before they were killed.[16]
While this was the apex of the uprising, the Ngoni people decided to join in the revolt with a force of 5,000. The Gwangara Ngoni were relatively recent arrivals in the region, descendants of a remnant of the Ndwandwe confederation defeated by the Zulus in 1818 (other Ngoni states were formed in Malawi, Zambia, and north-central Tanzania). German troops, armed with machine guns, departed from Mahenge to the Ngoni camp, which they attacked on 21 October. The Ngoni soldiers retreated, throwing away their bottles of war medicine and crying, "The maji is a lie!"[18] Upon the outbreak of the fighting, Count Gustav Adolf von Gtzen, governor of German East Africa, had requested reinforcements from the German government. Kaiser Wilhelm immediately ordered two cruisers with their Marine complements to the troubled colony.[16] Reinforcements also arrived from as far away as New Guinea. When 1,000 regular soldiers from Germany arrived in October, Gtzen felt he could go on the offensive and restore order in the south.[19]
The German scorched earth policy deliberately caused famine among the population. Von Gtzen was willing to pardon the common soldiers who gave up their weapons, leaders and traditional healers. However, he also needed to flush out the remaining rebels and so chose famine. In 1905, one of the leaders of German troops in the colony, Captain Wangenheim, wrote to von Gtzen, "Only hunger and want can bring about a final submission. Military actions alone will remain more or less a drop in the ocean."[20] Germany's tactics have been described as genocidal by scholars such as A. Dirk Moses and Klaus Bachmann.[6][7]
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