Beliefs and Moral Order in the Sisal Plantations of Tanga, Tanzania, 1920s–1960s

Abstract This article explores moral order through two cultural beliefs of usinga and limbwata as they operated in the coastal Tanga’s sisal plantations in north-eastern Tanzania, between the 1920s and the 1960s. Drawing on archival records, oral histories, and theoretical frameworks from historical anthropology, feminist epistemology, labour history, and post-colonial critique, it argues that these practices functioned as adaptive moral and emotional technologies rather than mere superstition. Usinga , a deadly curse linked to adultery, reinforced marital boundaries, social order, and communal hierarchies. At the same time, limbwata , interpreted as emotional and spiritual binding by women, operated as a form of affective and economic agency, enabling women to secure loyalty and redistribute resources within male-dominated plantation spaces. The article situates these beliefs within the broader historiography of Africa, highlighting the limitations of colonial, Marxist, and secular feminist frameworks that often overlooked Indigenous epistemologies. By analysing how migrant labour, gendered power relations, and cosmological imagination intersected in Tanga’s plantation economy, the article demonstrates that usinga and limbwata served as instruments of social regulation, moral critique, and gendered negotiation.