ABSTRACT
The word seems to be associated with wetness, temperate elimate and a well-watered region. Thus it is supposed to be almost synonymous with Taveta (also spelt Dafeta in older records), the name of the oasis on the Tanganyika border. The natives themselves now translate it as "temperate". But it must have a wider meaning than that as they also use it in juxtaposition to the term nyika, meaning bush-steppe, wilderness,(2) which oecurs in the ethnie designation referring to the whole group of eoastal Bantu known as Wa-Nyika. Among the people of the coast nyika means all country which is not mvitu, forest. Among the Teita it seems that dabida means all country which is not nyika, bush. Thus they distinguish two parts of one of their important sub-locations, viz. Mgangi, as MgangiDabida and Mgangi-Nyika.
