Semboja is the son of Kimweri ye Nyumbai remembered in the traditions as the destroyer of the unity his father had built. Seated at Mazinde on the caravan routes of the Pangani valley, he grew rich in trade goods, firearms, and alliances, and after Kimweri's death he refused the authority of the young king Shekulwavu, his nephew. Mobilising Taita warriors, he burned the capital of Vugha and brought about Shekulwavu's death, opening the long civil war that shattered the kingdom in the later nineteenth century. In the memory of the Shambaa he stands as the figure whose ambition undid the sacred order of the realm.