Kenya's Ethno-Linguistic Groups The Nilotes
	Nilotic-speaking peoples that are or will be included in this website: Kalenjin, Luo, Maasai, Pokot, Samburu, Turkana.
	In this page: Origins Kenyan Nilotes Highland (Southern) Nilotes: the Kalenjin and Pokot Lake (Western) Nilotes: the Luo Plains (Eastern) Nilotes The importance of cattle

Origins

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The second major ethno-linguistic group to arrive in Kenya (the first were the Cushites) were the cattle-herding Nilotes, the first of whom came some time around 500 BC. However, Nilotic migrations only became substantial some five hundred years ago, with the arrival of the highly organised and militaristic Luo from the west and the Maasai/Samburu from the north. This second wave of Nilotic peoples catalyzed a period of great change in Kenya, as it displaced many of its original Cushitic-speaking inhabitants. Some were forced south towards Tanzania to avoid the Nilotic advance down the Rift Valley, whilst others headed east and northeast into arid lands which were of no interest to the cattle-herding Nilotes. Those that remained in the path of the newcomers were either militarily defeated or culturally assimilated, eventually disappearing completely (there are one or two numerically small exceptions, such as the Njemps fishermen who live by Lake Baringo, and some hunter-gatherer groups such as the forest-dwelling Okiek, who have survived as 'clients' of their much more powerful neighbours: the Samburu and Maasai respectively).

As their name suggests, the Nilotes came originally from the Nile Valley, probably the Upper Nile and its tributaries in southern Sudan. Their main direction of movement was southwards along the plains of the Rift Valley, which favoured both their cattle-raising lifestyle, as well as their rapid, all-conquering advance. By the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, they had reached Tanzania, where their advance was finally stopped by the Wagogo and others.

Kenyan Nilotes

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In Kenya, Nilotic-speaking tribes comprise the Luo, Maasai, Pokot, Samburu, Turkana, and many of the subgroups which constitute the Kalenjin. They occupy the vast sweep of western Kenya's Rift Valley, which skirts the border of Uganda from Sudan in the north to Tanzania in the south. There are also Nilotic-speaking peoples in northern Uganda (Acholi), southern Sudan (most famously the Nuer and Dinka), and norther Tanzania (Maasai). In Kenya, they number roughly one quarter of the total population.

The Nilotes are traditionally cattle-herders, although some groups -notably the Luo and some Pokot of Kenya, and the Anuak of Sudan - have converted to agricultural ways of life. Nonetheless, even these people retain an almost mystical view of cattle, which for most Nilotes provide them with almost all their daily needs. Cattle are not slaughtered indiscriminately for meat; they are paid in compensation and bridewealth, and their ownership determines status and wealth.

Anthropologists divide the Nilotes into three main groups: the Highland or Southern Nilotes, who comprise the Kalenjin tribal group and the Pokot; the Lake or Western Nilotes, who include the Luo and Acholi; and the Plains or Eastern Nilotes, who are exclusively nomadic herders.

 

Highland (Southern) Nilotes: the Kalenjin and Pokot

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The earliest group of Nilotes to reach Kenya were most likely the ancestors of the various tribes which nowadays make up the Kalenjin, as well as the Pokot. They practice both pastoralism (on plains and plateaux) and cultivation (on hillsides), and unlike the Plains Nilotes have no taboos about hunting, fishing or food gathering. Incidentally, the Kalenjin as a unified group only came into existence in the twentieth century: before then, its constituent tribes - although related and sharing many similar cultural aspects - had lived separately.
   Their original point of entry in Kenya is thought to have been somewhere in the region of Mount Elgon, on the western border with Uganda. From there, the Pokot moved north, whilst the various proto-Kalenjin tribes spread out east and south.

Included among the Kalenjin are the Cherangani, Kipsigis, Marakwet, Nandi, Sabaot and Tugen. Some groups of Ndorobo (former hunter-gatherer people) are sometimes also included, as are the Elgeyo. The Pokot are sometimes also classed as Kalenjin, but this seems to be purely academic: the Pokot themselves have their own distinctive and strong identity, with little affinity to (or love for) their Kalenjin neighbours, and so I have covered them separately in this website.

 

Lake (Western) Nilotes: the Luo

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The Western Nilotes are represented in Kenya by the Luo, who live along the shores of Lake Victoria. Originally cattle-herders, they are believed to have converted to an agricultural and fishing lifestyle when they arrived in Kenya some five hundred years ago. Their arrival caused the displacement of many Bantu-speaking peoples, notably the Gusii, Kuria and Luhya, who were forced into the highlands east and north of the lake.

 

Plains (Eastern) Nilotes

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The main thing that differentiates the Plains Nilotes of the Rift Valley from their Luo, Pokot and Kalenjin cousins is their total reliance on pastoralism, as well as their taboos against agriculture, hunting and the eating of wildlife or fish. This is indicative of their deeply-ingrained conservatism, which has helped them survive the sweeping changes of the twentieth almost intact: as a result, they are now among the most famous tribes in Africa: Maasai, Samburu and Turkana.

The cattle-herding Maasai are the southernmost of the Plains Nilotes, whose territory straddles the southern border with Tanzania. Before the arrival of the British at the end of the nineteenth century, they covered a much larger area, but 80% of their grazing lands were stolen by the colonists to make farms, estates and game reserves, of which both Maasai Mara and Amboseli are legendary.

The Samburu, who are believed to have split from the Maasai a few centuries ago, occupy the more central region northwest of Mount Kenya, while their Turkana neighbours live in the more arid northwest of Kenya, bordering Sudan and Uganda. Like the Maasai, both the Samburu and Turkana also keep cattle, although the Samburu have increasingly been experimenting with cultivation, and the Turkana also keep camels. Relations between the Maasai and Samburu are generally close and amicable, whereas relations between the Samburu and Turkana have often been bitter: disputes over grazing rights are bloody, especially as the Turkana have progressively crowded out the Samburu from their former lands south of Lake Turkana.

Generally also classed as Plains Nilotes are a few numerically small groups who are remnants of either the Cushitic or hunter-gatherer cultures that existed in the region before the Nilotes arrived. These include the El Molo, Iteso, Njemps (Il Chamus) and Ndorobo, which is a Maasai term for various indigenous hunter-gatherer groups, such as the Okiek. Most now speak dialects of ol-Maa (the root language of the Maasai and Samburu), and have acquired many cultural traits from their more powerful neighbours, whom they often serve as 'clients'. The Ndorobo, for instance, are still in demand for their skill in circumcision, as well as for their knowledge of medicines.

The importance of cattle

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If one word alone was to be used to describe the paramount concern of all these peoples, it would be cattle. Considered by all to be either a gift or a loan from God, cattle provide almost all of the pastoralists daily needs, from food (in the form of milk and blood, and rarely meat), clothing, material for ropes and containers, and dung for fuel. Cattle are also the primary means of exchange, and are used in the payment of fines, to seal friendships, and to bridewealth (or dowries, from the groom or his family to the family of the bride).

Cattle also assume ritual importance, being dedicated and sacrificed to ancestors or spirits. Given the importance of livestock, it is no surprise that many Nilotic tribes (including the now agricultural Luo) have an almost sacred view of them, for they also govern people's daily routines and society.

Because rainfall is erratic, especially towards the north, the Plains Nilotes - in common with pastoralists all around the world - have communal rather than individual rights to pasture and wells, whose use is governed by intricate rotational systems and cyclical calendars. Nonetheless, individual clans and groups tend to hold precedence over particular areas. Drought and attendant famine are recurring features of life, surviving which is the key to understanding Plains Nilotic cultures.
   Mobility and flexibility are essential if the little rain that does fall is to be fully exploited. For this, cattle are crucial, for they can easily be herded from one fresh pasture to another. During the wet seasons, the pastoralists keep their animals on the arid and semi-arid lowlands of their country. When pasture and water became scarce, the pastoralists fall back on the more humid hill and mountainous areas, though many of these areas have now been converted to national parks, where access was for a long time forbidden. This now seems to be changing, thanks to the Kenya Wildlife Service, who have finally realised that cattle herds were in fact an integral part of the ecosystem they are charged to protect.
   For more about the importance of cattle, see the sections about livestock for both the Turkana and Maasai.

Traditional Music & Cultures of Kenya Copyright Jens Finke, 2000-2003