Ciarunji Chesaina (born 1947) is a Kenyan folklorist, professor, and diplomat. She is best known for her work studying the history, ethnography, and folklore of peoples across Africa, particularly among the Nilotic and Bantu groups. She also represented Kenya as the high commissioner to South Africa from 2000 to 2003.
Ciarunji Chesaina was born Jane Ciarunji Geteria in 1947. She attended Alliance Girls High School in Kikuyu, Kenya. Chesaina graduated from Uganda's Makerere University with a bachelor's degree in French and English in 1971. She subsequently studied in the United States, where she received a master's in education from Harvard University, and in the United Kingdom, where she obtained a Ph.D. in literature from the University of Leeds in 1988. [1]
Chesaina lectured at Kenyatta University beginning in the 1970s, then joined the faculty of the University of Nairobi in 1991. She teaches literature, particularly African literature, women's literature, and oral literature. [2] [1]
Since the 1970s, she has been influential in helping engrain Kenyan literature in the nation's education system. [3] As a folklorist, she has contributed significantly to the study of various African ethnic groups, in particular the Kalenjin people and Embu people. [4] [5] [6] [7] She has also advocated in favor of compensating oral history research subjects for their participation. [8]
Chesaina temporarily left her post at the University of Nairobi for three years, from 2000 to 2003, to serve as Kenya's high commissioner to South Africa. [1] [9] [10]
In 2018, she published an autobiography titled Run Gazelle Run. [11]
The Kipsigis or Kipsigiis are a Nilotic group contingent of the Kalenjin ethnic group and speak a dialect of the Kalenjin language identified by their community eponym, Kipsigis. It is observed that the Kipsigis and another aboriginal group native to Kenya known as Ogiek have a merged identity. The Kipsigis are the biggest sub tribe within the Kalenjin community. The latest census population in Kenya put the Kipsigis at 1,972,000 speakers, accounting for 45% of all Kalenjin speaking people. They occupy the highlands of Kericho stretching from Timboroa to the Mara River in the south and the Mau Escarpment in the east to Kebeneti. They also occupy parts of Laikipia, Kitale, Nakuru, Narok, the Trans Mara District, Eldoret and the Nandi Hills.
The Kalenjin are a group of tribes indigenous to East Africa, residing mainly in what was formerly the Rift Valley Province in Kenya and the Eastern slopes of Mount Elgon in Uganda. They number 6,358,113 individuals per the Kenyan 2019 census and an estimated 273,839 in Uganda according to the 2014 census mainly in Kapchorwa, Kween and Bukwo districts.
Grace Emily Ogot was a Kenyan author, nurse, journalist, politician and diplomat. Together with Charity Waciuma she was the first Anglophone female Kenyan writer to be published. She was one of the first Kenyan members of parliament and she became an assistant minister.
The Elgeyo are an ethnic group who are part of the larger Kalenjin ethnic group of Nilotic origin. They live near Eldoret, Kenya, in the highlands of the former Keiyo District, now part of the larger Elgeyo Marakwet County. The Elgeyo originally settled at the foothills of the Elgeyo escarpment, in the area between Kerio river to the east and the escarpment to the west. Due to drought and famine in the valley, the Keiyos climbed the escarpment and started to settle on the highland east of Uasin Gishu plateau. When the British came, the Keiyos were pushed to settle in clusters called reserves.
The Marakwet are one of the groups forming the ethnolinguistic Kalenjin community of Kenya, they speak the Markweta language. The Marakwet live in five territorial sections namely Almoo, Cherangany, Endoow, Sombirir (Borokot) and Markweta. Cutting across these territorial groups are a number of clans to which each Marakwet belongs. There were 119,969 Marakwet people in 2019.
The Iron Snake is an ancient tribal prophecy attributed to the Maasai, Kĩkũyũ, Kamba and Kalenjin tribes in Kenya in which a railway is described as an iron snake.
The Embu or Aembu are a Bantu people indigenous to Embu county. The region is situated on the southern slopes of the former Eastern province. They belong to the northeastern Bantu branch and speak the Embu language known as Kiembu as a mother tongue. It belongs to the Bantu branch of the Niger-Congo family. Kimeru, Kikuyu, and Kikamba share similar language characteristics. To the west, Embu neighbours are the closely related Kikuyu in Kirinyaga, Nyeri, Kiambu, Muranga and Nyandarua counties. The Meru people border the Embu to the East.
Kenyan literature describes literature which comes from Kenya. Kenya has a long literary tradition, both oral and written; primarily in English and Swahili, the two official languages of the country.
John Njue is a Kenyan Cardinal of the Catholic Church. He was the fourth Archbishop of Nairobi from 2007 to 2021. He previously served as Coadjutor Archbishop of Nyeri from 2002 to 2007 and Bishop of Embu from 1986 to 2002. He was elevated to the rank of cardinal in 2007.
Dr. Elisha Kipyegon Taaitta Arap Toweett, also known as Taaitta Arap Toweett, was a scholar, writer, linguist and a Kenyan politician.
Wanjiku Kabira is an associate professor of literature at the University of Nairobi, Kenya. She has specialized in the fields of Oral literature, African-American literature and Caribbean literature. She has been actively involved in women affairs and in gender issues. Wanjiku has served as in various capacities notably as a. Vice-Chair in the Kenya Constitutional Review Process (2000–2005) b. Chair Person Women Political Alliance (2002–2011) c. Director Collaborative Center for Gender and Development (1995–2009) d. Chair, Department of Literature, University of Nairobi
Kenya's Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission (TJRC) was established in 2008. Kenya's modern history has been marked not only by liberation struggles but also by ethnic conflicts, semi-despotic regimes, marginalization and political violence, including the 1982 attempted coup d'état, the Shifta War, and the 2007 post-election violence.
Traditional Kalenjin society is the way of life that existed among the Kalenjin-speaking people prior to the advent of the colonial period in Kenya and after the decline of the Chemwal, Lumbwa and other Kalenjin communities in the late 1700s and early 1800s.
Rebeka Njau was Kenya's first female playwright and a pioneer in the representation of African women in literature. Her writing has addressed topics such as female genital mutilation and homosexuality. Her first novel, Ripples in the Pool (1975), appeared as number 203 in the Heinemann African Writers Series.
Asenath Bole Odaga was a Kenyan publisher and author of novels, plays, children's books, and other literary works. Odaga also promoted literature in Kenyan languages and the study of oral literature by writing in Luo and co-authoring a guide to oral literature for students.
The Settlement of Nandi was the historical process by which the various communities that today make up the Nandi people of Kenya settled in Nandi County. It is captured in the folklore of the Nandi as a distinct process composed of a series of inward migrations by members from various Kalenjin ortinwek.
Cheptalel is a heroine found in the folklore of the Kipsigis and Nandi sections of the Kalenjin people of Kenya. She became a folk hero as a result of being offered as a sacrifice to save the Kalenjin sections from a drought that was ravaging their land.
Kalenjin folklore consists of folk tales, legends, songs, music, dancing, popular beliefs, and traditions communicated by the Kalenjin-speaking communities, often passed down the generations by word of mouth.
The Uasin Gishu people were a community that inhabited a plateau located in western Kenya that today bears their name. They are said to have arisen from the scattering of the Kwavi by the Maasai in the 1830s. They were one of two significant sections of that community that stayed together. The other being the Laikipiak with whom they would later ally against the Maasai.
Raphael Kipchambai arap Tapotuk, better known by the stage name Kipchamba, was a Kalenjin singer-songwriter and musician who rose to popularity in the late 1970s. He specialized in rhumba sung in the Kipsigis dialect of the Kalenjin language. While performing as a singer, Kipchamba preferred wearing a suit and presenting himself in a formal slant.
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