Kalenjin mythology

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Kalenjin mythology refers to the traditional religion and beliefs of the Kalenjin people of Kenya.

Contents

Earlier religion and ancient deities

Ehret (1998) postulates that the Asisian religion superseded an earlier belief system whose worship centered on the sky and which dated back to the early Southern Nilotic period. [1] Traces of this belief system were captured among the Pokot as late as 1911 though nowhere else among the Kalenjin were similar beliefs recorded. Other than being centered on the sky, the older Kalenjin religion featured a greater number of deities:

The confusion of the conversion process is captured in the same account:

...But others say, 'The only god we know is Ilat,' who is supreme and lord of life and death. Others again, say Ilat is the servant of Tororut, whose duty it is to carry water, 'and when he spills it, it rains'. Karole, the chief ki-ruwokin of the Suk, says that Kokel are the children of Ilat, who is the lord of death.

— Tiamolok (one of the oldest Suk/Pokot living in 1911) [2]

Religious pillars

The Asisian religion superseded older Kalenjin mythologies following contact with the Southern Cushities. Three major religious pillars (the sun, thunder and lightning, and living spirits) were explained to have a bearing on Kalenjin religious beliefs. [3] All these pillars are subsumed within Kalenjin fears and psychologies controlled by taboos and superstitions. [4]

Deities

Kalenjin natural philosophy describes two principal deities, Asis and Ilat. [5] Among the southern sections of the Kalenjin however there are three principal super-natural beings since Ilat's dual nature is identified as two separate deities, Ilet ne-mie and Ilet ne-ya [6]

Asis

Asis is also commonly referred to as Chebet chebo Chemataw (Daughter of the Day), which is shortened as Chebet, and as Cheptalil (The one who shines). He lives in the sky and is supreme, omnipotent, and the guarantor of right. [5] Among the Northern sections of the Kalenjin he is also commonly referred to as Tororut. [7]

Ilat/Ilet

Ilat/Ilet is associated with thunder and rain. He is said to inhabit deep pools and waterfalls [5] and that the rainbow are his discarded garments.

Ilet ne-mie and Ilet ne-ya

Among the Nandi, Ilet ne-mie and Ilet ne-ya respectively are good and bad thunder-gods. The crashing of thunder near at hand is said to be Ilet ne-ya trying to come to earth to kill people while the distant rumbling of thunder is Ilet ne-mie protecting man by driving away his name-sake.

Forked lightning is the sword of Ilet ne-ya while sheet lightning is said to be the sword of Ilet ne-mie. [8]

The Creation Story

The creation story varies slightly among the various Kalenjin sub-tribes, the account given here is from the Nandi section.

In Kalenjin natural philosophy all things are supposed to have been created by the union of the sky and the earth. In those first of days the Sun, who married the moon, proceeded to the earth to prepare the present order of things.

There he found or created Ilet who lived on earth in those days with an elephant, whom the Kalenjin believed to be the father of all animals and an Okiek who was the father of all mankind. The three rested on their sides and continued thus for a long time.

One day Ilet noticed man turn his head and he became suspicious but took no action. Some time afterwards though they found out that man had turned over completely on to his other side. Ilet could no longer contain his suspicions and said to Elephant, 'what sort of creature is this that can turn over in his sleep. He is a dangerous being'. Elephant looked at man and laughed saying 'but he is only a small creature, too tiny for me to worry about'. Ilet was scared of man however and he ran away into the sky.

The man, seeing him ran away was pleased and said: 'Ilet, who I was afraid of has fled. I do not mind the elephant'. He then got up and went into the woods and made some poison into which he dipped an arrow. Having cut a bow he returned to where Elephant was and shot him. The elephant wept and lifted his trunk to the heavens, crying out to Ilet to take him up.

Ilet refused however and said, 'I shall not take you, for when I warned you that the man was bad you laughed and said he was small.' The elephant cried out again and begged to be taken to heaven as he was on the point of death. But Ilet only replied 'die by yourself'. And the elephant died and the man became great in all the land. [9]

Places of worship

The Kalenjin traditionally did not build a structure for worship, "as it was felt that this would have reduced His power and would have limited it to a particular building". They did, however, have three main places of traditional worship. [10]

Kaapkoros

Kaapkoros was the name for a hilltop set aside for worship by the Kalenjin. Kaapkoros was the Kipsigis term for it and derived from kaap meaning "the place of" and koros meaning "gift". Koros is also the indefinite form of korosyot, a bush which is a mild plant and gives off a pleasant odour when burned. When the Kalenjin or the various sections would settle at a place, one hilltop would be set aside for worship. As the tribe expanded and people moved further away from this point, other hilltops would be set aside as being sacred. [11] Evidently, the first kaapkoros took place very soon after the Kalenjin settled in Kenya—or even long before that time. [12] People gathered on average once a year at kaapkoros, where worship would be led by the priests, known as Tisiik. [13]

Mabwaita or Korosyoot

Mabwaita is a term used by the Kipsigis section for the family altar or prayer tree which was positioned to the east of the house as one exited from the door. The Nandi and Keiyo sections called it korosyoot. This was a duplicate of the one at kaapkoros and was the centre for worship and ceremonies connected with the home and family.

The father of the home officiated for some ceremonies, such as those that involved his own family. Ceremonies involving more than one family, such as initiation and marriage rites, required a priest to officiate. Children of the families which needed his services would go to the home of the priest and ask him to come. In return, each family paid him a lamb or goat for his services. [14]

Sach ooraan

Sach ooraan is a Kalenjin term used for the intersection of two or more paths or roads. Sach ang'wan is used for the place where four paths or roads branch off.

Years ago when a crossroad was being used for a ceremony or practice, it was considered to be a shrine. It was remembered ever afterwards that the spot had been used for the removal of something bad. Children were not allowed to go near a shrine at an intersection. Casting a leaf at sach ooraan was a form of prayer to Asis to drive away disease. [15]

Decline

Traditional Kalenjin religion rapidly declined during the British colonial period in Kenya. A few terminologies (along with those from military tradition) were assimilated during the translation of the Christian Bible into Kalenjin languages.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kipsigis people</span> Sub-Tribe in Kenya

The Kipsigis or Kipsigiis are a Nilotic people contingent of the Kalenjin ethnic group and speak a dialect of Kalenjin language identified by their community eponym, Kipsigis. It is observed that the Kipsigis and an aboriginal people native to Kenya known as Ogiek have a merged identity. The Kipsigis are the most numerous of the Kalenjin. 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 Mara River in the south, the west of Mau Escarpment in the east to Kebeneti in the west. They also occupy parts of Laikipia, Kitale, Nakuru, Narok, Trans Mara District, Eldoret and Nandi Hills.

The Nilotic peoples are people indigenous to the Nile Valley who speak Nilotic languages. They inhabit South Sudan, Sudan, Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, Burundi and Tanzania. Among these are the Burun-speaking peoples, Teso people also known as Iteso or people of Teso, Karo peoples, Luo peoples, Ateker peoples, Kalenjin peoples, Datooga, Dinka, Nuer, Atwot, Lotuko, and the Maa-speaking peoples.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Samburu people</span> Nilotic people of north-central Kenya

The Samburu are a Nilotic people of north-central Kenya. Samburu are semi-nomadic pastoralists who herd mainly cattle but also keep sheep, goats and camels. The name they use for themselves is Lokop or Loikop, a term which may have a variety of meanings which Samburu themselves do not agree on. Many assert that it refers to them as "owners of the land" though others present a very different interpretation of the term. Samburu speak the Samburu dialect of the Maa language, which is a Nilotic language. The Maa language is also spoken by other 22 sub tribes of the Maa community otherwise known as the Maasai. Many Western anthropologists tried to carve out and create the Samburu tribe as a community of its own, unaffiliated to its parent Maasai community, a narrative that seems that many Samburu people today hold. There are many game parks in the area, one of the most well known is Samburu National Reserve. The Samburu sub tribe is the third largest in the Maa community of Kenya and Tanzania, after the Kisonko (Isikirari) of Tanzania and Purko of Kenya and Tanzania.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kalenjin people</span> Group of Southern Nilotic peoples indigenous to East Africa

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tugen people</span> Tribe of Kenya

The Tugen are a sub tribe of the Kenyan Kalenjin people. They fall under the highland nilotes category. They occupy Baringo County and some parts of Nakuru County and Elgeyo Marakwet County in the former Rift Valley Province. Daniel Arap Moi, the second president of Kenya (1978–2002), came from this sub-tribe. The Tugen people speak the Tugen language. The Tugen population was 197,556 as of 2019.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nandi people</span> Ethnic group of Kenya

The Nandi are part of the Kalenjin, a Nilotic tribe living in East Africa. The Nandi ethnic group live with close association and relation with the Kipsigis tribe. They traditionally have lived and still form the majority in the highland areas of the former Rift Valley Province of Kenya, in what is today Nandi County. They speak the Nandi dialect of the Kalenjin language.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pokot people</span>

The Pokot people live in West Pokot County and Baringo County in Kenya and in the Pokot District of the eastern Karamoja region in Uganda. They form a section of the Kalenjin ethnic group and speak the Pökoot language, which is broadly similar to the related Marakwet, Nandi, Tuken and other members of the Kalenjin language group.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marakwet people</span>

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kerio Valley</span>

Kerio Valley lies between the Tugen Hills and the Elgeyo Escarpment in Kenya. It sits at an elevation of 1,000 meters in the Great Rift Valley.

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.

The Kalenjin people are an ethnolinguistic group indigenous to East Africa, with a presence, as dated by archaeology and linguistics, that goes back many centuries. Their history is therefore deeply interwoven with those of their neighboring communities as well as with the histories of Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, South Sudan, and Ethiopia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Oreet</span> Kinship group among the Kalenjin people of Kenya

The Oreet is a kinship group among the Kalenjin people of Kenya that is similar in concept to a clan. The members of an oreet were not necessarily related by blood as evidenced by the adoption of members of the Uasin Gishu Maasai by Arap Sutek, the only Nandi smith at the time. His proteges would later be adopted into almost every other clan as smiths. More famously, the lineage of the Talai Orkoiik were adopted members of the Segelai Maasai.

According to the Kalenjin social system, the male sex is divided into boys, warriors and elders. The female sex is divided into girls and married women. The first stage began at birth and continued till initiation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sengwer people</span>

The Sengwer people are an indigenous community who primarily live in the Embobut forest in the western highlands of Kenya and in scattered pockets across Trans Nzoia, West Pokot and Elgeyo-Marakwet counties. The Sengwer are sometimes portrayed as a component of the Marakwet people but are a distinct ethnic grouping.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cheptalel</span>

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.

Kamuratanet is a Kalenjin traditional process of teaching its members appropriate behavior, knowledge, skills, attitudes, virtues, religion and moral standards. Kamuratanet provides parameters that are used to determine what is acceptable and normal and what is not acceptable, and therefore abnormal. Though carried out throughout an individual's lifetime, it is formalized during yatitaet (circumcision) and subsequent tumdo (initiation).

Mutai is a term used by the Maa-speaking communities of Kenya to describe a period of wars, usually triggered by disease and/or drought affecting widespread areas of the Rift Valley region of Kenya. According to Samburu and Maasai tradition, two periods of Mutai occurred during the nineteenth century. The second Mutai lasted from the 1870s to the 1890s.

The Chemwal people were a Kalenjin-speaking society that inhabited regions of western and north-western Kenya as well as the regions around Mount Elgon at various times through to the late 19th century. The Nandi word Sekker was used by Pokot elders to describe one section of a community that occupied the Elgeyo escarpment and whose territory stretched across the Uasin Gishu plateau. This section of the community appears to have neighbored the Karamojong who referred to them as Siger, a name that derived from the Karimojong word esigirait. The most notable element of Sekker/Chemwal culture appears to have been a dangling adornment of a single cowrie shell attached to the forelock of Sekker women, at least as of the late 1700s and early 1800s.

The Siger people were a community commonly spoken of in the folklore of a number of Kenyan communities that inhabited regions of northwestern Kenya at various points in history.

References

  1. ↑ Ehret, Christopher. An African Classical Age: Eastern & Southern Africa in World History 1000 B.C. to A.D.400. University of Virginia, 1998
  2. 1 2 Beech, M., The Suk; their language and folklore online
  3. ↑ Kipkorir B. E. and F. Welbourn, The Marakwet of Kenya: A Preliminary Study, Nairobi, 1973, 2008
  4. ↑ Kipchumba Foundation, Aspects of Indigenous Religion among the Marakwet of Kenya, Nairobi: Kipchumba Foundation, 2017. ISBN   978-1-9732-0939-3 ISBN   1-9732-0939-X
  5. 1 2 3 Kipkorir B.E, The Marakwet of Kenya: A preliminary study. East Africa Literature Bureau, 1973, p. 8-9
  6. ↑ Hollis A.C, The Nandi - Their Language and Folklore. The Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1909, p. 40-42
  7. ↑ Robins, P, Red Spotted Ox: A Pokot Life. IWGIA, 2010, p. 14
  8. ↑ Hollis A.C, The Nandi - Their Language and Folklore. The Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1909, p. 99
  9. ↑ Hollis A.C, The Nandi - Their Language and Folklore. The Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1909, p. 113-115
  10. ↑ Fish B.C, & Fish, G.W, The Kalenjin Heritage: Traditional Religious and Social Practices. Africa Gospel Church, 1995, p. 3
  11. ↑ Fish B.C, & Fish, G.W, The Kalenjin Heritage: Traditional Religious and Social Practices. Africa Gospel Church, 1995, p. 24
  12. ↑ Fish B.C, & Fish, G.W, The Kalenjin Heritage: Traditional Religious and Social Practices. Africa Gospel Church, 1995, p. 46
  13. ↑ Fish B.C, & Fish, G.W, The Kalenjin Heritage: Traditional Religious and Social Practices. Africa Gospel Church, 1995, p. 25-26
  14. ↑ Fish B.C, & Fish, G.W, The Kalenjin Heritage: Traditional Religious and Social Practices. Africa Gospel Church, 1995, p. 47-48
  15. ↑ Fish B.C, & Fish, G.W, The Kalenjin Heritage: Traditional Religious and Social Practices. Africa Gospel Church, 1995, p. 57
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