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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 Million 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 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.
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.
The Orkoiyot occupied a sacred and special role within the Nandi and Kipsigis people of Kenya. He held the dual roles of chief spiritual and military leader, and had the authority to make decisions regarding security particularly the waging of war. Notable Orkoiik include Kimnyole Arap Turukat, Koitalel Arap Samoei and Barsirian Arap Manyei.
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.
Nandi County is a county in Kenya in the North Rift, occupying an area of 2,884.4 square kilometres. Its capital, Kapsabet, is the largest town in the county while other towns include Mosoriot, Tinderet, Kobujoi, Kaiboi, Kabiyet and Nandi Hills. According to a 2019 census, the county had a population of 885,711, made up of a number of Kenyan communities, the majority of whom belong to the native tribe called Nandi.
Koitalel arap Samoei was an Orkoiyot who led the Nandi people from 1890 until his assassination in 1905. The Orkoiyot occupied a sacred and special role within the Nandi and Kipsigis people of Kenya. He held the dual roles of chief spiritual and military leader, and had the authority to make decisions regarding security matters particularly the waging of war and negotiating for peace. Koitalel was the supreme chief of the Nandi people of Kenya. He led the Nandi resistance against British colonial rule.
The Nandi Resistance was a military conflict that took place in present-day Kenya between 1890 and 1906. It involved members of the Kalenjin ethnic group, mainly from the Nandi section, and the British colonial administration. The close of the 19th century, a time referred to as the "pacification period" by Matson, saw a number of local populations that resisted British colonial rule. Of these, the Nandi resistance would stand out for being the longest and most tenacious.
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.
Barsirian Arap Manyei was the last widely recognized Nandi Orkoiyot and Kenya's longest serving political detainee.
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.
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 Iloikop wars were a series of wars between the Maasai and a community referred to as Kwavi and later between Maasai and alliance of reformed Kwavi communities. These were pastoral communities that occupied large tracts of East Africa's savanna's during the late 18th and 19th centuries. These wars occurred between c.1830 and 1880.
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 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.
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.
The Laikipiak people were a community that inhabited the plateau located on the eastern escarpment of the Rift Valley in 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 Uasin Gishu with whom they would later ally against the Maasai. Many Maa-speakers in Laikipia County today claim Laikipiak ancestry, namely those among the Ilng'wesi, Ildigirri and Ilmumonyot sub-sections of the Laikipia Maasai.
The Lumbwa Treaty event took place on 13th October 1889, in Lumbwa in Kericho between the Kipsigis led by Menya Araap Kisiara and the British East Africa administration. It was based on a cultural practice of oath taking in Kipsigis called Mummek or Mummiat or Mumma. Mumma means "to do something impossibly disgusting". It involves two parties taking an oath and invoking a preemptive curse if the oath is to be broken by any party taking the oath. There usually would also be a performance of black magic; and on this particular event a coyote was savored in two halves with each party burying its part and making the oath never to harm each other in any way.
Oretab Talai is one of the ortinwek or clans of the Kalenjin, a Nilotic tribe living in East Africa. Nandi Talai elders gained particular notability during the 2022 Kenyan general elections when a blessing ritual they performed on then Deputy President William Ruto gained symbolism as an act perceived as bestowing not just community leadership but also future national leadership. Much was made in the commentary surrounding the event of the fact that Nandi Talai elders had performed similar blessing rituals for the late Kenyan Presidents Jomo Kenyatta, Daniel Arap Moi, Mwai Kibaki and even the former Prime Minister Raila Odinga before they ascended to national leadership positions.
References
- ↑ A. C. Hollis. The Nandi: Their Language and Folklore . Clarendon Press: Oxford 1909, p. 50
- 1 2 3 Arap Lagat, A.K, The Historical Process of Nandi Movement into the Uasin Gishu District of the Kenya Highlands: 1906-1963., University of Nairobi, 1995