Lumbwa people

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The Lumbwa (also Lumbua, Umpua, Humba and Wakwavi) were a pastoral community which inhabited southern Kenya and northern Tanzania. The term Lumbwa has variously referred to a Kalenjin-speaking community, portions of the Maa-speaking Loikop communities since (at least) the mid-19th century, and to the Kalenjin-speaking Kipsigis community for much of the late 19th to mid-20th centuries.

Contents

By the late-19th century, the term as an identity was largely out of use, but had taken on pejorative connotations of those who had abandoned pastoralism and war culture in exchange for agricultural lifestyle.

Sources and historiography

The journals, letters and published articles of the first three missionaries of the Church Missionary Society in East Africa (Johann Ludwig Krapf, Johannes Rebmann and Jakob Erhardt), written during the 1840s and 1850s, contain the earliest references to the Lumbwa; [1]

Krapf arrived on the East African coast in December 1843, and made his first trip into the interior in January 1844. He encountered reports of the nearby "Okooafee" and their southern neighbors, the "Quapee". Krapf deduced within a year that the two groups were the same people, and he began referring to them as Wakuafi in his writings. In 1852, he learned that the Wakuafi referred to themselves as Iloikop. [2] At this time, The Swahili name Wakuafi was used to describe all Iloikop peoples, although it was later narrowed to represent only the non-Maasai Iloikop. It is suggested that the term Humba (or Lumbwa) was a Bantu word used by the Bantu of the interior to refer to the same group of pastoralists. [2]

Accounts by missionaries and explorers during the 1870s and 1880s generally agreed with those of early missionaries, with distinctions among the Maasai, Wakwavi and Lumbwa beginning to appear. In an early account, Thomas Wakefield described the "poor Wakwavi ... [who,] having long since been robbed of their cattle by the Maasai, were compelled to turn their attention to agricultural pursuits". Charles New concurred in 1873 with his predecessors' assertion that the Maasai and "Wakuavi" called themselves Orloikob, which he translated as "possessors of the soil"; both groups were pastoralists. James Last (who was stationed at Mamboia in central Tanzania during the 1880s) concluded – like Krapf – that "Humba" was an equivalent term for "Kwavi", and both peoples were pastoralists. [2]

By the early 20th century, Maasai identity was distinct from that of the Wakwavi. The latter term being used to refer to non-Maasai Loikop. The term Lumbwa was by then primarily used to refer to the Kipsigis sections of the Kalenjin though it still appeared to have multiple connotations.

A. C. Hollis, writing about the Maasai in 1905, identifies two divisions: those living in British territory and "who called themselves Il-Maasae", and others "... who were called 'L-Oikop or Il-Lumbwa, [who] lived in German East Africa" as farmers. [3] In his account of the Nandi also published in 1905, he notes extensively that the Nandi referred to the Kipsigis as Lumbwa. [4]

Etymology

In Maasai the term Ilumbwa means 'well-diggers'. [5] Within the Maasai pastoral culture of the 19th century, the term Lumbwa and other related terms would acquire pejorative connotations. This was related to what was seen as degrading agricultural work. [6]

The term Humba (or Lumbwa) was used by various Bantu-speaking communities of the East African hinterland to refer to 19th century, Iloikop pastoralists. [2]

In present-day central Tanzania, the Loikop were known to their Bantu-speaking neighbors as Ilumbwa ("the well diggers") because they occupied the dry steppes dotted with ancient wells. [7]


The Ngaa traditions of the Meru people of Kenya indicate that the Ngaa moved through arid country following the conquest. Certain elements of the A-Athi traditions suggest a period in northern Kenya or southern Ethiopia. These narratives concur with Yaaku traditions that state that the people that would be known as Yaaku moved south, from southern Ethiopia to Mount Kenya.

Yaaku interaction

Meru oral history describes the arrival of their ancestors at Mount Kenya where they interacted with a community referred to as Lumbwa. [8] The narratives relating to the arrival of the Ngaa state that there were two communities resident at the mountain at the time of their arrival. Both these communities appear more readily distinguished internally than externally. These traditions state that;

During the 1730s the Ngaa traveled north and west through today's Mbeere region, moving along a line of forested hills that run from the modern Mount Kiburu (then, Orimba Hill), to Mount Kiaga. In so doing, they impinged upon a territory then inhabited by two other peoples, subsequently to be known as the Cuka (or Chuka) and Tharaka.
At that time both those societies were divided into two smaller sections. The early Cuka were then known as Chabugi and Irari; the Tharaka as Mbugi (or Diacho) and Chagala (or Murutu). The sharing of one name between the two societies suggests a long association between them, including frequent intermarriage. This in turn would appear to reflect the growth of economic interdependence between peoples who lived in a mountain forest and those who herded livestock on an arid plain.

— J. Fadiman, 1994 [9]

Way of life

According to Igoji and Igoji and Imenti , thethe Umpua were "tall, slender, cattle-keeping people [who] wore shoulder-length hair, plaited into braids". [10] The pastoral tradition it appears, would be maintained into the 20th century. Fosbrooke (who interviewed many Maasai in East Africa from 1938 to 1948) noted that his subjects repeatedly told him that they shared a common pastoralist origin with the "Lumbwa", who had adopted agriculture only recently.

Igoji and Imenti traditions aver the 'Umpua' of the region, kept their livestock in pits at night. These 'holes' were dug by the herders and were gradually deepened as mud was removed after the wet season. [10] They associate the archaeological landscape feature commonly known as Sirikwa holes that are found in Meru County, where they are known as "Agumba holes", to this community.


Bantu interaction: c.1730

According to Fadiman's account, the traditions emerging from the period of the 'Mukuruma, Michubu and subsequent age-sets (1730s-1860s)' are told from the perspective of 'single clans, as they advanced upward into the forests or across the Tigania plain'. He notes that an analysis of the traditions indicate that the incoming communities met non-Bantu cultures then resident at Mount Kenya. These included;

The dates and directions of expulsion vary slightly among Meru regions. For instance, it is said to have been pushed northeast, onto Mount Kenya's northern plains, where they held out until scattered years later by raiding Maasai. Others were gradually forced up the mountain (i.e west).

Kagairo

Certain elements of the narrative are similar to Meru narratives of a period recalled as Kagairo. They note that sometime, "perhaps in the late 1730s" the original Ngaa nucleus separated into two segments, each of which took on an identity of its own. One was known as Mukunga (or Muku Ngaa: people of Ngaa) and the other as Murutu. Both these sections are said to have moved in their traditional direction of march. At a point that tradition places near today's Ntugi Hill, however, they fragmented once more. The Muku-Ngaa appear to have divided into four or perhaps five smaller sections.

Meru traditions states that one section of the Muku-Ngaa sections moved northward toward the heavily forested mountains of the Nyambeni range, which stretches northeast from the base of Mount Kenya. Three others are said to have moved west, into the foothills that make up the lowest portions of modern Igoji, Abogeta (South Imenti), and Abothoguchi (North Imenti). The final group drifted south sometime in the 1880s eventually entering that part of the Mwimbi region that lies adjacent to modern Muthambi, seizing this area from the early Cuka. [12]

The directions of dispersal and order in which they are narrated bear similarity to the extent/grazing grounds of the 'Wakuafi' whom Krapf writes about in 1854, stating that;

...the main strength of the Wakuafi is concentrated around the Oldoinio eibor in a country called Kaputei, whence (they) proceed to the North, North-East, West and South...

— Ludwig Krapf, 1854 [13]

Krapf states further on that "regarding Oldoinio eibor it is necessary to remark that by this term is meant the Kirénia or Endurkenia, or simply Kenia, as the Wakamba call it..." [13] He does however specifically reference a community referred to as Lumbwa present in the general Laikipia region about the mid-19th century when he notes that: "To the North-East of the Neiwasha are the tribes Sukku, Sodeki, Walúmbua, Nganassa, Ndoizo, Lekipia, whence there is a journey of 24 days to Barawa on the Somali-coast...". [14]

Iloikop wars: c.1830

Narratives recorded by MacDonald (1899) regarding the Iloikop wars state that at the time of fragmentation of the Loikop peoples, there was a certain internal jealousy that gradually developed into open conflict. [15] MacDonald noted that;

Civil war broke out between the Masai and Guash Ngishu who were helped by their kinsmen of Lykipia. After some initial defeats, the Masai detached the Sambur of Lykipia from the hostile alliance and then crushed the Guash Ngishu so utterly that the latter could no longer hold their own against the dispossessed Nandi and their kindred, and ceased to exist as a tribe.

— MacDonald, 1899 [15]

Thompson writing in 1883 also recorded accounts of the conflict, stating;

Grown bold, they attacked the Masai about fifteen years ago...The Masai were at first beaten, but fighting with the stubbornness of despair, they disputed every foot of the ground. They were driven from the whole of Naivasha and Kinangop, and their enemies still victorious, carried the war into Kapte. Matters now changed however. The Masai of the entire region to the south gathered together and came to the assistance of their brethren of Kapte. Soon the tables were turned and the Wa-kwafi were gradually forced back.

— Thompson, 1883 [16]

Stigand (1913) also made note of the decision and intention of the Laikipiak to "attack and completely overwhelm the southern Masai...that they might cease to exist as a tribe". However, "when the southern Masai heard that they were coming, they combined together and came forth to meet them. They met the Loikop north of Nakuru...". Stigand gave a detailed account of the battle, one that has been retold since within a number Kenyan of communities. [17]

Thompson later recounts a trek past 'Giligili' where he noticed "an ernomous Masai kraal, which could not have held less than 3000 warriors, and then some distance beyond appeared another of equal, if not larger dimensions." On inquiry, Thompson learned that these were the respective camps of the Masai of Kinangop and Kapte, on the one hand, and the Masai (Wa-kwafi) of Lykipia on the other. He was told that this was; "During one of their long periods of deadly fighting, in which they thus settled down before all their cattle, and fought day after day, till one gave in". [18]

Late 19th century

By the late 19th century, the term Lumbwa primarily referred to the Kipsigis community. It was primarily adopted by the colonial government for administrative purpose and in reference to the region occupied by the Kipsigis who had since abandoned pastoralism culture and embraced agricultural lifestyle.

Kipsigis and Nandi had been a united identity through to the early nineteenth century. About this time they moved southwards through country occupied by Masai, "probably the present Uasin Gishu country" where they accidentally got split in two by a wedge of Masai who Orchadson records as being "Uasin Gishu (Masai) living in Kipchoriat (Nyando) valley". [19] Accounts from Hollis however refer to a "branch called 'L-osigella or Segelli [who] took refuge in the Nyando valley but were wiped out by the Nandi and Lumbwa. It was from them that the Nandi obtained their system of rule by medicine-men. [20]

Decline of Lumbwa identity

Eliot (1905), giving an 'account of the British East African Protectorate', stated that the inhabitants of the Lumbwa region "are closely allied to the Nandi, and speak almost the same language.". [21]

The Kipsigis traditions recorded by Orchadson concur on a united identity, and also give the early nineteenth century as the date of fragmentation. [19]


Related Research Articles

Kipsigis people The most populous tribe among the Kalenjin Nilotes of the African Great Lakes region.

The Kipsigis, are a SouthEastern Nilotic people who live in Kenya and Tanzania and are a par of the Kalenjin-speaking group of peoples who alongside other Highland Nilotes of the African Great Lakes Region make up the Kalenjin ethnic group. They live in close relation and association with the Nandi. They are structurally heterogeneous with an amalgamation of 'ortinwek' from Nandi, Okieik, Maasai, Kisii, Luo and aboriginal ethnicities of Kenya. The Kipsigis people speak the Kipsigis language; Nilotic language which falls under the Nandi-Markweta cluster of the Kalenjin languages.

The Kalenjin are a group of Southern Nilotic peoples indigenous to East Africa, residing mainly in what was formerly the Rift Valley Province in Kenya. They number 6,358,113 individuals as per the Kenyan 2019 census. They are divided into nine culturally and linguistically related clans: Kipsigis, Nandi, Keiyo, Marakwet, Sabaot, Pokots, Tugen, Terik and Ogiek. They speak Kalenjin languages, which belong to the Nilotic language family.

The Yaaku, are a people who are said to have lived in regions of southern Ethiopia and central Kenya, possibly through to the 18th century. The language they spoke is today called Yaakunte. The Yaaku assimilated a hunter-gathering population, whom they called Mukogodo, when they first settled in their place of origin and the Mukogodo adopted the Yaakunte language. However, the Yaaku were later assimilated by a food producing population and they lost their way of life. The Yaakunte language was kept alive for sometime by the Mukogodo who maintained their own hunter-gathering way of life, but they were later immersed in Maasai culture and adopted the Maa language and way of life. The Yaakunte language is today facing extinction but is undergoing a revival movement. In the present time, the terms Yaaku and Mukogodo, are used to refer to a population living in Mukogodo forest west of Mount Kenya.

The Meru or Amîîrú are a Bantu ethnic group that inhabit the Meru region of Kenya on the fertile lands of north and eastern slopes of Mount Kenya, in the former Eastern Province of Kenya. The name "Meru" refers to both the people and the region, which for many years was the only administrative unit. In 1992, the Greater Meru was divided into three administrative units: Meru Central, Nyambene, and Tharaka-Nithi. After the promulgation of a new constitution in Kenya on 27 August 2010, the Greater Meru was further re-defined and now consists of the twin counties of Tharaka-Nithi and Meru. The Greater Meru covered approximately 13,000 km2 (5,000 sq mi), stretching from the Thuci river, on the border with Embu County in the south, to the border with Isiolo County in the north.

The Agumba people were an ethnic group who inhabited the forests of Mount Kenya, but are now either extinct or assimilated.

The Kwavi people were a community commonly spoken of in the folklore of a number of Kenyan and Tanzanian communities that inhabited regions of south-central Kenya and north-central Tanzania at various points in history. The conflicts between the Uasin Gishu/Masai and Kwavi form much of the literature of what are now known as the Iloikop wars.

The Kalenjin people are an ethnolinguistic group mistaken to be a tribe in Kenya, though they are actually a collection of tribes 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 and, most notably, with the Iraqw, who are known to them as Sirikwa, as well as with the histories of Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, South Sudan, and Ethiopia.

The Loikop people, also known as Wakuafi, Kor, Mu-Oko, Muoko/Ma-Uoko and Mwoko, were a tribal confederacy who inhabited present-day Kenya in the regions north and west of Mount Kenya and east and south of Lake Turkana. The area is roughly conterminous with Samburu and Laikipia Counties and portions of Baringo, Turkana and (possibly) Meru Counties. The group spoke a common tongue related to the Maasai language, and typically herded cattle. The Loikop occasionally interacted with the Cushitic, Bantu, and Chok peoples. The confederacy had dispersed by the 21st century.

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.

Mbwaa is an origin narrative of the Meru peoples of Kenya. It is a widely told tale that has been narrated for at least three centuries. These traditions have been widely linked to the Shungwaya origin narrative. However it has been noted that a number of inconsistencies appear in the telling of this narrative. It thus may be, a conflation of two or more peoples origin narratives. Indeed subsequent events in the narrative lead up to the assimilation of two peoples, referred to as Muku-Ngaa and Murutu, both of whom contribute to the present Meru identity.

The Misri legend is an origin myth common to a number of East African communities. In it, it is usually claimed that the community originated in a land called Misri located in the north. This land is in many accounts identified or associated with Egypt and sometimes an association with one of the lost tribes of Israel is implied and occasionally directly stated.

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 Parakuyo people, are a community of about thirty thousand pastoralists who live scattered across Tanzania today. They are the principal speakers of the Kwavi language.

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 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 Ngaa people were a community that according to the traditions of many Kenyan communities inhabited regions of the Swahili coast and the Kenyan hinterland at various times in history.

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 Murutu people were a community that, according to the oral literature of the Meru people of Kenya, inhabited regions of the Swahili coast and the Kenyan hinterland at various times 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.

References

  1. ↑ Falola, T., & Jennings, C., Sources and Methods in African History: Spoken, Written, Unearthed p.173-174 online
  2. 1 2 3 4 Falola, T., & Jennings, C., Sources and Methods in African History: Spoken, Written, Unearthed p.174
  3. ↑ Falola, T., & Jennings, C., Sources and Methods in African History: Spoken, Written, Unearthed p.188
  4. ↑ A. C. Hollis. The Nandi: Their Language and Folklore . Oxford: Clarendon Press (1909), p. 306.
  5. ↑ Jennings, Christian (2005). "1" (PDF). Scatterlings of East Africa: Revisions of Parakuyo Identity and History, c. 1830-1926 (PhD). The University of Texas at Austin. p. 86. Retrieved August 21, 2019.
  6. ↑ Jennings, Christian (2005). "1" (PDF). Scatterlings of East Africa: Revisions of Parakuyo Identity and History, c. 1830-1926 (PhD). The University of Texas at Austin. p. 81. Retrieved August 21, 2019.
  7. ↑ Jennings, Christian (2005). "1" (PDF). Scatterlings of East Africa: Revisions of Parakuyo Identity and History, c. 1830-1926 (PhD). The University of Texas at Austin. p. 81. Retrieved August 21, 2019.
  8. ↑ Fadiman, J. (1994). When We Began There Were Witchmen. California: University of California Press. pp. 83–89. ISBN   9780520086159.
  9. ↑ Fadiman, J. (1994). When We Began There Were Witchmen. California: University of California Press. pp. 61–62. ISBN   9780520086159.
  10. 1 2 Fadiman, J. When We Began There Were Witchmen. University of California Press (1994), p. 86.
  11. ↑ Fadiman, J. (1994). When We Began There Were Witchmen. California: University of California Press. p. 81. ISBN   9780520086159.
  12. ↑ Fadiman, J. (1994). When We Began There Were Witchmen. California: University of California Press. pp. 63–64. ISBN   9780520086159.
  13. 1 2 Krapf, Johann Ludwig (1854). Vocabulary of the Engutuk Eloikob Or of the Language of the Wakuafi-nation in the Interior of Equatorial Africa. Austria: Fues. pp. 9–10.
  14. ↑ Krapf, Johann Ludwig (1854). Vocabulary of the Engutuk Eloikob Or of the Language of the Wakuafi-nation in the Interior of Equatorial Africa. Austria: Fues. p. 30.
  15. 1 2 MacDonald, J.R.L (1899). "Notes on the Ethnology of Tribes Met with During Progress of the Juba Expedition of 1897-99". The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland. 29 (3/4): 240. doi:10.2307/2843005. JSTOR   2843005.
  16. ↑ Thompson, Joseph (1887). Through Masai land: a journey of exploration among the snowclad volcanic mountains and strange tribes of eastern equatorial Africa. Being the narrative of the Royal Geographical Society's Expedition to mount Kenia and lake Victoria Nyanza, 1883-1884. London: S. Low, Marston, Searle, & Rivington. p.  241.
  17. ↑ Stigand, C.H (1913). The land of Zinj, being an account of British East Africa, its ancient history and present inhabitants. London: Constable & Company ltd. p.  207-208.
  18. ↑ Thompson, Joseph (1887). Through Masai land: a journey of exploration among the snowclad volcanic mountains and strange tribes of eastern equatorial Africa. Being the narrative of the Royal Geographical Society's Expedition to mount Kenia and lake Victoria Nyanza, 1883-1884. London: S. Low, Marston, Searle, & Rivington. p.  200.
  19. 1 2 Orchadson, I.Q (1927). Origin of the Maasai (Criticism of Cardale Luck's treatise). Nairobi: The East Africa Natural History Society. p.  20.
  20. ↑ Museums Trustees of Kenya (1910). The Journal of the East Africa and Uganda Natural History Society. London: East Africa and Uganda Natural History Society. p.  6.
  21. ↑ Eliot, Charles (1905). The East Africa Protectorate. London: E. Arnold. p.  66.
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