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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.
Members of the community refer to themselves as Parakuyo when speaking to each other. When interacting with unfamiliar outsiders they will almost always identify themselves as Maasai. Maasai people and other East Africans often refer to the Parakuyo as Kwavi, Loikop or Lumbwa, a practice that Parakuyo do not appreciate. [1]
The Kwavi are related to the Maasai. Though little has been written about them, they were the subject of a 1974 Master's thesis at the University of Dar es Salaam by Douglas Ndagala, "Social and Economic Change among the Pastoral Wakwavi and Its Impact on Rural Development." At least one author, however, denies their existence as a distinct ethnic group, while another research paper gives the names Ilparakuyo and Baraguyu as apparent synonyms for Kwavi.
The Kwavi basically refer to a cultural or occupational group. This term is also used in Kenya and it is used to refer to groups of people related to the Akamba people.
The Kwavi of Tanzania are not basically a separate ethnic group per se but a people within an ethnic group who have a particular occupation. Wakwavi are basically pastoral but do also have elements of agricultural, as such, they are a sedentary people with a heavy bias to pastoralism. Wakwavi of Tanzania were looked upon as being Gogo people with whom they shared the same language.
With time, due to loss of livestock and consequential pauperism, many have changed their preoccupation and have become agriculturist and as such now not discernible from the other Gogo people. They were mistaken as Masaai, whom they were not, for although they had Masaai features of dressing, they had not their ornament, they did not use ochre as the Masaai, nor did plait their hair long like the Masaai. And although the blanket featured just as the Masaai, their nakedness was not exposed as the Masaai.
However, unlike other Gogos, they pierced and elongated their earlobes, this though is not limited to the Masaai.
The Kwavi being part of the Gogo group is an indication of the emergence of the Gogo tribe which basically is not a tribe but a Nation. The Gogo is a modern agglomerate group, the different sections being brought together by the great leader Mazengo. The group is made up of such elements as Wakaguru this gave rise to the Gogo people around Mpwapwa and just like the Wakaguru are characterised as being agriculturist, you have the Gogo of Western Gogoland who are more like their western neighbours the Konongo and the southern Gogos, who are a mixture of the agro-pastoralist Wasangu and agriculturist Hehe.
The Wakwavi origins have been attributed to conflicting sources, most people claimed that they were of Masaai influence, namely referring to Parakuo Masaai influence, another school of thought point to a common origin with the Hadzabe and even Nyaturu.
An alternative view is that the term Wakwavi (or Kwafi) is a Swahili corruption of the Maa iloonkuapi (‘people of other lands’). Among Maasai, this is a relative term for other Maasai-speaking groups or sections who are not close allies: if section A regard section B as iloonkuapi, then B may apply the same term to A, implying mutual mistrust. The confusion appears to stem from an early work by the coastal missionary Ludwig Krapf, whose Maasai informant wished to distance himself from those Maasai who were responsible for raids on the Swahili coast. He described them as iloonkuapi, and Krapf assumed that they were other Maa-speaking peoples who were deadly enemies of the Maasai proper, regarding iloonkuapi as an absolute term rather than a reciprocal one. Subsequent visitors to the area followed Krapf’s account and the name Wakwavi became established, randomly applied to ethnic groups who were neighbours of the Maasai proper and shared their culture up to a point.
The Maasai are a Nilotic ethnic group inhabiting northern, central and southern Kenya and northern Tanzania. They are among the best known local populations internationally due to their residence near the many game parks of the African Great Lakes, and their distinctive customs and dress. The Maasai speak the Maa language, a member of the Nilotic language family that is related to the Dinka, Kalenjin and Nuer languages. Except for some elders living in rural areas, most Maasai people speak the official languages of Kenya and Tanzania, Swahili and English. The Maasai population has been reported as numbering 1,189,522 in Kenya in the 2019 census, compared to 377,089 in the 1989 census.
The Nilotic peoples are peoples indigenous to the Nile Valley who speak Nilotic languages. They inhabit South Sudan, Sudan, Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya, DR Congo, Rwanda and Tanzania. Among these are the Burun speaking peoples, Karo peoples, Luo peoples, Ateker peoples, Kalenjin peoples, Datooga, Dinka, Nuer, Atwot, Lotuko and the Maa-speaking peoples.
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 to have sunk into the minds of many Samburu people today. 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.
The Abagusii is an East African ethnic group that traditionally/natively inhabit Kisii County and Nyamira County of former Nyanza Province of Kenya as well as parts of Kericho County and Bomet County of the former Rift Valley province of Kenya. The Abagusii are also found in other regions of geographical Western Kenya including former Nyanza Province such as Homa Bay County, and the rest of Luo-Nyanza as well as the rest of Kenya through recent migrations in post-colonial Kenya. There is also a significant diaspora population of Abagusii in countries such as United States, United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and South Africa among other countries within and outside Africa. The Abagusii speak Ekegusii language which is classified together with the Great Lakes Bantu languages. However, the inclusion of Abagusii in the Bantu language group is a subject of debate given that studies on East African Bantu languages have found the Ekegusii together with Kuria, Simbiti, Ngurimi, Rangi and Mbugwe languages to be far distinct from the typical Bantu in terms of structure and tense aspect. Mogusii is culturally identified as their founder and patriarch. The Abagusii are however, unrelated to the Kisi people of Malawi and the Kissi people of West Africa, other than the three very distinct communities having similar sounding tribal names. The traditional occupation of Abagusii in pre-colonial Kenya included hunting and gathering, pastoralism/herding and cereal, fruit (pumpkin) and root crop farming forms of Agriculture with pastoralism being the dominant occupation of Abagusii in pre-colonial Kenya. Today the Abagusii have adopted other forms of agriculture through interaction with the European colonists that introduced new crops and new cultivation methods to Gusiiland and Kenya as a whole with the same applying to the other African countries/communities. Some of these factors have ensured farming to be the most dominant economic activity among Abagusii as opposed to pre-colonial Kenya where they were pre-dominantly pastoralists and hunters and gatherers.
Kwavi is the dialect of Maasai spoken by the Kwavi people of Tanzania. According to Hurskainen (1994), "The Parakuyo are a Maa-speaking ethnic group scattered over a large area in the northeastern and central parts of Tanzania", while Beidelman (1960) confirms that "Kwavi" and "Baraguyu" are synonymous.
Dorobo is a derogatory umbrella term for several unrelated hunter-gatherer groups of Kenya and Tanzania. They comprised client groups to the Maasai and did not practice cattle pastoralism.
Ogiek is a Southern Nilotic language cluster of the Kalenjin family spoken or once spoken by the Ogiek peoples, scattered groups of hunter-gatherers in Southern Kenya and Northern Tanzania. Most if not all Ogiek speakers have assimilated to cultures of surrounding peoples: the Akiek in northern Tanzania now speak Maasai and the Akiek of Kinare, Kenya now speak Gikuyu. Ndorobo is a term considered derogatory, occasionally used to refer to various groups of hunter-gatherers in this area, including the Ogiek.
Johann Ludwig Krapf was a German missionary in East Africa, as well as an explorer, linguist, and traveler. Krapf played an important role in exploring East Africa with Johannes Rebmann. They were the first Europeans to see Mount Kenya with the help of Kikuyus who dwelled at its slopes and Kilimanjaro. Krapf also played a key role in exploring the East African coastline.
Maasai (Masai) or Maa is an Eastern Nilotic language spoken in Southern Kenya and Northern Tanzania by the Maasai people, numbering about 800,000. It is closely related to the other Maa varieties: Samburu, the language of the Samburu people of central Kenya, Chamus, spoken south and southeast of Lake Baringo ; and Parakuyu of Tanzania. The Maasai, Samburu, il-Chamus and Parakuyu peoples are historically related and all refer to their language as ɔl Maa. Properly speaking, "Maa" refers to the language and the culture and "Maasai" refers to the people "who speak Maa."
The Ilchamus, are a Maa-speaking people living south and southeast of Lake Baringo, Kenya. They numbered approximately 32,949 people in 2019 and are closely related to the Samburu living more to the north-east in the Rift Valley Province. They are one of the smallest ethnic groups in Kenya.
The Akie are a Tanzanian ethnic and linguistic people living in western Arusha Region. In 2000 the Akie population was counted at 5,268. The Akie, like other hunter-gatherer peoples in Kenya and Tanzania, are sometimes called by the derogatory and misleading term Dorobo or Wandorobo. The Akie were featured by Bruce Parry in the BBC series "Tribe".
Mkomazi National Park is located in northeastern Tanzania on the Kenyan border, in Kilimanjaro Region and Tanga Region. It was established as a game reserve in 1951 and upgraded to a national park in 2006.
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.
Tanzania is a multilingual country. There are many languages spoken in the country, but no one language is spoken natively by a majority or a large plurality of the population. Swahili and English, the latter of which was inherited from colonial rule, are widely spoken as lingua francas. They serve as working languages in the country, with Swahili being the official national language. There are more speakers of Swahili than of English in Tanzania.
The Lumbwa 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 the mid-19th century, and to the Kalenjin-speaking Kipsigis community for much of the late 19th to mid-20th centuries.
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 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.
Neiterkob is a figure from the mythology of the Maa-speaking communities, most notably the Maasai in the present day. He is perceived as having a superior intelligence and as having the ability to intercede with Engai or Enkai on behalf of man.
