Hunters & Gatherers
San men.
Origins: Until about 5,000 years ago, all of the East Africa territory was peopled by hunter-gatherers.
Main economic activity: Hunting and gathering. They knew the behaviour and habitats of animals that provided meat, skins and horns which they used for their daily lives. They also knew where and when to find the plants that supplied them with grains, tubers, nuts and berries for food and bark cloth, dyes, cosmetics, incense and medicines.
These bands of people moved around the land with the sophisticated knowledge of where to find the stones for tools and whatever else was needed.
Other names referring to now extinct hunter gatherer communities in different geographic locales are Lowland Nyika, Ngiwakinyang Ik, Gumba, Sandawe and Ngibotok.
Another group generally described as the Twa are hunting peoples who are said to be the aboriginal inhabitants of the forest before the advent of agriculture. In the Western Kenya region of Amagoro, near the Uganda border, there are rock paintings at Kakapel village attributed to the Twa peoples dated up to 4,000 years ago. Today the Twa people are found in Congo, Angola, Namibia, Zambia and Botswana. In South Africa, the term Twa is applied to the San, the former hunter gatherers of the region.
Rock painting found at Kakapel, Western Kenya, left behind by Twa people.
The following table contains descriptions of hunter gatherer communities that are still represented in Kenya. Some are on the verge of extinction.
Language: Yaaku.
Alternate names: Mugogodo, Mukogodo, Mukoquodo, “Ndorobo”, “Ntorobo”, Siegu, Yaakua, Yiaku.
Language family: Afro-Asiatic, Cushitic, East, Yaaku.
Mukogodo hunters.
Origins of the community: The Mukogodo represent a second wave of Cushite immigration into the Rift Valley area of East Africa. The earlier Southern Cushites were the first settlers we know of following the indigenous San (Bushmen). According to the oral tradition of both the Yaaku and their neighbours, the Yaaku were the first inhabitants of the Mukogodo forests and people still remember that they lived in the caves and made a living from hunting, gathering and bee-keeping and wild honey collection. After the intrusion by the Maasai, Maasai became the dominant language of the area. A change in economy towards cattle keeping was accompanied by a shift in language towards Maasai.
Population: According to an article titled “Only Seven can Speak Dying Language” on the Daily Nation on March 5, 2010 by Samwel Kumba and Mwangi Ndirangu, the total population of the Yaaku stands at 6,000. The story came following the death of one of the remaining eight people who could speak pure Yaaku language -Yakunte- fluently without using words borrowed from the Maasai community, which is the dominant language in their region. The remaining seven people who speak the language are aged over 70.
Geographical location of the community: After their last migration, the Yaaku settled in Laikipia District, Mukogodo Division, Mukogodo Forest west of Doldol, and the foothills north of Mount Kenya. The Yaaku live in the Mukogodo forest west of Mount Kenya, near Dol Dol, a division of the Laikipia District of Rift Valley Province, Kenya. The Mukogodo forest spans an area of 30,000 hectares of rugged hillside terrain in north-east of Laikipia.
Housing: Until the mid 1920’s the Mukogodo were hunter-gatherers, and lived a semi-nomadic existence making homes in caves and rock shelters. They kept bees and their diet was one of honey and meat. Since being assimilated into the Maasai culture, they live in manyattas.
Economic activities: The Yaaku were formerly hunter-gatherers and bee-keepers, but have partly assimilated to the pastoralist culture of the Maasai in the first half of the 20th century, although some still keep bees.
The Mukogodo obtained stock by marrying their daughters to Maasai herders in exchange for animals, by trading forest products and later, by earning cash from European-owned ranches and doing other work. By the 1940s or so, the Mukogodo had almost entirely changed from the old subsistence practices, save bee keeping.
Until the mid 1920s the Mukogodo were hunter-gatherers, living a semi nomadic existence. For subsistence they gathered wild foods, hunted hyrax, buffalo, giraffe, elephant, rhino and other game, and kept bees. They described their diet as one of ‘honey and meat’. Beehives are about a metre long made of a hollow log with lids at each end and small openings. They also harvested honey from natural hives in hollow trees and rocks. In the early days the honey was carried in buckets carved from wood (called Chang’orr) and fitted with leather caps.
Sometimes trapping as a hunting tactic resulted in more food than a group could consume, and the Mukogodo preserved the meat by cooking it until it was dry, mixing it with fat, and then storing it in a container in a rock shelter.
Marriage: In the 20th century, when Yaaku women began marrying neighbouring Maasai pastoralists, their parents received livestock as bride wealth, not only beehives, as was the Yaaku custom. According to Cronk (1989) this was ultimately the main cause for abandoning the hunter-gatherer way of live, as Yaaku parents now demanded cattle as bride wealth, also from young Yaaku grooms.
Before the 1920s or so when a Mukogodo man married a Mukogodo girl, he paid a few beehives as bride price. From the 1920s or so however, the Mukogodo began to marry their daughters off at a more considerable bride price to neighbouring pastoralists, who gave livestock, rather than beehives. Few fathers were willing to settle for beehives when they could obtain livestock and this encouraged Mukogodo to obtain and keep livestock in order to ensure that they and their sons would be able to acquire and keep wives.
The name El Molo came from a Maasai phrase meaning “those who make a living from other sources other than cattle”. The Samburu name for El Molo is “loo molo onsikirri” which means “the people who eat fish”.
Language: El Molo. Alternate names: Dehes, Elmolo, Fura-Pawa, Ldes, “Ndorobo”.
Language family: Afro-Asiatic, Cushitic, East, Western Omo-Tana.
El Molo boys fishing in Lake Turkana.
Origins of the community: The origin of the El Molo is up to question: some say Ethiopia, others say Somalia. They originally settled on the northern shores of Lake Turkana, but other tribes forced them to move south to the small islands. They were further pressured by the tribes inhabiting that area, they moved further south to the south-eastern shores where they live today.
Population: According to the 2009 Kenya population and households census results the El Molo number 2,844. In 1994 the El Molo language speakers numbered 50. El Molo language was thought to be extinct in the middle part of the 20th century, but a few speakers were found in the latter half of that century. The El Molo tribe is the smallest ethnic group in Kenya, numbering about 300 people. According to a number of historians, the ‘pure’ El Molo may number only forty. The rest being of combined Samburu and Turkana bloodlines. Most of the ethnic group now speak Samburu or Turkana.
The community has been for the most part socially cut off from their neighbours. By 1958, the only newcomers to the El Molo in living memory had been three Turkana men. No women had been married off to other groups. Altogether, there were 143 persons living in two villages 3 miles apart on the south-eastern shore of the Lake. They comprised 36 adult males, 40 adult females, 37 unmarried boys, and 30 unmarried girls.
Geographical location of the community: After their last migration, the El Molo settled in Eastern Province’s Marsabit District, Lake Turkana south-east shore, and Elmolo Bay. The El Molo live on the south-eastern shores of Lake Turkana. They are gathered into two villages, one called Anderi consisting of about 150 individuals and the other, Illah of about 70 inhabitants. Temperatures reach 120F (49°C), average rainfall in the area is 50-60mm, and the land is constantly buffeted by hot desert winds.
Housing: The El Molo live in round huts, which they make from doum palm (an Egyptian palm tree, with a divided trunk and edible apple-sized fruits) fronds and are supported using wood from the acacia tree. Their dwellings resemble igloos, built from what little scrub vegetation there is to be found amongst the volcanic wasteland surrounding the alkaline waters of Lake Turkana.
Economic activities: Their main diet is fish from Lake Turkana. They mainly fish for the giant Nile perch and occasionally hunt crocodiles and hippos. They fish using hand made harpoons from acacia roots and fishing nets made from doum palm (an Egyptian palm tree, with a divided trunk and edible apple-sized fruits) logs. The life of the El Molo is generally based on fishing, using spears or harpoons, fishing rods (made from the roots of an acacia with doum palm fibre and a forged iron point or hook) and nets (made from doum palm fibre). They use traditional rafts made of doum palm logs and tied with a rope. Unlike the Samburu and Turkana, the El Molo are not pastoralists – they do not keep cattle. Apart from fish, they also eat ‘loka’, the nut or date of the doum palm-eaten mostly by children.
Language: Okiek. Alternate names: Akie, Akiek, Kinare, “Ndorobo”, Ogiek. Okiek is a member of the macro-language Kalenjin. The Okiek, sometimes called the Ogiek or Akiek (although the term Akiek sometimes refers to a distinct subgroup), are an ethnic and linguistic group based in north-western Tanzania, Southern Kenya (in the Mau Forest), and Western Kenya (in the Mount Elgon Forest).
Ogiek family.
Some “Ndorobo” languages have few remaining speakers. The Akiek of northern Tanzania now speak Maasai. The Akiek of Kinare in Kenya now speak Gikuyu. “Ndorobo” is a derogatory term for several hunter or forest groups, not linguistically related (El Molo, Yaaku, Okiek, Omotik, Aasáx).
The name Dorobo is derived from a Maasai name il torobo which means a “poor person who has no cattle and has to live on hunting and gathering”.
The majority of the Ogiek speak a Kalenjin-related dialect as their domestic language. Most local groups also live near one of the Kalenjin tribes such as the Kipsigis, the Nandi, the Tugen and the Marakwet, and their Kalenjin dialect will tend to be more similar to that of the neighbouring tribe. Those who live in close proximity to the Maasai in Mukogodo and Narok speak Maasai dialects and not Kalenjin languages but they claim to be of the same historic origins as the Kalenjin-speaking Ogiek.
Language family: Nilo-Saharan, Eastern Sudanic, Nilotic, Southern, Kalenjin, Okiek.
Origins of the community: The Ogiek are believed to be the first people to settle in Eastern Africa and were found inhabiting all Kenyan forest before 1800AD. Due to domination and assimilation, the community is slowly becoming extinct with the 1989 figures showing about 20,000 countrywide. The Ogiek are the last remaining forest dwellers and the most marginalised of all indigenous peoples and minorities in Kenya.
The Ogiek community is believed to have occupied the coastal regions of East Africa as early as 1000 AD. They moved from these areas following attacks by slave traders and other migrating communities. This was the Ogiek’s first dispersal. It saw one group moving into Tanzania where they settled among the Hadzabe and Maasai tribes. This group has been assimilated by the Maasai and now speaks a dialect that is very close to Maasai. A second group moved to the plains of Laikipia bordering Mount Kenya Forest from where they dispersed to various locations in northern, central and western Kenya.
By the turn of the century, the Ogiek were to be found in Mount Elgon, Cherangany, Koibatek and Nandi, as well as the Mau Forest region, which straddles Nakuru, Narok, Kericho and Bomet districts in the Rift Valley Province of Kenya. One group moved from Laikipia and settled in Samburu, Northern Kenya.
Population: According to the 2009 Kenya population and households census results the Ogiek number 78,691.
Geographical location of the community: After their last migration, the Ogiek settled in Rift Valley Province’s Nakuru district, East Mau Escarpment; Sogoo in Mau Forest south between Amala and Ewas Ng’iro rivers near Nosogami stream. Also in Tanzania.
The western Mau Escarpment where Kaplelach, Kipchornwonek, and several other Okiek groups live is a forested slope, roughly 66km long, rising in altitude from 1800 to 2800m. Okiek recognise five altitudinally related ecological zones, ranging from open bush forest below 2100m (soyua) to high, dense bamboo forest between 2400 and 2600m (sisiyuet), each zone is distinguished by its most common plant and animal species. Zones have different honey-producing species and honey seasons which have determined Okiek patterns of mobility.
Economic activities: The Ogiek are a hunter-gatherer community of forest dwellers who depended on Mau Forest for subsistence and shelter in the early part of the 20th century. The community divided the forest among their clans using natural features like valleys, rivers and hills as boundaries. The Ogiek depended on the forest for their livelihood. Collection of wild fruits, hunting, honey harvesting were a daily routine.
While meat for the Mau Okiek comprises 75% of their diet, honey (comprising but 15%) is the primary motivation for forest exploitation. There is a striking lack of wild vegetables in the Okiek diet, and it is only children who eat significant amounts of berries and roots.
The animals hunted once included bushbuck, buffalo, elephant, duiker, hyrax, bongo, and giant forest hog. They hunted with dogs, bows and arrows, spears, and clubs, using poison for buffalo and elephant. Men also set traps. Unlike many other hunter-gatherers, Okiek gathered little plant food; they relied on a diet of meat and honey, supplemented by traded grains. In the late 1930s and 1940s Kipchornwonek clan planted small millet gardens; and later the Kaplelach planted maize. Over the next twenty years, however, agriculture became more important. Okiek began to settle more permanently in mid-altitude forest and keep their few domestic animals at home.
The Ogiek are self-sufficient in forest products (wild fruits and roots, game hunting, honey) except for small amounts of iron for making into arrowheads, spears and knives.
Initiation: Initiation was performed around age fifteen, separately for boys and girls.
The Ogiek have age-set systems similar to those of the Maasai or the Kalenjin Ipinda. Their initiation ceremonies show superficial resemblance to both Kalenjin and Maasai initiation ceremonies and their initiated young men (muranik) act as the community police against feuding between lineages, and first line defence against attacks and raids by other local groups or tribes. The age-set system also acts as the basis for peer group relations among the men who grow up together as friends, sharing activities in hunting, honey collecting, raiding, dancing and socialising. Major Okiek ceremonies celebrate stages of social maturation: a head-shaving ceremony where a child receives a new name; an ear-piercing ceremony at age twelve to fourteen (now rarely practised); and initiation into adulthood.