Kenya has a culture born of countless sources. This region has been crossed by the paths of a long and complex history. From the prehistoric records of early man to the present day, Kenya has been a land of unending change, contrasts and diversity.
The early tribal states saw cycles of migration and shifting power, with Kenya as a meeting place for peoples from the plainlands of the south, the forests of the West and the deserts of the North.
The sea brought influences from the outside world, and the passage of the spice trade created the unique coastal culture, where lines between Africa and Arabia blurred. The open coast brought European influences into this world of change and began a turbulent struggle for control whose exotic history lingers today.
The first explorers discovered a land of great peril and greater beauty, and their great adventures created the most unique colony in the British Empire.
This was a meeting place of cultures, where adventurers and soldiers of fortune mingled with a complex tribal society, and the arrival of labourers and merchants from India brought new and pervasive influences.
The colonial legacy lives on in the traditions of the great safari, and the pursuit of adventure and freedom.
Kenya has drawn on all of these influences to develop its own unique culture. This is the nations greatest strength- the ability to blend the best of many worlds into a strong, singular identity.
Today, Kenya welcomes the world to its shores and continues to evolve a modern culture that is born of endless variety, and yet purely, proudly Kenyan.
The Maasai have come to represent Africa at its most primal, a fiercely independent tribe of legendary courage who sternly shun the modern world in favour of traditional rites and customs.
Although less well known than their Southerly Maasai relations, with whom they share a language, the Samburu have an equally intricate and fascinating culture.
Historians believe that the Taitas migrated from Central Africa alongside other Bantu tribes, arriving in present day Kenya from the south through Shungwaya before finally settling in the fertile Taita hills. The hills provided the Taita with refuge from raids and attacks by the neighboring Maasai tribe.
Being an agricultural society in a fertile land, most Taitas practice agriculture as the main economic activity selling the bulk of the food they produce to the residents of Coast Province, especially to those living in Mombasa. Horticultural production has recently become an important economic activity in Taita hills. Taitas also rear dairy cattle and produce most of the milk supplied in other parts of Coast province.
Gemstone mining is primarily done in the drier parts of Taita land, which have large deposits of precious stones such as Ruby, Tanzanite and Garnets.
The Meru tribe or Merus is a Bantu ethnic group. They reside on Mount Kenya’s agriculturally rich northeastern slopes, in Kenya’s Eastern Province. The name Meru refers to both the people and the location. Merus are primarily agrarian, raising a few domestic animals.
The Meru tribe is a fairly homogeneous group composed of nine sub-tribes, each of which speaks its own dialect of the Kimeru language. The Imenti dialect is common among the sub-tribes. Differences in the dialects reflect their varied Bantu origins and influences from the Cushites and Nilotes, as well as their Kikuyu and Kamba Bantu neighbors.
The Meru are agriculturalists who have done well due to the good climatic conditions of their land. The majority of Meru people are subsistence farmers who live on small family plots where they raise food and cash crops.
The Kikuyu tribe is a Bantu tribe that neighbors the Embu, Mbeere and Meru tribes around Mount Kenya. They are Kenya’s most popular and the largest ethnic tribe, making up 22 percent of the country’s population. The Kikuyus, also known as Gikuyu or Agikuyu, have been known since the colonial times as a tribe that wields a lot of political and economic influence in Kenya.
Kikuyus speak the Kikuyu language, and most of them live around the fertile central highlands and Mount Kenya where they mainly grow tea and coffee.
Kikuyus are believed to have come from West Africa along with other Bantu tribes. They finally settled along Mount Kenya where they began their main activity of farming the fertile volcanic highlands. Kikuyus were good friends with the Maasai and the two tribes often traded goods and inter-married.
The Luo tribe is Kenya’s third largest ethnic group following the Kikuyu and Luhya. Luos make up approximately 12 percent of Kenya’s population. Luos, a Nilotic people, also live in smaller numbers in Uganda and Tanzania. In Kenya, the Luo reside in the regions around Lake Victoria.
Historians believe that the Luo and other Kenyan Nilotic tribes originally came from the Nile regions of Sudan, entering Kenya through Northern Uganda. Upon their arrival in Kenya, Luos settled in the present day Nyanza Province, where they are neighbors to the Kisii, Luhya and Kipsigis tribes.
The Swahili tribe are a coastal people with a very rich historical and cultural heritage.
Some of the earliest inhabitants of the East African coast were their ancestors, Cushitic herdsmen. The Cushitic people were joined by Bantu speaking tribes, including the Mijikenda, with whom they freely inter-married. Other groups later migrated to this coastline, including Arab, Hindi, Portuguese, and Indonesian traders. They, too, intermarried with the indigenous people, giving rise to a new culture, people and language – the Swahili tribe.
Over time, groups of Swahili people spread along the entire East African coast, forming different cultural variations and dialects of the Swahili language. Today, the Swahili tribe reside in most of the coastal towns in Kenya and Tanzania, including Mombasa and Malindi, and on the Indian Ocean islands of Lamu, Pemba and Zanzibar.
The Arabic culture has had the greatest influence in shaping Swahili traditions. One major legacy of the Arab culture is the prevalence of the Islamic religion among the Swahili people. Islamic traditions govern nearly every aspect of the Swahili tribe’s culture, including food, clothing and lifestyle. Swahili children, for example, must attend Madrassa – religious classes in which they study the Koran and learn the Arabic language – from an early age. Unlike other Kenyan tribes, there are no specific rites of passage for young Swahili men and women.
Marriage marks the transition to adulthood. Swahili marriages are usually arranged by the parents. Though the bride’s parents will normally choose a groom for their daughter, she has the right to refuse her parents choice and select her own groom. Swahili weddings last several days and involve elaborate preparations, ceremonies and activities for both men and women. Only men are allowed in the mosque for the official marriage vows.
The traditional attire of a Swahili man is a long white (or beige) robe (or kaftans) known in Swahili as a kanzu and a small, white, rounded hat with elaborate embroidery. Swahili women dress in long black dresses called buibui, and cover their heads with a black cloth, known as a hijabu. It is also common to find Swahili women wearing a veil to cover their faces. Outside their traditional clothing, most Swahili men wear western-style pants and shirts, but revert to the traditional attire on Fridays, the official prayer day for Muslims, and during other important or religious occasions.
Swahili art is magnificently expressed in the design of carpets, rugs, porcelain, and jewelry, all of which reflect some Asian influence. The Swahili also incorporate unique architecture into the design of their homes and mosques. The town of Lamu in Kenya is perhaps the best place to see the finest Swahili architecture, art and crafts
The Kamba tribe (also called the Akamba) is a Bantu ethnic group residing in the semi-arid Eastern Province of Kenya. Their homeland stretches east from Nairobi towards the Tsavo and northeast to Embu.
Kambas make up about 11 percent of Kenya’s total population. They speak the Kamba (or Kikamba) language.
Kamba people have special skills in woodcarving and basketry. They are also involved in other activities such as hunting, farming and pastoralism. The Kamba tribe is renowned for their exceptional woodcarving and basketry skills. Their unique sculptures and weaved sisal baskets are sold in many curio shops, gift shops and art galleries in Kenya’s major cities and abroad. The men do the carving while Kamba women weave and decorate the fine work in baskets and pottery
The Kisii tribe (also known as the Gusii tribe) is a Bantu ethnic group who occupy the Kisii highlands in Nyanza, Western Kenya. Their home area is sandwiched between the Luo and Luhya tribes. Their highlands are also one of the most densely populated and fertile areas of Kenya. The Kisiis constitute the sixth largest ethnic group, comprising about seven percent of the national population. Kisii, which is their ethnic language, is also traditionally known as Ekegusii. Their closest tribe among the Bantus is the Meru tribe, who has a similar language and culture
The ancestral Gusii population entered western Kenya from Uganda and later moved from the foothills of Mount Elgon towards their present lands. They spent two generations living at Goye Bay near Lake Victoria before moving to the Kano plains and, later, to their present location due to the expansion of the Luo and Maasai tribes.
During the migration, Kisii family units became more inclusive and interdependent, forming clans. Each clan was headed by a clan leader, who was in charge of making decisions on behalf of the clan. The family head was still responsible for making the daily decisions in and around his homestead.
The Luhya tribe, also known as the Abaluhya, Baluhya, or Abaluyia, is a Bantu tribe living in Kenya’s agriculturally fertile western region. They are neighbors to some of the Nilotic tribes, including the Luo, Kalenjin, Maasai and Teso (Iteso). Luhyas are Kenya’s second largest ethnic tribe following the Kikuyu, and they account for 14 percent of the Kenyan population.
The true origin of the Abaluhya is disputable. According to their own oral literature, Luhyas migrated to their present day location from Egypt (north of Kenya). Some historians, however, believe that the Luhya came from Central and West Africa alongside other Bantus in what is known as the Great Bantu Migration.
The Luhya tribe, like many other Kenyan tribes, lost their most fertile land to the colonialists during the British colonial rule of Kenya.
The Kalenjin tribe belongs to the Nilotic ethnic group. These highland Nilotes include eight culturally and linguistically related groups or tribes, namely Kipsigis, Nandi, Tugen, Marakwet, Keiyo, Pokot, Sabaot and Terik. The Kalenjin languages spoken by these groups include the Keyo (Keiyo), Cherangany, Tugen, Nandi and Kipsigis (Kipsikiis, Kipsikis) languages.
The Kalenjin are renowned on a national and international level for their athletic prowess and they are sometimes referred to as Kenya’s running tribe. They are Kenya’s forth largest ethnic group, with the Kipsigis being the largest of the Kalenjin group.
The Mijikenda tribe is a Kenyan coastal Bantu tribe that consists of nine closely related sub-tribes.
In the past, the Mijikenda tribe was also referred to as the Nyika tribe, a near-derogatory term implying bush people.
“Mijikenda” literally means nine homes or nine homesteads(in Swahili), referring to the common ancestry of the Mijikenda people. The nine Mijikenda sub-tribes are believed to be nine different homes of the same tribe. Each sub-tribe speaks its own dialect of the Mijikenda language.
Among the nine Mijikenda sub-tribes, the Giriama and the Digo are the most well known, most populous, and therefore, most dominant along the Kenyan coast.
The other seven sub-tribes are the Chonyi, Duruma, Jibana, Kambe, Kauma, Rabai and Ribe. It’s very common for other Kenyan tribes to refer to all Mijikenda people simply as Giriama.
Mijikenda oral history traces the origin of the tribe to the southern regions of Somalia. It is believed that the Mijikenda people escaped constant attacks from the Oromo and other Cushitic tribes, and settled in the coastal ridges that were easier to defend.
Historically, the Mijikenda have had close interactions with the Persian, Arab, and Portuguese traders who frequented their home territory along the Kenyan coast. This interaction and subsequent intermarriage with the Arabs gave birth to the Swahili culture and language. As a result, the Swahili language – Kiswahili – bears a close lexical similarity with all dialects of the Mijikenda people.
The Turkana tribe is a nomadic pastoralist people that inhabit the Turkana district in Kenya’s Rift Valley Province.
This Kenyan Nilotic tribe constitutes the second largest pastoralist community in Kenya next to the Maasai.
They speak the Turkana language, which is Nilotic and similar to the Maasai language.
The Turkana, like the Samburu and Maasai, still maintain their undiluted traditional way of life. They are distinguished as being great survivors, living in harsh and inhospitable terrain.
As with all other pastoralist tribes in Kenya, livestock, especially cattle, are at the core of Turkana culture. The Turkana people live a nomadic life, always moving from one place to another depending on the availability of pasture and water for their animals.
The Turkana place such a high value on cattle that they often raid other tribes to acquire more animals. This may be seen as theft, but to the Turkana and other pastoralist tribes in Northern Kenya, it is a perfectly acceptable traditional custom. Cattle raids are common between Turkanas and their neighboring tribes, especially the Karamoja of Uganda, and the Pokot and Marakwet of Southern Kenya.
The Rendille tribe is a Cushitic tribe that inhabits the climatically harsh region between the Marsabit hills and Lake Turkana in Northern Kenya. Here they neighbor the Borana, Gabbra, Samburu and Turkana tribes. Rendille are semi-nomadic pastoralists whose most valued animal is the camel.
The original home of the Rendille people was in Ethiopia. They were forced to migrate south into Kenya because of their frequent conflicts with the Oromo tribe over pasture and water for their animals.
Since they lived on desert land with unfavorable climatic conditions, the British colonialists were not interested in overtaking their area and the Rendille tribe was, therefore, not very affected by colonial rule in Kenya.
Being pastoralists, the lifestyle of the Rendille revolves around their livestock. In the northern areas, camels are their main source of livelihood because camels are best adapted to the desert conditions that prevail in Northern Kenya. The camels are an important source of milk and meat for the Rendille people. When migrating to new pastures, the camels are also used to carry the family’s possessions in specially designed saddles.
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The Kamba tribe (also called the Akamba) is a Bantu ethnic group residing in the semi-arid Eastern Province of Kenya. Their homeland stretches east from Nairobi towards the Tsavo and northeast to Embu. |
Kambas make up about 11 percent of Kenya’s total population. They speak the Kamba (or Kikamba) language.
Kamba people have special skills in woodcarving and basketry. They are also involved in other activities such as hunting, farming and pastoralism.
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