East Africa has a rich mosaic of tribal cultures, with over 300 different groups in an area roughly one-quarter of the size of Australia. Their traditions are expressed through splendid ceremonial attire, pulsating dance rhythms, refined artistry and highly organised community structures, and experiencing these will likely be a highlight of your travels.
The Akamba, who live east of Nairobi towards Tsavo National Park, first migrated here from the south about 200 years ago in search of food. Because their own low-altitude land was poor, they were forced to barter for food stocks from the neighbouring Maasai and Kikuyu peoples. Soon, they acquired a reputation as savvy traders, with business dealings (including in ivory, beer, honey, iron weapons and ornaments) extending from the coast inland to Lake Victoria and north to Lake Turkana. Renowned also for their martial prowess, many Akamba were drafted into Britain’s WWI army, and today they are still well represented among Kenyan defence and law enforcement brigades.
In the 1930s, the British colonial administration settled large numbers of white farmers in traditional Akamba lands and tried to limit the number of cattle the Akamba could own by confiscating them. In protest, the Akamba formed the Ukamba Members Association, which marched en masse to Nairobi and squatted peacefully at Kariokor Market until their cattle were returned. Large numbers of Akamba were subsequently dispossessed to make way for Tsavo National Park.
All Akamba go through initiation rites at about the age of 12, and have the same age-based groups common to many of the region’s peoples. Young parents are known as ‘junior elders’ (mwanake for men, mwiitu for women) and are responsible for the maintenance and upkeep of the village. They later become ‘medium elders’ (nthele), and then ‘full elders’ (atumia ma kivalo), with responsibility for death ceremonies and administering the law. The last stage of a person’s life is that of ‘senior elder’ (atumia ma kisuka), with responsibility for holy places.
The East African coast is home to the Swahili (‘People of the Coast’), descendants of Bantu-Arab traders who share a common language and traditions. Although generally not regarded as a single tribal group, the Swahili have for centuries had their own distinct societal structures, and consider themselves to be a single civilisation.
Swahili culture first began to take on a defined form around the 11th century, with the rise of Islam. Today most Swahili are adherents of Islam, although it’s generally a more liberal version than that practised in the Middle East. Thanks to this Islamic identity, the Swahili have traditionally considered themselves to be historically and morally distinct from peoples in the interior, with links eastwards towards the rest of the Islamic world.
Swahili festivals follow the Islamic calendar. The year begins with Eid al-Fitr, a celebration of feasting and almsgiving to mark the end of Ramadan fasting. The old Persian new year’s purification ritual of Nauroz or Mwaka was also traditionally celebrated, with the parading of a bull counter clockwise through town followed by its slaughter and several days of dancing and feasting. In many areas, Nauroz has now become merged with Eid al-Fitr and is no longer celebrated. The festival of maulidi (marking the birth of the Prophet) is another Swahili festival, marked by decorated mosques and colourful street processions.
The World of the Swahili by John Middleton is a good place to start for anyone wanting to learn more about Swahili life and culture.
Uganda’s largest tribal group, the Baganda, comprise almost 20% of the population and are the source of the country’s name (‘Land of the Baganda’; their kingdom is known as Buganda). Although today the Baganda are spread throughout the country, their traditional lands are in the areas north and northwest of Lake Victoria, including Kampala. Due to significant missionary activity most Baganda are Christian, although animist traditions persist.
The Baganda, together with the neighbouring Haya, have a historical reputation as one of East Africa’s most highly organised tribes. Their traditional political system was based around the absolute power of the kabaka (king), who ruled through district chiefs. This system reached its zenith during the 19th century, when the Baganda came to dominate various neighbouring groups, including the Nilotic Iteso (who now comprise about 8% of Uganda’s population). Baganda influence was solidified during the colonial era, with the British favouring their recruitment to the civil service. During the chaotic Obote/Amin years of the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Bagandan monarchy was abolished; it was restored in 1993, although it has no political power.
The Cushitic-speaking El-Molo are a small tribe, numbering less than 4000. Historically the El-Molo were one of the region’s more distinct groups, but in recent times they have been forced to adapt or relinquish many of their old customs in order to survive, and intermarriage with other tribes is common.
The El-Molo, whose ancestral home is on two small islands in the middle of Kenya’s Lake Turkana, traditionally subsisted on fish, supplemented by the occasional crocodile, turtle, hippopotamus or bird. Over the years an ill-balanced diet and the effects of too much fluoride began to take their toll. The El-Molo became increasingly susceptible to disease and, thus weakened, to attacks from stronger tribes. Their numbers plummeted.
Today the El-Molo face an uncertain future. While some continue to eke out a living from the lake, others have turned to cattle herding or work in the tourism industry. Commercial fishing supplements their traditional subsistence and larger, more permanent settlements in Loyangalani, on Lake Turkana’s southeastern shores, have replaced the El-Molo’s traditional dome-shaped island homes.
The area close to Lake Eyasi in Tanzania is home to the Hadzabe (also known as Hadzapi, Hadza or Tindiga) people who are believed to have lived here for nearly 10,000 years. The Hadzabe are often said to be the last true hunter-gatherers in East Africa and of the around 1000 who remain, between one-quarter and one-third still live according to traditional ways.
Traditional Hadzabe live a subsistence existence, usually in bands or camps of 20 to 30 people with no tribal or hierarchical structures. Families engage in communal child-rearing, and food and all other resources are shared throughout the camp. Camps are often moved, sometimes due to illness, death or the need to resolve conflicts, while camps may even relocate to the site of a large kill, such as a giraffe; one enduring characteristic of Hadzabe society is that their possessions are so few, each person may carry everything they own on their backs when they travel.
The Hadzabe language is characterised by clicks and may be distantly related to that of southern Africa’s San, although it shows only a few connections to Sandawe, the other click language spoken in Tanzania, and genetic studies have shown no close link between the Hadzabe and any other East African peoples.
The clash between traditional and Western ways of life in East Africa is particularly apparent among the region’s hunter-gatherer and forest-dwelling peoples. These include the Twa, who live in the western forests of Rwanda and Burundi, where they comprise less than 1% of the overall population, and the Hadzabe (or Hadza), in north-central Tanzania around Lake Eyasi. Typically, these communities are among the most marginalised peoples in East African society.
For the Twa and the Hadzabe, the loss of land and forest is the loss of their only resource base. With the rise of commercial logging, the ongoing clearing of forests in favour of agricultural land, and the establishment of parks and conservation areas, the forest resources and wildlife on which they depend have dramatically decreased. Additional pressures come from hunting and poaching, and from nomadic pastoralists (many of whom have also been evicted from their own traditional areas) seeking grazing lands for their cattle.
Although some Hadzabe have turned to tourism and craft-making for subsistence, the benefits of these are sporadic. Some now only hunt for the benefit of tourists, and others have given up their traditional lifestyle completely. In Rwanda, the Twa have begun mobilising to gain increased political influence and greater access to health care and education.
The Haya, who live west of Lake Victoria around Bukoba, have both Bantu and Nilotic roots, and are one of the largest tribes in Tanzania. They have a rich history, and in the precolonial era boasted one of the most highly developed early societies on the continent.
At the heart of traditional Haya society were eight different states or kingdoms, each headed by a powerful and often despotic mukama (ruler), who ruled in part by divine right. Order was maintained through a system of chiefs and officials, assisted by an age group–based army. With the rise of European influence in the region, this era of Haya history came to an end. The various groups began to splinter, and many chiefs were replaced by persons considered more malleable and sympathetic to colonial interests.
Resentment of these propped-up leaders was strong, spurring the Haya to regroup and form the Bukoba Bahaya Union in 1924, which soon developed into the more influential and broad-based African Association. Together with similar groups established elsewhere in Tanzania, it constituted one of the country’s earliest political movements and was an important force in the drive towards independence.
The Hutu and the Tutsi are related peoples of Bantu origin who live in Burundi, Rwanda, eastern regions of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda. The Hutus are the majority ethnic group in both Burundi (where 85% of the population is Hutu, 14% Tutsi) and Rwanda (84% and 15% respectively).
Almost every aspect of shared Hutu-Tutsi history is disputed and ethnic conflicts between the two groups were a recurring theme throughout much of the 20th century. The Belgian colonial authorities favoured the Tutsi as the ruling elite. After independence, the battle for political power between the Hutu and Tutsi caused great instability in both Burundi and Rwanda. In 1993, an estimated 500,000 Burundians died in a little-reported genocide, followed a year later by the Rwandan genocide in which more than 800,000 people were killed.
Both Hutu and Tutsi speak the same Bantu language (Kinyarwanda in Rwanda, Kirundi in Burundi) and some scholars argue that the difference between the two groups is one of caste rather than any ethnic distinction. Intermarriage between the two groups was traditionally common. Both Hutu and Tutsi are predominantly Christian, although many maintain traditional beliefs in which the spirits of ancestors play an important role.
The Kalenjin are one of Kenya’s largest groups. Together with the Kikuyu, Luo, Luyha and Kamba, they account for about 70% of the country’s population. Although often viewed as a single ethnic entity, the term ‘Kalenjin’ was actually coined in the 1950s to refer to a loose collection of several different Nilotic groups, including the Kipsigis, Nandi, Marakwet, Pokot and Tugen (former Kenyan president Daniel arap Moi’s people). These groups speak different dialects of the same language (Nandi), but otherwise have distinct traditions and lifestyles. Due to the influence of arap Moi, the Kalenjin have amassed considerable political power in Kenya. They are also known for their female herbalist doctors, and for their many world-class runners.
The traditional homeland of the various Kalenjin peoples is along the western edge of the central Rift Valley area, including Kericho, Eldoret, Kitale, Baringo and the land surrounding Mt Elgon. Originally pastoralists, Kalenjin today are known primarily as farmers. An exception to this are the cattle-loving Kipsigi, whose cattle rustling continues to cause friction between them and neighbouring tribes.
The Nandi, who are the second largest of the Kalenjin communities, and comprise about one-third of all Kalenjin, settled in the Nandi Hills between the 16th and 17th centuries, where they prospered after learning agricultural techniques from the Luo and Luyha. They had a formidable military reputation and, in the late 19th century, managed to delay construction of the Uganda railway for more than a decade until Koitalel, their chief, was killed.
The marginalised Karamojong, at home in Karamoja, in northeastern Uganda, are one of East Africa’s most insulated, beleaguered and colourful tribes. As with the Samburu, Maasai and other Nilotic pastoralist peoples, life for the Karamojong centres around cattle, which are kept at night in the centre of the family living compound and graze by day on the surrounding plains. Cattle are the main measure of wealth, ownership is a mark of adulthood, and cattle raiding and warfare are central parts of the culture. When cattle are grazed in dry-season camps away from the family homestead, the Karamojong warriors tending them live on blood from live cattle, milk and sometimes meat. In times of scarcity, protection of the herd is considered so important that milk is reserved for calves and children.
The Karamojong have long been subjected to often heavy-handed government pressure to abandon their pastoralist lifestyle; their plight has been exacerbated by periodic famines, as well as the loss of their traditional dry-season grazing areas with the formation of Kidepo Valley National Park in the 1960s. While current Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni has permitted the Karamojong to keep arms to protect themselves against raids from other groups, including the Turkana in neighbouring Kenya, government expeditions targeted at halting cattle raiding continue. These raids and expeditions, combined with easy access to weapons from neighbouring South Sudan and a breakdown of law and order, have made the Karamoja area off-limits to outsiders in recent years.
The Kikuyu, who comprise about 22% of Kenya’s population and are the country’s largest tribal group, have their heartland surrounding Mt Kenya. They are Bantu peoples who are believed to have migrated into the area from the east and northeast from around the 16th century onwards, and have undergone several periods of intermarriage and splintering. According to Kikuyu oral traditions, there are nine original mwaki (clans), each tracing its origins back to male and female progenitors known as Kikuyu and Mumbi. The administration of these clans, each of which is made up of many family groups (nyumba), was originally overseen by a council of elders, with great significance placed on the roles of the witch doctor, medicine man and blacksmith.
Initiation rites consist of ritual circumcision for boys and female genital mutilation for girls, though the latter is becoming less common. The practice was a source of particular conflict between the Kikuyu and Western missionaries during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The issue eventually became linked with the independence struggle, and the establishment of independent Kikuyu schools.
The Kikuyu are also known for the opposition association they formed in the 1920s to protest European seizure of large areas of their lands, and for their subsequent instigation of the Mau Mau rebellion in the 1950s. Due to the influence of Jomo Kenyatta, Kenya’s first president, the Kikuyu today are disproportionately represented in business and government (President Mwai Kibaki is a Kikuyu). This has proved to be a source of ongoing friction with other groups.
The Luo live on the northeastern shores of Lake Victoria. They began their migration to the area from Sudan around the 15th century. Although their numbers are relatively small in Tanzania, in Kenya they comprise about 12% of the population and are the country’s third-largest tribal group.
During the independence struggle, many of Kenya’s leading politicians and trade unionists were Luo and they continue to form the backbone of the Kenyan political opposition.
The Luo have had an important influence on the East African musical scene. They are notable especially for their contribution to the highly popular benga style, which has since been adopted by musicians from many other tribes.
The Luo were originally cattle herders, but the devastating effects of rinderpest in the 1890s forced them to adopt fishing and subsistence agriculture, which are now the main sources of livelihood for most Luo today. Luo family groups consist of the man, his wife or wives, and their sons and daughters-in-law. The family unit is part of a larger grouping of families or dhoot (clan), several of which make up ogandi (a group of geographically related people), each led by a ruoth (chief). Traditional Luo living compounds are enclosed by fences, and include separate huts for the man and for each wife and son. The Luo consider age, wealth and respect as converging, with the result that elders control family resources and represent the family to the outside world.
The Maasai are pastoral nomads who have actively resisted change, and many still follow the same lifestyle the Maasai have had for centuries. Their traditional culture centres on their cattle, which along with their land, are considered sacred. Cows provide many of their needs: milk, blood and meat for their diet, and hides and skins for clothing, although sheep and goats also play an important dietary role, especially during the dry season.
Maasai society is patriarchal and highly decentralised. Maasai boys pass through a number of transitions during their life, the first of which is marked by the circumcision rite. Successive stages include junior warriors, senior warriors, junior elders and senior elders; each level is distinguished by its own unique rights, responsibilities and dress. Junior elders, for example, are expected to marry and settle down, somewhere between ages 30 and 40. Senior elders assume the responsibility of making wise and moderate decisions for the community. The most important group is that of the newly initiated warriors, moran, who are charged with defending the cattle herds.
Maasai women play a markedly subservient role and have no inheritance rights. Polygamy is widespread and marriages are arranged by the elders, without consulting the bride or her mother. Since most women are significantly younger than men at the time of marriage, they often become widows; remarriage is rare.
The Samburu, who live directly north of Mt Kenya, are closely related to the Maasai linguistically and culturally.
The Makonde are famed throughout East Africa and beyond for their highly refined ebony woodcarvings. The tribe has its origins in northern Mozambique, where many Makonde still live; although in recent years a subtle split has begun to develop between the group’s Tanzanian and Mozambican branches. Today, most Tanzanian Makonde live in southeastern Tanzania on the Makonde plateau, although many members of the carving community have since migrated to Dar es Salaam.
The Makonde are matrilineal. Although customs are gradually changing, children and inheritances normally belong to the woman, and it’s still common for husbands to move to the villages of their wives after marriage. Makonde settlements are widely scattered (possibly a remnant of the days when the Makonde sought to evade slave raids), and there is no tradition of a unified political system. Despite this, a healthy sense of tribal identity has managed to survive. Makonde villages are typically governed by a hereditary chief and a council of elders. The Makonde traditionally practised body scarring, and many elders still sport facial markings and (for women) wooden lip plugs.
Because of their remote location, the Makonde have succeeded in remaining largely insulated from colonial and postcolonial influences. They are known in particular for their steady resistance to Islam. Today, most Makonde follow traditional religions, with the complex spirit world given its fullest expression in their carvings.
During the colonial era in Kenya, it was largely Maasai land that was taken for European colonisation through two controversial treaties. The creation of Serengeti National Park in Tanzania and the continuing colonial annexation of Maasai territory put many of the traditional grazing lands and waterholes of the Maasai off-limits. During subsequent years, as populations of both the Maasai and their cattle increased, pressure for land became intense and conflict with the authorities was constant. Government-sponsored resettlement programs have met with only limited success, as Maasai traditions scorn agriculture and land ownership.
One consequence of this competition for land is that many Maasai ceremonial traditions can no longer be fulfilled. Part of the ceremony where a man becomes a moran (warrior) involves a group of young men around the age of 14 going out and building a small livestock camp after their circumcision ceremony. They then live alone there for up to eight years before returning to the village to marry. Today, while the tradition and will survive, land is often unavailable.
The Bantu-speaking Pare inhabit the Pare mountains in northeastern Tanzania, where they migrated several centuries ago from the Taita Hills area of southern Kenya.
The Pare are one of Tanzania’s most educated groups. Despite their small numbers, they have been highly influential in shaping Tanzania’s recent history. In the 1940s they formed the Wapare Union, which played an important role in the independence drive.
The Pare are also known for their rich oral traditions, and for their elaborate rituals centring on the dead. Near most villages are sacred areas in which the skulls of tribal chiefs are kept. When people die, they are believed to inhabit a netherworld between the land of the living and the spirit world. If they are allowed to remain in this state, ill fate will befall their descendants. As a result, rituals allowing the deceased to pass peacefully into the world of the ancestors hold great significance. Traditional Pare beliefs hold that when an adult male dies, others in his lineage will die as well until the cause of his death has been found and ‘appeased.’ Many of the possible reasons for death have to do with disturbances in moral relations within the lineage or in the village, or with sorcery.
The Sukuma, Bantu speakers from southern Lake Victoria, comprise almost 15% of Tanzania’s total population, although it is only relatively recently that they have come to view themselves as a single entity. They are closely related to the Nyamwezi, Tanzania’s second-largest tribal group around Tabora.
The Sukuma are renowned for their drumming and for their dancing. Lively meetings between their two competing dance societies, the Bagika and the Bagulu, are a focal point of tribal life.
The Sukuma are also known for their highly structured form of village organisation in which each settlement is subdivided into chiefdoms ruled by a ntemi (chief) in collaboration with a council of elders. Divisions of land and labour are made by village committees consisting of similarly aged members from each family in the village. These age-based groups perform numerous roles, ranging from assisting with the building of new houses to farming and other community-oriented work. As a result of this system, which gives most families at least a representational role in many village activities, Sukuma often view houses and land as communal property.
Age-based groups (in which all youths of the same age belong to a group, and pass through the various stages of life and their associated rituals together) continue to play an important role in tribal life throughout much of East Africa. Each group has its own leader and community responsibilities, and definition of the age-based groups is often highly refined. Among the Sukuma, for example, who live in the area south of Lake Victoria, each age-based group traditionally had its own system for counting from one to 10, with the system understood by others within the group, but not by members of other groups. Among the Maasai, who have one of the most highly stratified age-group systems in the region, males are organised into age groups and further into sub-groups, with inter-group rivalries and relationships one of the defining features of daily life.
The colourful Turkana are a Nilotic people who live in the harsh desert country of northwestern Kenya where they migrated from South Sudan and northeastern Uganda. Although the Turkana only emerged as a distinct tribal group during the early to mid-19th century, they are notable today for their strong sense of tribal identification. The Turkana are closely related linguistically and culturally to Uganda’s Karamojong.
Like the Samburu and the Maasai (with whom they are also linguistically linked), the Turkana are primarily cattle herders, although in recent years increasing numbers have turned to fishing and subsistence farming. Personal relationships based on the exchange of cattle, and built up by each herd owner during the course of a lifetime, are of critical importance in Turkana society and function as a social security net during times of need.
The Turkana are famous for their striking appearance and traditional garb. Turkana men cover part of their hair with mud, which is then painted blue and decorated with ostrich and other feathers. Despite the intense heat of the Turkana lands, the main garment is a woollen blanket, often with garish checks. Turkana accessories include a stool carved out of a single piece of wood, a wooden fighting staff and a wrist knife. Tattooing is another hallmark of Turkana life. Witch doctors and prophets are held in high regard, and scars on the lower stomach are usually a sign of a witch doctor’s attempt to cast out an undesirable spirit. Traditionally, Turkana men were tattooed on the shoulder and upper arm for killing an enemy – the right shoulder for killing a man, the left for a woman.
In addition to personal adornment, other important forms of artistic expression include finely crafted carvings and refined a cappella singing. Ceremonies play a less significant role among the Turkana than among many of their neighbours, and they do not practice circumcision or female genital mutilation.