Kalenjin people
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| 4,967,328 | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| Languages | |
| Kalenjin | |
| Religion | |
| Christianity, African Traditional Religion | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Maasai, Samburu, Turkana, other Nilotic peoples |
The Kalenjin are a Nilotic ethnic group inhabiting much of what was the Rift Valley Province in Kenya. They are estimated to number a little over 4.9 million individuals as per the Kenyan 2009 census.
Linguistic evidence points to the eastern Middle Nile Basin south of the Abbai River, as the ancient homelands of the Kalenjin. That is to say south-east of present day Khartoum. They were not a distinct group of people at this time but part of a wider society today referred to as Nilotic peoples.
The Nilotic point of unity is thought to have occurred sometime between 3000 and 2000 B.C. though the form that this unity took and much of their way of life at this time still remains unclear.
Beginning in the second millennium B.C., particular Nilotic communities began to move southward into present day South Sudan where most settled. However the societies today referred to as the Southern Nilotes pushed further on, reaching what is present day north-eastern Uganda by 1000 B.C.
Beginning around 700 BC, the Southern Nilotic speaking communities, i.e. the proto-Kalenjin, whose homelands lay somewhere near the common border between Sudan, Uganda, Kenya and Ethiopia moved south into the western highlands and Rift Valley region of Kenya. Their arrival in Kenya occurred shortly before the introduction of iron to East Africa. Contemporary studies, supported by a number of historical narratives from the various Kalenjin sub-tribes point to Tulwetab/Tuluop Kony (Mount Elgon) as their original point of settlement in Kenya.
They settled next to and were deeply influenced by Southern Cushitic societies that had preceded them in Kenya. This impact was most notable in borrowed loan words, adoption of the practice of circumcision and the cyclical system of age-set organisation. An old Nandi tradition that may contain elements of historicity states that circumcision was introduced by a man called Kipkenyo who came from a country called Do (Tto).
The past distribution of the Southern Nilotic (Kalenjin) speakers, as inferred from place names, loan words and oral traditions includes the known distribution of Elmenteitan sites.
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Wikipedia