Maragoli tribe (Luhya)

The Maragoli, or Logoli (Ava-Logooli), are now the second-largest ethnic group of the 6 million-strong Luhya nation in Kenya, numbering around 2.1 million, or 15% of the Luhya people according to the last Kenyan census. Their language is called "Logoli", "Lulogooli", "Ululogooli", or "Maragoli".

Maragoli also refers to the area that the descendants of a man called Mulogooli (also known as Maragoli) settled and occupied in the thirteenth century AD. Maragoli clans include the Va-Gonda, Va-Mavi, Va-Sachi, Va-Saniaga, Va-Vulughi, Va-Ndega, Va-sari, Va-ng'ang'a, Va-Yonga. (The prefix Va- refers to people, and is sometimes written Ba-, Ava-, or Aba-.)

Maragoli history records a migration from North-East Africa. The story of the Maragoli people begins with a man called Mulogoli. He was descended from Kintu, who led the progenitors of the Luhya to their current area from an area they called Misri, now known commonly as Northern Sudan and Egypt.

When the Luhya progenitors first arrived in what is now northern Kenya, Southern Ethiopia and Southern Sudan, the ruler of the Luhyas at the time was Kitanga. The Turkana people later came to occupy the area where the Luhya ancestors had settled, and called it Lok-Kitang meaning 'the place of Kitang.' (Lokitaung is a modern town in North-Western Kenya).

Mulogoli was born from the union of Andimi and Mwanzu. Andimi had three wives: Mwanzu the mother of Mulogoli; Amugovolie who had no children and Ndiegu the mother of Mwenje or Anyole (these are the Wanyore, who inhabit Vihiga district together with the Maragoli). Naturally the Nyores and Maragoli are one, they are from the same stock, the stock of Andimi. Mulogoli had a wife called Khaliyesa. She had four male children. These four make the four major clans. The children were: Musaali; Kizungu; Kilima and M'mavi.

In Maragoli, the word 'Abaluhya' or 'Avaluhya' is pronounced as A(b/v)a-roo-shia, ('b' and 'v' are interchangeable) which means, "the people of the North," "the people of the higher place," "the people from the North," or simply "Northerners."

Luhya ancestors moved further south, probably along the Turkwel river. The Turkwel's principal source is the Suam river. Luhyas, a people who needed a constant source of water for their crops, animals and various industries like metalworking, and building, kept moving along the Suam River depending on various environmental or human triggers, into what is now Western Kenya and Eastern Uganda, and settled near the source of that river, Mt. Elgon.

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