Luhya (ethnicity)

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Tiriki

The Luhya (Luyia, Luhia) are a Bantu-speaking population group in East Africa, most of whom live in the Western Province (capital: Kakamega ) of Kenya in the region around Mount Elgon as far as Uganda .

With almost five million members and thus around 14% of the population, they are the second largest ethnic group in Kenya.

Luhya today means both the language Luhya and the ethnic group. The name Luhya only emerged around the middle of the 20th century. It was used to encompass a number of ethnic groups whose languages ​​were closely related, whose culture, politics and social structures were very similar, and who lived in relative proximity to one another in the western part of the British colony of Kenya, but apart from that they were independent political and social entities were. The awareness of a common Luhya identity, which was mainly fed by the difference to the neighboring Nilotic-speaking groups, always competed with belonging to the respective ethnic subgroup, the most important of which were the Maragoli, Bukusu, Nyore, Hanga (Wanga), Idakho, Kisa, Isukha, Tiriki, Kabras, Gisu and Saamia count. One clan lives in northern Tanzania and four in Uganda .

history

Pre-colonial period

Presumably the Luhya-speaking groups immigrated from the area of ​​what is now Uganda to their present habitat in the 15th century, in search of fertile land and in an effort to avoid conflicts in the previous settlement area. They formed small political units, some of which entered into alliances with one another, married and traded with one another, but also fought armed conflicts among one another.

The political units of the Luhya-speaking groups were relatively small and not very centralized. The highest political bodies were the councils of elders of a clan or family association, to which a religious authority was placed. The economic basis was agriculture and animal husbandry.

In the 19th century the social fabric of societies changed. Due to the increasing caravan trade from the coast of the Indian Ocean , the groups that lived near the caravan routes suffered from the slave hunts in particular. Other groups acted as middlemen for slaves and ivory , collected road tariffs and obtained firearms and prestige European goods by trading in food necessary for the caravans. Through the alliance with the caravan dealers, the Wanga group managed to maintain a dominant position within the area. They were the most centralized group in which the position of the political leader, the nabongo, was hereditary. When Chief Mumia took over the official duties from his father in 1883, his seat, the town of Mumias , became the most important location for caravan traders on the coast. Mumias became the first British base in the area when British adventurers and travelers came in the wake of the Swahili caravans .

At the time of the British advance into the Mount Elgon region at the end of the 19th century, the Luhya consisted of 21 politically independent, but linguistically and culturally similar societies. These units were formed from clans, which themselves mostly represented politically autonomous groups and used different names. In addition to the Wanga, the Bukusu also knew how to assert themselves in times of change. Living in fortified villages, acquiring firearms and organizing military units, they became the Wanga's main rivals. The European comers, on the other hand, referred to all residents of western Kenya as Kavirondo , classifying the Nilotic-speaking Luo groups living in the south-west around Lake Victoria as Hamitic , those in the Mount Elgon area as Bantu .

Colonial rule

Joseph Thomson was the first European who entered the Luhya area in 1883 and met nabongo Mumia. Mumias also became the central base camp for the British administrators who followed the first whites. Mumia provided them with food and provided local guides and warriors, while the British, in turn, contributed with military support to the expansion of its territories, its power and its reputation. Land for a first mission station of the Church Missionary Society was also given. In 1895 the colonial administrator Charles William Hobley established the first permanent administrative post in West Kenya in Mumias. With the support of the nabongo Mumia, he undertook punitive expeditions against those neighboring groups that opposed the British conquest. The Bukusu , in particular , resisted the British claims and were able to assert themselves through their skillful warfare over a series of battles until they were finally defeated with great losses in 1895 .

In an attempt to install the colonial administration on the principle of indirect rule , the British, like almost everywhere in Kenya, also set up a so-called Paramount Chief in the Luhya area - in the newly founded district of North Nyanza . Since there had previously been no political authority over the entire population, the colonial administration elected Chief Mumia, who was already known to them, for this position in 1909 . Mumia used this position to expand his power among the Luhya and appointed a number of relatives as chiefs in various areas of the district that had not previously been under his influence. Like Mumia herself, they too abused their position to enrich themselves, particularly on land, which led to conflicts with the local councils of elders and general animosity against the Wanga among Luhya groups. In addition, these conflicts strengthened loyalty to one's own clan or ethnic group and fostered ethnic rivalries. Even when the Wanga chiefs were gradually replaced by local people in the 1930s, ethnic identity remained an important category in order to wrestle with the colonial administration for land, infrastructural improvements and political autonomy.

With the colonial conquest, various missionary societies also established themselves in the area, opening schools and attracting young Africans in particular. As among the various ethnic groups, rivalries also emerged among the supporters of various missions.

Not only because of the gold rush of the 1920s in the area of ​​the district capital Kakamega , a relative prosperity prevailed in the region, but also because only small areas were affected by land expropriations like in central Kenya.

In the 1930s, the Bukusu formed the religious-political group Dini ya Msambwa , which, under its leader Elijah Masinde, massively agitated and acted against representatives of British colonial rule. The group was banned and persecuted by the colonial administration and was the most active resistance group in Kenya by the late 1940s. Even if some colonial officials feared at the beginning of the Mau Mau War that the Dini ya Msambwa might ally themselves with the Mau Mau fighters in central Kenya, there were probably only few and loose connections between the two movements.

Society and culture

The Luhya practice circumcision of the young. The infibulation of girls but is rejected by most Luhya for decades and hardly complete. Today most of the Luhya are Christians, although the rivalries between the followers of the various missionary denominations continued. God is called “Nyasaye”, a word borrowed from the neighboring Luo . Many Bukusu still belonged to the Dini ya Msambwa, whose god is called "Were" (the divine name of the traditional religion of the Bukusu) and who has his seat on Mount Elgon.

The Luhya are divided into numerous ethnic groups. This fragmentation has always meant that the voting power of the Luhyas, after all the second largest ethnic group in the country, could not be used in the crowning presidency or even in the candidacy for the highest presidency of one of their leading politicians. With Michael Kijana Wamalwa , after the victory of the Rainbow Coalition in 12/2003, they appointed the 8th Vice President of Kenya and, after his death on August 23, 2003, the successor Moody Awori . However, the latter lost his seat in parliament after the December 2007 elections.

The most famous traditional musical instrument of the Luhya is the usually seven-stringed veil litungu . Other musical instruments include the one to two-string tubular spit violin siilili (corresponds to the endingidi of the Baganda in Uganda), the single-headed barrel drum engoma , for which an upside-down plastic water canister is used as an alternative, the wooden box siiye , which is beaten with sticks and tied around the legs of dancers clamps bichenje , the hand bells chinyimba that Holzstöcke chimbengele , which is beaten to a block of wood lying on the ground, and the short, transverse blown animal horn lulwika .

AFC Leopards is one of the most famous football clubs in East and Central Africa. The club was founded in 1964 under the name Abaluhya Football Club to represent the large Kenyan Luhya community in football. Even today he is in particular rivalry with the Luo Union Football Club . The club gains importance through numerous players who have become known nationally and continually. B. Wilberforce Mulamba , Joe Masiga (who also played rugby ), Livingstone Madegwa , Joe Kadenge and John Shoto Lukoye .

Famous Luhya are: Masinde Muliro , Michael Kijana Wamalwa , Eric Edward Khasakhala , Elijah Masinde , Joshua Angatia , Moses Mudavadi , Wycliffe Musalia Mudavadi , Moody Awori , Martin Shikuku , Fedelis Omulo Gumo , Burudi Nabwera and Maxwell Shamalla .

literature

  • John Lonsdale: The Politics of Conquest in Western Kenya, 1894-1908. In: Bruce Berman, John Lonsdale: Unhappy Valley, Conflict in Kenya & Africa. London 1992, pp. 45-74.
  • J. Osogo: A History of the Baluyia. Nairobi 1966, OCLC 340186 .
  • Gunter Wagner: The Bantu of North Kavirondo. Volume 1, London 1949, OCLC 278664893 , pp. 30-40.
  • Gideon S. Were: A History of the Abaluyia of Western Kenya c. 1500-1930. Nairobi 1967, OCLC 317817 .
  • Audrey Wipper: Rural Rebels. A Study of Two Protest Movements in Kenya. Oxford 1977, ISBN 0-19-572430-5 , pp. 88-304.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ 1989 Kenya Population Census 1989.
  2. ↑ Abigael Nancy Masasabi: Verbal Text as Process of compositional and Improvisational elaboration in Bukusu Litungu Music . (Dissertation) University of South Africa, 2011, p. 16