Kavirondo facts for kids
Kavirondo is the old name of the region around Kavirondo Gulf (now Winam Gulf) as well as of two native peoples living there under the regime of British East Africa (The "Nilotic Kavirondo" and the "Bantu Kavirondo"). Broadly, this was defined as those who dwelt in the valley of the Nzoia River, on the western slopes of Mount Elgon, and along the northeast coast of Victoria Nyanza.
Suggested origins of the name "Kavirondo" include
- From local young warriors, armed with spears, bows, arrows, & clubs, who were observed to sit on their heels, which in Kiswahili is kaa virondo. Thus the region became Kavirondo, the inhabitants pejoratively called wa-Kavirondo: “people who sit on their heels”
- From kaba-londo: In Buganda two unusual words related to royalty were combined, kabaka, the king & namu-londo, the stool used as throne on which the king is crowned.
Origins and divisions
Kavirondo is the general name of two distinct groups of tribes: The Bantu immigrated from the south and the other Nilotic, came from the north. The Bantu appear to have been the first. The Nilotic tribes are probably an offshoot of the Acholi. They appear to have crossed the lake to reach their current home, the country around Kavirondo Gulf. Of the two groups the Bantu now occupy a more northerly position than their neighbors, and are practically the most northerly representatives of that race (Hobley). Their further progress north was stopped by the southward movement of the Nilotic tribes, while the Nilotic Kavirondo in their turn had their wanderings arrested by an irruption of Elgumi people (themselves probably of Nilotic origin) from the east.
The Bantu Kavirondo are divided into three principal types: the Awa-Rimi, the Awa-Ware and the Awa-Kisii. Their Bantu neighbors call the Nilotic Kavirondo Ja-Mwa. The generic name for the Nilotic tribes is Ja-Luo, but the Bantu Kavirondo call them Awa-Nyoro. The two groups have many characteristics in common.
The Kavirondo have many tribes, divided, Sir H. H. Johnston suspects, totemically.
Religion and beliefs
They appears to practice a vague ancestor worship, but the northern tribes have two gods, Awafwa and Ishishemi, the spirits of good and evil. To the former, cattle and goats are sacrificed.
The Kavirondo have great faith in divination from the entrails of a sheep. Nearly everybody and everything are ominous of good or evil to the Kavirondo.
They have few myths or traditions; the antbear is the chief figure in their beast-legends.
They believe in witchcraft and practice trial by ordeal.
Economy
The Kavirondo are essentially an agricultural people: both men and women work in the fields with large iron hoes. In addition to sorghum, Eleusine and maize, tobacco and hemp are both cultivated and smoked. Both sexes smoke, but the use of hemp is restricted to men and unmarried women, as it is thought to injure child-bearing women. Hemp is smoked in a hubble-bubble. The Kavirondo cultivate sesamum and make an oil from its seeds which they burn in little clay lamps of the ancient saucer type, the pattern being, in Hobley's opinion, introduced into the country by the coast people.
The Kavirondo keep cattle, sheep, goats, fowls and a few dogs. Women do not eat sheep, fowls or eggs, and are not allowed to drink milk except when mixed with other things. The flesh of the wild cat and leopard is esteemed by most of the tribes. Among the Bantu Kavirondo goats and sheep are suffocated, the snout being held until the animal dies. From Eleusine a beer is made.
The Kavirondo are plucky hunters, capturing the hippopotamus with ropes and traps, and attacking with spears the largest elephants. Fish, of which they are very fond, are caught by line and rod or in traps. Bee-keeping is common, and where trees are scarce the hives are placed on the roof of the hut.
Traditional Kavirondo industries are salt-making, effected by burning reeds and water-plants and passing water through the ashes; the smelting of iron ore (confined to the Bantu tribes); pottery and basket-work.
