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Migrations of the Bantu-Speaking Peoples of the Eastern Kenya Highlands: A Reappraisal

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

J. Forbes Munro
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Extract

Historians have frequently included the Bantu-speaking peoples of the eastern Kenya Highlands—Kikuyu, Embu, Mbere, Kamba, Meru, etc.—in the general migrations of the North Eastern Bantu from Shungwaya. The most authoritative statement in support of this view is set out in H. E. Lambert's The Systems of Land Tenure in the Kikuyu Land Unit: Part 1, History of the Tribal Occupation of the Land. However, only the Meru have oral traditions pointing to a Shungwaya origin, and chronological and linguistic evidence which Lambert presents himself suggests that the Meru experience may not be typical of this group of peoples. As evidence is lacking in their own traditions, proof of the migrations of the Kikuyu–Embu–Kamba from Shungwaya can only come from archaeology.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 8 , Issue 1 , March 1967 , pp. 25 - 28
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1967

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References

1 Oliver, R. and Matthew, C., History of East Africa, I (Oxford, 1963), 130.Google Scholar

2 See, for example, the compendium of oral traditions in Prins, A. H. J., The Coastal Tribes of the North-Eastern Bantu (London, 1952), 8–10, 43–51, 102–3.Google Scholar

3 Cape Town, 1950.Google Scholar

4 Kikuyu Land Unit, 34.Google Scholar

5 Ibid. 27.

6 History of East Africa, 1, 89–90.Google Scholar

7 Ibid. 114 n.

8 The Kikuyu and Kamba of Kenya (London, 1953), 14.Google Scholar

9 Kikuyu Land Unit, 7–14.Google Scholar

10 Ibid. 10.

11 Ibid. 19–20. See also Meinterzhagen, R., Kenya Diary (Edinburgh, 1957), p. 42.Google Scholar

12 Kikuyu Land Unit, 28;Google ScholarLindblom, G., The Akamba (Uppsala, 1920), 13–14. Similar oral traditions were collected by myself in the course of field-work in Kenya during 964–1965, on a grant from the University of Wisconsin.Google Scholar

13 Kikuyu Land Unit, Lambert's methods of dating raise some important questions, with which I do not intend to deal at length. His dates of c. 1750 for the Meru and c. 1545 for the Kikuyu (Metume) may well be reasonably accurate, being based in the case of the Meru on two lists of age-grades and in the case of the Kikuyu on a list of generation ages. There is still a good margin for error, however, in that the two Meru lists are far from being in complete agreement and the Kilcuyu data are based on one list only. Much more doubtful are his dates for the Ndia (c. 5475), Embu (c. 1425) and Chuka (c. 1300), which are based on an estimate of the rate of occupation per square mile. This system fails to take into account such variables as population growth, or decline and density of settlement.Google Scholar

14 Ibid. 4–5.

15 Ibid. 27–28.