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The Political Structure of the Nandi-Speaking Peoples of Kenya

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 August 2012

E. E. Evans-Pritchard
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Extract

This paper is an attempt to analyse briefly the literature on the Nandi-speaking peoples of Kenya with the object of noting structural similarities and differences between them. In particular the inquiry is directed to discovering whether their political structures conform to the same general type.

Type
Research Article
Information
Africa , Volume 13 , Issue 3 , July 1940 , pp. 250 - 267
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 1940

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References

page 205 note 1 Prof. A. R. Radcliffe-Brown, Mr. J. H. Driberg, Mrs. Marion Carr, and Dr. J. G. Peristiany have kindly read the typescript draft.

page 250 note 2 The sketch-map is based on one which Mr. G. W. B. Huntingford kindly prepared for me.

page 250 note 3 Peristiany, J. G., The Social Institutions of the Kipsigis, 1939.Google Scholar

page 250 note 4 The chief writings on the Nandi are: Hollis, A. C., The Nandi, their Language and Folk-lore, 1909Google Scholar; Hemsted, Charles, ‘The Tribal Organization of the Nandi’, J.E.A.U.N.H.S., 1923Google Scholar; Huntingford, G. W. B., ‘The Nandi Pororiet’, J.R.A.I., 1935, and ‘Miscellaneous Records relating to the Nandi and Kony Tribes’Google Scholar, Ibid., 1927. For the Keyu we have book, J. A. Massam's, The Cliff Dwellers of Kenya, 1927Google Scholar; and for the Sukbook, M. W. H. Beech's, The Suk, their Language and Folklore, 1911Google Scholar; and two articles, ‘Notes on the Tribes inhabiting the Baringo District, East Africa Protectorate’, J.R.A.I., 1910Google Scholar, by the Hon. K. R. Dundas, and ‘Notes on the Suk tribe of Kenya Colony’, Ibid., 1921, by Juxon Barton. The few references to other members of the group are not worth citing.

page 256 note 1 Hemsted speaks of a council to settle disputes about inheritance, but no other writers about the Nandi mention it and there are good reasons to doubt the accuracy of his statements on this matter.

page 257 note 1 Barton says that there were twelve sets among the Suk, though he only records ten. He says that they were totemic.

page 260 note 1 Barton, Juxon, ‘Notes on the Kipsigis or Lumbwa tribe of Kenya Colony’, J.R.A.I., 1923, p. 46.Google Scholar

page 262 note 1 As they seem to have included in their lists of these areas two of the Kipsigis provinces the Nandi would appear to have been divided, like the Kipsigis, into four main geographical divisions.

page 263 note 1 According to Huntingford four of them split and a part of each moved northwards where they settled in new country.

page 265 note 1 Nuer, Dinka, Luo, etc. The terminology, ‘Nilotic’, ‘Nilo-Hamitic’, and so on, is still not agreed upon.