The Kikuyu of Kenya are a Bantu-speaking ethnic group. They speak Agikuyu. The Luo, on the other hand, are Nilotic (that is, of the Nile valley). They speak Dholuo (a word which, thanks to the insistence of certain scholars, has become part of the English lexicon now). These two are very dissimilar groups in important ways -- culturally, economically and (in particular?) politically.
Geographically, too, they have traditionally occupied quite different topographies of the land. The Kikuyu have concentrated in the central highlands, generally "around" Mt. Kenya, which is one of the two highest mountains in Africa. The Luo are predominant in the lowlands to the west -- in the basin of Lake Victoria (the largest in Africa); though, unlike the Kikuyu, have kin traditionally scattered "all over" eastern and central Africa. Central is Central and West is West -- but did the twain ever meet before, say, 1890?
There are a few puzzling similarities which make this question pertinent, certainly. For example:
1. In Agikuyu, as I have known for years, though the similarity struck me only a few months ago: When you want to say, "Let's go" you say, "Nitothii" (or simply, "Todhie", which is what I remember from all those years of living in Makongeni and going to school at "Sentii"). In Dholuo, you say, "Wadhi."
2. In Agikuyu, when you want to ask, "Where are you going?" you say, "Wathii ku?" (or "Wathie ku?"). In Dholuo, you say, "Idhi kanye?" (or even "Idhi kure?).
Sasa? Is this symptomatic of one origin deep in the African past (of course it is!), or merely chance similarity. You tell me.
But, if yes, how long ago? Under what circumstances? Where? In the Sudan? Cameroon? The Congo? Uganda? Ethiopia (Karumba's Ethiopia?)? Just here in Kenya?
They do have different physiques, generally, perhaps because of terrain and diet; and because of all the places they have separately been, kalausi-like, all these millennia. Yet there is an occasional hilarious comment in certain circles that the Nyeri Kikuyu are really not Kikuyu, but Luo (whom they are, many of them, as dark as) who now speak Agikuyu.
Of course all Africans, all humans, have one past -- here in Africa.
All humans! Is that why, as Philip Ochieng claims, "Hera" -- that four-letter word -- means the same thing in Greek and Luo? Is that not why we all have spoken language?
