Unbeknownst to most, the Luyia Nation is a congeries of Bantu and assimilated Nilotic clans principally the Luo, Kalenjin, and Maasai. Created seventy years ago, the Luyia tribe is still evolving in a slow process that seeks to harmonize the historico-cultural institutions that define the eighteen subnations in Kenya alone. Available records indicate that geophysical spread of Luyia-speaking people extends beyond the Kenyan frontier into Uganda and Tanzania with some Luyia clans having extant brethren in Rwanda, Congo, Zambia, and Cameroon. The 862 Luyia clans in Kenya are amorphous units united only by common cultural and linguistic bonds. The political union between these clans is a pesky issue that has eluded the community since formation of the superethnic polity. Although postindependence scholars dismissed oral accounts of Egyptian ancestry, new anthropological evidence links the Bantu, including those in West Africa, to ancient Misri (Egypt). A major historical and cultural change in Buluyia occurred a little more than a century ago when natives first made contact with the Western world. The meeting in 1883 by a Scottish explorer, Joseph Thomson, with Nabongo Mumia, the Wanga king, laid the foundation for British imperialism in this part of Africa.

The Luyia, like other Africans subsumed by imperialist conquest, are groping in the dark to find new meaning to their lives. By emigrating from tribal territory to towns, Luyia tribesmen lost strong communal links that bonded traditional society in which security of the individual was assured. The real danger, however, is the infiltration of neo-capitalism in the remotest villages, sweeping away what little is left of the culture of a bygone era. The need to preserve our cultural resources for future generations is critical. Colonial institutions radically altered traditional governance, economic and magico-religious structures. Clan elders, hitherto the pseudo-legal centers of political authority, were either conscripted into colonial administration as chiefs or simply shunted aside. Supplication to cult of the ancestor was replaced by Christianity where clergy rather than sacrificial priests became principal representatives of the deity. And where men spent the day hunting to secure a family meal, they now had to seek waged employment and pay taxes. Although these forces of Western acculturation introduced positive benefits to traditional technological processes, they were largely responsible for uprooting a people from an environment they had lived for generations and adapted to suit their needs to one driven largely by opportunism and uncertainty.

The Luyia, like other Africans subsumed by imperialist conquest, are groping in the dark to find new meaning to their lives. By emigrating from tribal territory to towns, Luyia tribesmen lost strong communal links that bonded traditional society in which security of the individual was assured. The real danger, however, is the infiltration of neo-capitalism in the remotest villages, sweeping away what little is left of the culture of a bygone era. The need to preserve our cultural resources for future generations is critical. Colonial institutions radically altered traditional governance, economic and magico-religious structures. Clan elders, hitherto the pseudo-legal centers of political authority, were either conscripted into colonial administration as chiefs or simply shunted aside. Supplication to cult of the ancestor was replaced by Christianity where clergy rather than sacrificial priests became principal representatives of the deity. And where men spent the day hunting to secure a family meal, they now had to seek waged employment and pay taxes. Although these forces of Western acculturation introduced positive benefits to traditional technological processes, they were largely responsible for uprooting a people from an environment they had lived for generations and adapted to suit their needs to one driven largely by opportunism and uncertainty.

Unbeknownst to most, the Luyia Nation is a congeries of Bantu and assimilated Nilotic clans principally the Luo, Kalenjin, and Maasai. Created seventy years ago, the Luyia tribe is still evolving in a slow process that seeks to harmonize the historico-cultural institutions that define the eighteen subnations in Kenya alone. Available records indicate that geophysical spread of Luyia-speaking people extends beyond the Kenyan frontier into Uganda and Tanzania with some Luyia clans having extant brethren in Rwanda, Congo, Zambia, and Cameroon. The 862 Luyia clans in Kenya are amorphous units united only by common cultural and linguistic bonds. The political union between these clans is a pesky issue that has eluded the community since formation of the superethnic polity. Although postindependence scholars dismissed oral accounts of Egyptian ancestry, new anthropological evidence links the Bantu, including those in West Africa, to ancient Misri (Egypt). A major historical and cultural change in Buluyia occurred a little more than a century ago when natives first made contact with the Western world. The meeting in 1883 by a Scottish explorer, Joseph Thomson, with Nabongo Mumia, the Wanga king, laid the foundation for British imperialism in this part of Africa.