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76-522: Modern ethnicities Diaspora Performing arts Government agencies Television Radio Newspapers The Kamba or Akamba (sometimes called Wakamba ) people are a Bantu ethnic group who predominantly live in Kenya stretching from Nairobi to Tsavo and northwards to Embu , in the southern part of the former Eastern Province . This land is called Ukambani and constitutes Makueni County , Kitui County and Machakos County . They also form

152-589: A great famine. This led to dispersal as the family scattered in search of food. Some became the Kikuyu , others the Meru while some remained as the original people, the Akamba." The Akamba are not specific about the number of children that each couple had initially borne. The Akamba believe in a monotheistic, invisible and transcendental God, Ngai or Mulungu, who lives in the sky ( yayayani or ituni ). Another venerable name for God

228-467: A head band intensively decorated with beads. The various kilumi or dance groups wore similar colours and patterns on their bead work to distinguish themselves from other groups. Traditionally, both men and women wore leather sandals especially when they ventured out of their neighbourhoods to go to the market or on visits. While at home or working in their fields, however, they remained barefoot. Schoolchildren, male and female, shave their heads to maintain

304-899: A publication now in the public domain :  Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). " Hottentots ". Catholic Encyclopedia . New York: Robert Appleton Company. Kamba language Kamba has lexical similarities to other Bantu languages such as Kikuyu , Meru , and Embu , of whom together they form the GEMA community. The Swedish National Museums of World Culture holds field recordings of kamba language made by Swedish ethnographer Gerhard Lindblom in 1911–12. Lindblom used phonograph cylinders to record songs along with other means of documentation in writing and photography. He also gathered objects, and later presented his work in The Akamba in British East Africa (1916) . This Kenya related article

380-454: A rate that was three to four times their percentage of the overall Kenyan population.' The Kamba people successfully resisted an attempt by the British colonialists to seize their livestock in an obnoxious livestock control legislation in 1938. They peacefully fought the British until the law was repealed.Among the Akamba people, lack of rain is considered an event requiring ritual intervention. As

456-576: A result of these interactions. The Bantu migrations, and centuries later the Indian Ocean slave trade, brought Bantu influence to Madagascar , the Malagasy people showing Bantu admixture, and their Malagasy language Bantu loans. Toward the 18th and 19th centuries, the flow of Zanj slaves from Southeast Africa increased with the rise of the Sultanate of Zanzibar . With the arrival of European colonialists,

532-411: A result, they perform a ritual rain making dance called Kilumi. It is a healing rite designed to restore environmental balance through spiritual blessings, movement, offering, and prayers. According to Akamba, Kilumi has been present since the very beginning of Kamba existence. This ritual emphasizes symbolic dance movements as a key force in achieving the goal of the ceremony. The heart of the dance ritual

608-833: A significant clustered variation of genetic traits among Bantu language speakers by region, suggesting admixture from prior local populations. Bantu speakers of South Africa (Xhosa, Venda) showed substantial levels of the SAK and Western African Bantu AACs and low levels of the East African Bantu AAC (the latter is also present in Bantu speakers from the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda). The results indicate distinct East African Bantu migration into southern Africa and are consistent with linguistic and archeological evidence of East African Bantu migration from an area west of Lake Victoria and

684-436: A vast area from West Africa, to Central Africa, Southeast Africa and into Southern Africa. Bantu people also inhabit southern areas of Northeast African states. There are several hundred Bantu languages. Depending on the definition of "language" or "dialect" , it is estimated that there are between 440 and 680 distinct languages. The total number of speakers is in the hundreds of millions, ranging at roughly 350 million in

760-479: A vast genomic analysis of more than 2,000 samples taken from individuals in 57 populations throughout Sub-Saharan Africa to trace the Bantu expansion. During a wave of expansion that began 4,000 to 5,000 years ago, Bantu-speaking populations – some 310 million people as of 2023 – gradually left their original homeland West-Central Africa and travelled to the eastern and southern regions of the African continent. During

836-608: Is Asa, or the Father. He is also known as Ngai Mumbi (God the Creator) na Mwatuangi (God the finger-divider). He is perceived as the omnipotent creator of life on earth and as a merciful, if distant, entity. The traditional Akamba perceive the spirits of their departed ones, the Aimu or Maimu , as the intercessors between themselves and Ngai Mulungu. They are remembered in family rituals and offerings / libations at individual altars. In Akamba culture,

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912-530: Is an important aspect of the Akamba people. In most but not all cases, the first four children, two boys and two girls, are named after the grandparents on both sides of the family. The first boy is named after the paternal grandfather and the second after the maternal grandfather. Girls are similarly named. Because of the respect that the Kamba people observe between the varied relationships, there are people with whom they cannot speak on "first name" terms. The father and

988-422: Is given a family name (some sort of baptismal name), such as "Syomunyithya/ng'a Mutunga", that is, "she who is to be the mother of Munyithya/Mutunga". Her first son is to be called by this name. This name Munyithya was descriptive of certain qualities of the paternal grandfather or of his career. Thus, when she is calling her son, she would indeed be calling her father in-law, but at the same time strictly observing

1064-424: Is given upon joining her husband's household. She supplies the bulk of the food consumed by her family. She grows maize, millet, sweet potatoes, pumpkin, beans, pigeon peas, greens, arrow root, cassava, and yam in cooler regions like Kangundo, Kilungu and Mbooni. It is the mother's role to bring up the children. Even children that have grown up into adults are expected to never contradict the mother's wishes. The mother

1140-399: Is its spiritual essence; in fact, it is the spiritual aspect that distinguishes the dances of Africans and their descendants worldwide. For this reason, it is important to understand the nature of rituals. Dance rituals take participants on a journey; they are designed to foster a transformation moving them to different states, with the ultimate goal of invoking spiritual intervention to resolve

1216-403: Is known as Mwaitu ('our One'). Very little distinction is made between one's children and nieces and nephews. They address their maternal uncle as inaimiwa and maternal aunts as mwendya and for their paternal uncle and aunt as mwendw'au . They address their paternal cousins as wa-asa or wa'ia (for men is mwanaasa or mwanaa'ia , and for women is mwiitu wa'asa or mwiitu wa'ia ), and

1292-471: Is no native term for the people who speak Bantu languages because they are not an ethnic group . People speaking Bantu languages refer to their languages by ethnic endonyms, which did not have an indigenous concept prior to European contact for the larger ethnolinguistic phylum named by 19th-century European linguists. Bleek's coinage was inspired by the anthropological observation of groups self-identifying as "people" or "the true people". That is, idiomatically

1368-806: The Baganda people of Uganda (5.5 million as of 2014), the Shona of Zimbabwe (17.6 million as of 2020), the Zulu of South Africa (14.2 million as of 2016 ), the Luba of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (28.8 million as of 2010 ), the Sukuma of Tanzania (10.2 million as of 2016 ), the Kikuyu of Kenya (8.1 million as of 2019 ), the Xhosa people of Southern Africa (9.6 million as of 2011), batswana of Southern Africa (8.2 Million as of 2020) and

1444-524: The Batutsi of Rwanda-Burundi and the Aembu of Kenya. The earliest, most famous and respected traditional Kamba soloist who can be documented was Mailu Mboo and came from "Kwa Vara" Now mwingi . The following are some of the varieties of traditional dance styles of the Akamba community: Dances are usually accompanied by songs composed for the occasion (marriage, birth, nationally important occasion), and reflect

1520-888: The Congo rainforest by about 1500 BC and the southern savannas by 500 BC, while the eastward dispersal reached the Great Lakes by 1000 BC, expanding further from there as the rich environment supported dense populations. Possible movements by small groups to the southeast from the Great Lakes region could have been more rapid, with initial settlements widely dispersed near the coast and near rivers, because of comparatively harsh farming conditions in areas farther from water. Recent archeological and linguistic evidence about population movements suggests that pioneering groups would have had reached parts of modern KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa sometime prior to

1596-667: The Indian Ocean slave trade . The Swahili culture that emerged from these exchanges evinces many Arab and Islamic influences not seen in traditional Bantu culture, as do the many Afro-Arab members of the Bantu Swahili people . With its original speech community centered on the coastal parts of Zanzibar, Kenya, and Tanzania – a seaboard referred to as the Swahili Coast – the Bantu Swahili language contains many Arabic loanwords as

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1672-666: The Kambe and the Giriama of the Kenyan coast. The Kambas are concentrated in the lowlands of southeast Kenya from the vicinity of Mount Kenya to the coast. The first group of Kamba people settled in the present-day Mbooni Hills in the Machakos District of Kenya. This was in the second half of the 17th century, before spreading to Machakos, Makueni and Kitui Districts. Some authorities suggest that they arrived in their present lowlands east of

1748-676: The Kingdom of Matamba the Kuba Kingdom , the Lunda Empire , the Luba Empire , Barotse Empire , Kazembe Kingdom , Mbunda Kingdom , Yeke Kingdom , Kasanje Kingdom , Empire of Kitara, Butooro , Bunyoro , Buganda , Busoga , Rwanda , Burundi , Ankole , the Kingdom of Mpororo , the Kingdom of Igara , the Kingdom of Kooki , the Kingdom of Karagwe , Swahili city states , the Mutapa Empire ,

1824-534: The Mariakani , Kinango, Kwale , Mombasa West (Changamwe and Chaani) and Mombasa North (Kisauni) areas of the coast of Kenya, creating the beginnings of urban settlement. They are still found in large numbers in these towns, and have been absorbed into the cultural, economic and political life of the modern-day Coast Province . Several notable businessmen and women, politicians, as well as professional men and women are direct descendants of these itinerant pastoralists. In

1900-521: The National Party governments adopted that usage officially, while the growing African nationalist movement and its liberal allies turned to the term "African" instead, so that "Bantu" became identified with the policies of apartheid . By the 1970s this so discredited "Bantu" as an ethnic-racial designation that the apartheid government switched to the term "Black" in its official racial categorizations, restricting it to Bantu-speaking Africans , at about

1976-494: The Pedi of South Africa (7 million as of 2018). Abantu is the Xhosa and Zulu word for people. It is the plural of the word 'umuntu', meaning 'person', and is based on the stem '--ntu', plus the plural prefix 'aba'. In linguistics, the word Bantu , for the language families and its speakers, is an artificial term based on the reconstructed Proto-Bantu term for "people" or "humans" . It

2052-537: The South American country of Paraguay form two groups: Kamba Cuá and Kamba Kokue with the former being the most famous. They arrived in Paraguay as members of a regiment of 250 spearmen ('lanceros de Artigas'), men and women, who accompanied General Jose Gervasio Artigas , in his exile in Paraguay in 1820. The Kamba Cuá are famous for their African traditional ballet that is described as the "central cultural identity of

2128-570: The Zulu Kingdom , the Ndebele Kingdom , Mthethwa Empire , Tswana city states , Mapungubwe , Kingdom of Eswatini , the Kingdom of Butua , Maravi , Danamombe , Khami , Naletale , Kingdom of Zimbabwe and the Rozwi Empire . On the coastal section of East Africa, a mixed Bantu community developed through contact with Muslim Arab and Persian traders, Zanzibar being an important part of

2204-412: The 3rd century AD along the coast and the modern Northern Cape by AD 500. Cattle terminology in use amongst the relatively few modern Bantu pastoralist groups suggests that the acquisition of cattle may have been from Central Sudanic , Kuliak and Cushitic -speaking neighbors. Linguistic evidence also indicates that the customs of milking cattle were also directly modeled from Cushitic cultures in

2280-795: The 9th and 15th centuries, Bantu-speaking states began to emerge in the Great Lakes region and in the savanna south of the Central African rainforests. The Monomotapa kings built the Great Zimbabwe complex, a civilisation ancestral to the Shona people. Comparable sites in Southern Africa include Bumbusi in Zimbabwe and Manyikeni in Mozambique. From the 12th century onward, the processes of state formation amongst Bantu peoples increased in frequency. This

2356-642: The Afro-Paraguayan community". The Kamba speak the Kamba language (also known as Kikamba) as a mother tongue . It belongs to the Bantu branch of the Niger-Congo language family. Kikamba has no letters c, f, j, r, x, q and p in its alphabet. The Swahili language reveals closer ties to the Akamba mother tongue, this being due to the various interactions of the Akamba people with Arab traders for centuries. Like many Bantus,

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2432-500: The Akamba are often found engaged in different professions: some are agriculturalists, others are traders, while others have taken up formal jobs. The Kamba also practiced Barter trade with the Kikuyu, Maasai, Meru and Embu people in the interior and the Mijikenda and Arab people of the coast. Over time, the Akamba extended their commercial activity and wielded economic control across

2508-400: The Akamba were originally hunters and gatherers but later became long distance traders because of their knowledge of the expansive area they inhabited. They also had good relations with neighbouring communities as well as excellent communication skills. They would go on to later adopt subsistence farming and pastoralism due to the availability of the new lands that they came to occupy. Today,

2584-562: The Bantu expansion, Bantu-speaking peoples extirpated and displaced many earlier inhabitants, with only a few modern peoples such as Pygmy groups in Central Africa, the Hadza people in northern Tanzania, and various Khoisan populations across southern Africa remaining in existence into the era of European contact. Archaeological evidence attests to their presence in areas subsequently occupied by Bantu speakers. Researchers have demonstrated that

2660-604: The British colonial government during one of their raiding expeditions on the local populations. Muindi Mbingu was arrested for leading another protest march to recover stolen land and cattle around the Mua Hills in Masaku district, which the British settlers eventually appropriated for themselves. JD Kali, along with Paul Ngei, joined the Mau Mau movement to recover Kenya for the Kenyan people. This movement took place between 1952 and 1960. He

2736-598: The European fashion, taking their pick from dresses, skirts, trousers, jeans and shorts, made from the wide range of fabrics available in Kenya. Primarily, however, skirts are the customary and respectable mode of dress. In the past, the women were attired in knee-length leather or bark skirts, embellished with bead work. They wore necklaces made of beads, these obtained from the Swahili and Arab traders. They shaved their heads clean, and wore

2812-495: The Kamba language. Mauvoo News is an online news website which covers current affairs and local news touching on Kenya's three Akamba people Counties of Makueni, Kitui and Machakos in the English language. Bantu peoples The Bantu peoples are an indigenous ethnolinguistic grouping of approximately 400 distinct native African ethnic groups who speak Bantu languages . The languages are native to countries spread over

2888-614: The Khoisan of the Kalahari are remnants of a huge ancestral population that may have been the most populous group on the planet prior to the Bantu expansion. Biochemist Stephan Schuster of Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and colleagues found that the Khoisan population began a drastic decline when the Bantu farmers spread through Africa 4,000 years ago. Before the Bantu expansion had been definitively traced starting from their origins in

2964-614: The Mount Kenya area of habitation from earlier settlements further to the north and east. Others argue that the Kamba, along with their closely related Eastern Bantu neighbours the Kikuyu, the Embu, the Mbeere and the Meru, moved into Kenya from points further south. Most of the Akamba people live in Kenya, and are concentrated in the lower eastern counties of Machakos , Kitui , and Makueni . According to

3040-696: The Queen" during the Mau Mau Emergency , a press release by the East Africa Command went on to characterize the Kamba as a "fighting race." These sentiments were echoed by other colonial observers in the early 1950s who deemed the Kamba a hardy, virile, courageous, and "mechanically-minded tribe." Considered by many officers to be the "best [soldierly] material in Africa," the Kamba supplied the KAR with askaris (soldiers) at

3116-605: The Zanzibar Sultanate came into direct trade conflict and competition with Portuguese and other Europeans along the Swahili Coast, leading eventually to the fall of the Sultanate and the end of slave trading on the Swahili Coast in the mid-20th century. In the 1920s, relatively liberal South Africans, missionaries, and the native African intelligentsia began to use the term "Bantu" in preference to "Native". After World War II ,

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3192-555: The area. Cattle terminology in southern African Bantu languages differs from that found among more northerly Bantu-speaking peoples. One recent suggestion is that Cushitic speakers had moved south earlier and interacted with the most northerly of Khoisan speakers who acquired cattle from them and that the earliest arriving Bantu speakers, in turn, got their initial cattle from Cushitic-influenced Khwe-speaking people. Under this hypothesis, larger later Bantu-speaking immigration subsequently displaced or assimilated that southernmost extension of

3268-828: The central part of the land that was later to be known as Kenya (from the Kikamba, 'Ki'nyaa', meaning 'the Ostrich Country.' This was derived from the reference they made to Mount Kenya and its snow cap similar to the male Ostrich), from the Indian Ocean in the east to Lake Victoria in the west, and all the way up to Lake Turkana on the northern frontier. The Akamba traded in locally produced goods such as sugar cane wine, ivory , brass amulets, tools and weapons, millet, and cattle. The food obtained from trading helped offset shortages caused by droughts and famines experienced in their Kamba land. They also traded in medicinal products known as 'Miti' (literally: plants), made from various parts of

3344-596: The cultural law of never addressing her in-laws by their first names. After these four children are named, whose names were more or less predetermined, other children could be given any other names, sometimes after other relatives and / or family friends on both sides of the family. Occasionally, children were given names that were descriptive of the circumstances under which they were born: Children were also given affectionate names as expressions of what their parents wished them to be in life. Such names would be like Of course, some of these names could be simply expressive of

3420-410: The family known as (Musyi) plays a central role in the community. The Akamba extended family or clan is called mbai . The man, who is the head of the family, is usually engaged in an economic activity popular among the community like trading, hunting, cattle-herding or farming. He is known as Nau , Tata , or Asa . The woman, regardless of her husband's occupation, works on her plot of land, which she

3496-688: The fierce debate among linguists about the word "Bantu", Seidensticker (2024) indicates that there has been a "profound conceptual trend in which a "purely technical [term] without any non-linguistic connotations was transformed into a designation referring indiscriminately to language, culture, society, and race"." Bantu languages derive from the Proto-Bantu reconstructed language, estimated to have been spoken about 4,000 to 3,000 years ago in West / Central Africa (the area of modern-day Cameroon). They were supposedly spread across Central, East and Southern Africa in

3572-469: The incorporation of Khoekhoe ancestry into several of the Southeast Bantu populations ~1500 to 1000 years ago. Bantu-speaking migrants would have also interacted with some Afro-Asiatic outlier groups in the southeast (mainly Cushitic ), as well as Nilotic and Central Sudanic speaking groups. According to the early-split scenario as hypothesized in the 1990s, the southward dispersal had reached

3648-513: The land and neutral standing with many of the other societies they traded with. During the colonial era, British colonial officials considered the Kamba to be the premier martial race and sharp-shooters of Africa. The Kamba themselves appeared to embrace this label by enlisting in the colonial army in large numbers. After confidently describing the Kamba serving in the King's African Rifles (the KAR, Britain's East African colonial army) as loyal "soldiers of

3724-653: The latter part of the 19th century the Arabs took over the coastal trade from the Akamba, who then acted as middlemen between the Arab and Swahili traders and the tribes further upcountry. Their trade and travel made them ideal guides for the caravans gathering elephant tusks, precious stones and some slaves for the Middle Eastern, Indian , and Chinese markets. Early European explorers also used them as guides in their expeditions to explore Southeast Africa, due to their wide knowledge of

3800-401: The less strenuous chores around the home, such as rope-making, tanning leather, carving of beehives, three-legged wooden stools, cleaning and decorating calabashes, making bows and arrows, etc. Older women continue to work the land, as this is seen as a source of independence and economic security. They also carry out trade in the local markets, though not exclusively. In the modern Akamba family,

3876-470: The many anthills around, a man and a woman came out. These were the initiators of the 'spirits clan'- the Aimo. It so happened that the couple from heaven had only sons while the couple from the anthill had only daughters. Naturally, the couple from heaven paid dowry for the daughters of the couple from the anthill. The family and their cattle greatly increased in numbers. With this prosperity, they forgot to give thanks to their creator. Mulungu punished them with

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3952-400: The maternal cousins (mother's side) as wa mwendya (for men mwanaa mwendya ; for women mwiitu wa mwendya ). Children often move from one household to another with ease, and are made to feel at home by their aunts and uncles who, while in charge of their nephews/nieces, are their de facto parents. Grandparents known as ( Susu or Usua (grandmother), Umau or Umaa (grandfather)) help with

4028-483: The mid-2010s (roughly 30% of the population of Africa , or roughly 5% of the total world population ). About 60 million speakers (2015), divided into some 200 ethnic or tribal groups, are found in the Democratic Republic of the Congo alone. The larger of the individual Bantu groups have populations of several million, e.g.the large majority of West Africa, notably the most populous African nation Nigeria , Rwanda , Tanzania , Uganda , Kenya , Burundi (25 million),

4104-487: The modern times, like most people in Kenya, dress rather conventionally in western / European clothing. The men wear trousers and shirts. Young boys will, as a rule, wear shorts and short-sleeved shirts, usually in cotton, or tee-shirts. Traditionally, Akamba men wore leather short kilts made from animal skins or tree bark. They wore copious jewellery, mainly of copper and brass. It consisted of neck-chains, bracelets, and anklets. The women in modern Akamba society also dress in

4180-402: The mother in-law on the husband's side, for instance, can never address their daughter in-law by her first name. Neither can she address them by their first names. Yet she has to name her children after them. To solve this problem, a system of naming is adopted that gave names which were descriptive of the quality or career of the grandparents. Therefore, when a woman is married into a family, she

4256-518: The national census of 2019, there were 4,663,910 Akamba people in Kenya, being the fifth-most populous tribe in the country. Machakos is the most populous of the three Ukambani counties, with 1,421,932 residents. This is followed by Kitui (1,136,187 residents) then Makueni (987,653 residents). They make up the second largest ethnic demographics in each of the urban city - counties of Nairobi and Mombasa as well as Taita–Taveta , Kiambu , Muranga , Kirinyaga , Kwale and Kilifi counties. They also form

4332-400: The numerous medicinal plants found on the Southeast African plains. Maingi Ndonye Mbithi, commonly referred by his peers and locals as Kanyi, from Kimutwa village in Machakos was known for his concoction of herbs mixed with locally fermented brew (kaluvu) with the ability to heal cancerous boils (Mi'imu). The Akamba are still known for their fine work in wood carving, basketry and pottery and

4408-444: The pasture-rich Konza plains. This attracted the interest of colonial government who created Cooperative Society and the later the establishment of Konza , Potha and Malili Ranches where the proposed Konza Technology City sits. Apart from Kenya, Kamba people can also be found in Uganda, Tanzania and in Paraguay . The population of Akamba in Uganda is about 8,280, 110,000 in Tanzania and about 10,000 in Paraguay. The Kamba people in

4484-412: The present day county of Kitui) who will bear this name. A girl could be called "Mumbe" meaning beautiful one or "Mwende" (beloved); Wild animal names like Nzoka (snake), Mbiti (hyena), Mbuku (hare), Munyambu (lion), or Mbiwa (fox); or domesticated animal names like Ngiti (dog), Ng'ombe (cow), or Nguku (chicken), were given to children born of mothers who started by giving stillbirths. This

4560-439: The problem at hand. Akamba resistance to colonial "pacification" was mostly non-violent in nature. Some of the best known Akamba resistance leaders to colonialism were: Syokimau , Syotune wa Kathukye, Muindi Mbingu, and later Paul Ngei , JD Kali, and Malu of Kilungu. Ngei and Kali were imprisoned by the colonial government for their anti-colonial protests. Syotune wa Kathukye led a peaceful protest to recover cattle confiscated by

4636-411: The products . Their artistic inclination is evidenced in the sculpture work that is on display in many craft shops and galleries in the major cities and towns of Kenya. In the mid-eighteenth century, a large number of Akamba pastoral groups moved eastwards from the Tsavo and Kibwezi areas to the coast. This migration was the result of extensive drought and lack of pasture for their cattle. They settled in

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4712-417: The qualities displayed by the man or woman after whom they were named. Very rarely, a boy may be given the name "Musumbi" (meaning "king"). I say very rarely because the Kamba people did not speak much in terms of royalty; they did not have a definite monarchical system. They were ruled by a council of elders called king'ole . There is a prophecy of a man, who traces his ancestry to where the sun sets (west) (in

4788-782: The range of Cushitic speakers. Based on dental evidence, Irish (2016) concluded: Proto-Bantu peoples may have originated in the western region of the Sahara , amid the Kiffian period at Gobero , and may have migrated southward, from the Sahara into various parts of West Africa (e.g., Benin , Cameroon , Ghana , Nigeria , Togo ), as a result of desertification of the Green Sahara in 7000 BCE. From Nigeria and Cameroon, agricultural Proto-Bantu peoples began to migrate , and amid migration, diverged into East Bantu peoples (e.g., Democratic Republic of Congo ) and West Bantu peoples (e.g., Congo, Gabon ) between 2500 BCE and 1200 BCE. Irish (2016) also views Igbo people and Yoruba people as being possibly back-migrated Bantu peoples. Between

4864-1117: The reflexes of * bantʊ in the numerous languages often have connotations of personal character traits as encompassed under the values system of ubuntu , also known as hunhu in Chishona or botho in Sesotho , rather than just referring to all human beings. The root in Proto-Bantu is reconstructed as *-ntʊ́ . Versions of the word Bantu (that is, the root plus the class 2 noun class prefix *ba- ) occur in all Bantu languages: for example, as bantu in Kikongo , Kituba , Tshiluba and Kiluba ; watu in Swahili ; ŵanthu in Tumbuka ; anthu in Chichewa ; batu in Lingala ; bato in Duala ; abanto in Gusii ; andũ in Kamba and Kikuyu ; abantu in Kirundi , Lusoga , Zulu , Xhosa , Runyoro and Luganda ; wandru in Shingazidja ; abantru in Mpondo and Ndebele ; bãthfu in Phuthi ; bantfu in Swati and Bhaca ; banhu in kisukuma ; banu in Lala ; vanhu in Shona and Tsonga ; batho in Sesotho , Tswana and Sepedi ; antu in Meru ; andu in Embu ; vandu in some Luhya dialects; vhathu in Venda and bhandu in Nyakyusa . Within

4940-460: The region between Cameroon and Nigeria, two main scenarios of the Bantu expansion were hypothesized: an early expansion to Central Africa and a single origin of the dispersal radiating from there, or an early separation into an eastward and a southward wave of dispersal, with one wave moving across the Congo Basin toward East Africa, and another moving south along the African coast and the Congo River system toward Angola. Genetic analysis shows

5016-450: The same time that the Black Consciousness Movement led by Steve Biko and others were defining "Black" to mean all non-European South Africans (Bantus, Khoisan, Coloureds and Indians ). In modern South Africa, the word's connection to apartheid has become so discredited that it is only used in its original linguistic meaning. Examples of South African usages of "Bantu" include: [REDACTED]  This article incorporates text from

5092-410: The second largest ethnic group in 8 counties including Nairobi and Mombasa counties. The Kamba are of Bantu origin and they are originally believed to have originated from Congo. They are also known as the 'Akamba.' They are closely related in language and culture to the Kikuyu , the Embu , the Mbeere and the Meru of whom together they form the GEMA community, and to some extent relate closely to

5168-413: The so-called Bantu expansion , comparatively rapid dissemination taking roughly two millennia and dozens of human generations during the 1st millennium BC and the 1st millennium AD. Scientists from the Institut Pasteur and the CNRS, together with a broad international consortium, retraced the migratory routes of the Bantu populations, which were previously a source of debate. The scientists used data from

5244-401: The spirit of uniformity and equality. Currently the most popular Kamba artist include; Ken Wamaria, Kativui, Kitunguu, Katombi, Maima, Vuusya Ungu etc. Ken Wamaria is rated as the top artist in Ukambani and the richest Kenyan artist (Kioko, 2012). Vernacular radio stations in Kenya where Kamba is the primary language spoken are as follows: Kyeni TV is a TV channel which broadcasts primarily in

5320-492: The third largest ethnic group in Embu , Garissa , Meru and Kajiado counties. In Embu county the Kamba live in Mbeere South region and in Taita–Taveta County they are mainly concentrated in the Taveta region. They share a border with the Maasai people and are literally separated by the Kenya-Uganda railway from Athi-River to Kibwezi . Up until late 20th Century the Maasai and the Akamba communities were involved in persistent cattle-rustling and pasture conflicts especially on

5396-505: The traditional structure of the Kikamba song, sung on a pentatonic scale. The singing is lively and tuneful. Songs are composed satirising deviant behaviour, anti-social activity, etc. The Akamba have famous work songs, such as Ngulu Mwelela , sung while work, such as digging, is going on. Herdsmen and boys have different songs, as do young people and old. During the Mbalya dances the dance leader will compose love songs and satirical numbers, to tease and entertain his/her dancers. The Akamba of

5472-403: The women, especially in the urban regions, practice professions such as teaching, law, medicine, nursing, secretarial work, management, tailoring and other duties in accordance with Kenya's socioeconomic evolution.The Kamba clans are: Anzauni, Aombe, Akitondo, Amwei (Angwina), Atwii, Amumui, Aethanga, Atangwa, Amutei, Aewani, Akitutu, Ambua, Aiini, Asii, Akiimi, Amũũti, Amũũnda. Naming of children

5548-592: Was done to wish away the bad omen and allow the new child to survive. Sometimes the names were used to preserve the good names for later children. There was a belief that a woman's later children had a better chance of surviving than her first ones. The Akamba people's love of music and dance is evidenced in their spectacular performances at many events in their daily lives or on occasions of regional and national importance. In their dances they display agility and athletic skills as they perform acrobatics and body movements. The Akamba dance techniques and style resemble those of

5624-465: Was first introduced into modern academia (as Bâ-ntu ) by Wilhelm Bleek in 1857 or 1858 and popularised in his Comparative Grammar of 1862. The name was said to be coined to represent the word for "people" in loosely reconstructed Proto-Bantu, from the plural noun class prefix *ba- categorizing "people", and the root *ntʊ̀ - "some (entity), any" (e.g. Xhosa umntu "person" abantu "people", Zulu umuntu "person", abantu "people"). There

5700-455: Was imprisoned in Kapenguria during the fighting between the then government and the freedom fighters. Their origin myth is as follows: "In the beginning, Mulungu created a man and a woman. This was the couple from heaven and he proceeded to place them on a rock at Nzaui where their foot prints, including those of their livestock can be seen to this day. Mulungu then caused a great rainfall. From

5776-449: Was the result of several factors such as a denser population (which led to more specialized divisions of labor, including military power while making emigration more difficult); technological developments in economic activity; and new techniques in the political-spiritual ritualisation of royalty as the source of national strength and health. Examples of such Bantu states include: the Kingdom of Kongo , Anziku Kingdom , Kingdom of Ndongo ,

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