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The Hamites and Nilotic Language Speakers in Uganda

The Hamites or Nilotic language . The Nilotes, as their name suggests, originally came from the Nile Valley, probably in southern Sudan. The first of these people are believed to have arrived around 500 BC. The Nilotic-language speakers entered the area from the north, probably starting at about A.D. 100. They were the first cattle-herding people in the area, but they relied on crop cultivation to supplement livestock herding for subsistence.

The first of these people are believed to have arrived around 500 BC, although Nilotic migrations only became substantial some five hundred years ago, with the arrival of the Luo and Masaai.

Their main direction of movement was southwards along the plains of the Rift Valley, which favoured both their cattle-raising lifestyle, as well as their rapid, all-conquering advance into the country.

By the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, they had reached Tanzania, where their advance was finally stopped. Hamites - Nilotes who have kept to their nomadic way of life are namely the Masaai and the Turkana.

The largest Nilotic Hamites population in present-day Uganda are the Iteso in the Karamoja region, a cluster of ethnic groups, speaking Eastern Nilotic languages.

The Acholi, Langi and Alur speak Western Nilotic languages. Descendants of Eastern Nilotic peoples also live in Kenya, South Sudan, with the largest groups being settled in the Karamoja region in Uganda.

These include the Karimojong people as well as the Jie, Dodoth, and several small related groups, constituting about 12 per cent of the population. The Iteso people are an acculturated branch of the Eastern Nilotic peoples.

Constituting about 8.1 per cent of the population of Uganda, they are the nation's second largest ethnic group. The Iteso territory stretches south from Karamoja into the well-watered region of Lake Kyoga.

Their traditional economy emphasizes crop growing. Many Iteso joined the cash economy when coffee and cotton were introduced in 1912, and the region has prospered through agriculture and commerce.

The Kakwa occupy a region of the extreme northwestern Uganda that borders southern Sudan and northeastern Congo. Those who live in Uganda constitute less than 1 per cent of the population.

The Acholi, Langi, Alur and some other smaller ethnic groups belong to the group of the Western Nilotic language, all together making up about 15% of the overall population. Most of the West Nilotic languages in Uganda are called Lower Nilotic, and they are closely related to the language of the Luo in Kenya.

The two biggest ethnic groups, the Acholi and the Langi, speak nearly identical languages. Acholi is situated in the northern region of Uganda, this constituting also the home of the Acholi tribe. Its centre is Kitgum town.

The tribe is a mixture of Negroids and Hamites. The Alur, who live in the western areas to the Acholi and the Langi, have a similar culture as the neighbouring societies of the West Nile area, where the majority of the people speak a Central Sudanesic language.

The area West Nile is situated in the northwestern part of the country, where the tribes of the Kebu, Ondrosi, Lugbara, Kakwa and Alur have found a home, with their origin going back to the Hamites. The centre is the town Arua.