African Kingdoms

Nilotic Speakers (Africa)

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The pre-history of Africa contains a far longer period of human habitation than any other area on Earth, thanks to it being the cradle of humankind's evolution. Much of this pre-history involves a great deal of uncertainty in which small windows of opportunity to view events can be gained through archaeology (and see feature link for more on human origins).

Even more recent prehistory is shrouded in uncertainty, requiring analysis and archaeology to help define it. However, DNA archaeology is providing at least some answers when it comes to better understanding major human migration patterns, adaptations, and population mixing throughout prehistoric and more recent eras.

People within and without Africa who are of Nilotic-speaking descent numbered around seven million at the end of the twentieth century. They form a sub-grouping of the Nilo-Saharan language family, and today they primarily occupy areas of South Sudan, northern Uganda, and western Kenya in East Africa. A few are in Tanzania or Central Africa's Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

The terms 'Nilote' and 'Nilotic' originated from the fact that these people live within the vicinity of the Nile valley. While the term first found use as a racial classification, modern usage bases these distinctions on language determinations. People of this language family speak anywhere between twenty-nine and fifty-three languages.

Nilotic-speakers first formed as far back as 4000 BC amongst farmers of the Sudan and southern Sahara at the end of the 'Green Sahara' period (see feature link). They were situated between the White Nile and Blue Nile. They began to spread southwards in the third millennium BC to escape increasing Saharan aridity, managing to discover better cattle-grazing and agricultural conditions in the upper Nile valley.

Nilotes were and are mostly pastoralists, especially in terms of herding cattle, while also being foragers of the non-farming African Neolithic type. Some are nomadic while others are sedentary. Only the Shilluk have kings, while other groups have organised chiefdoms and some are without rulers. Nilotic-speakers are reputed to be the world's tallest people, a characteristic of meat-eating nomads.

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(Information by John De Cleene and the John De Cleene Archive, from Cultural Atlas of Africa, Ocelyn Murray (Ed, Andromeda Oxford Ltd, 1998), from Encyclopædia Britannica (Cambridge University Press, 1911), from The History Atlas of Africa, Samuel Kasule (Macmillan, 1998), from The New Atlas of African History, G S P Freeman-Grenville (Rex Collins, London, 1991), from The Times Atlas of World History, Geoffrey Barraclough (Ed, Hammond Inc, 1979), and from External Links: The Bantu Migration (History Guild), and Bantu Migrations and Cultural Transnationalism in the Ancient Global Age, Raphael Chijioke Njoku (West African Masking Traditions and Diaspora Masquerade Carnivals: History, Memory, and Transnationalism, University of Rochester Press, 2000, available via JSTOR), and Encyclopaedia Britannica, and Nilotes (Ebsco), and Who Are the Nilotes? (Pan-African.net), and 101 Last Tribes.)

by c.4000 BC

Nilotic speakers originate at least by this stage, amongst African Neolithic farmers of the Sudan and southern Sahara between the Blue Nile and White Nile. This is shortly before Neolithic Egypt begins to refine its farming practices.

The Sahara has undergone a gradual transition from sweeping grassland to desiccated sand on more than one occasion, notably around 30,000 BC (and again around 2000 BC)

The distribution of summer monsoon rains over north-eastern Africa has long been shifting southwards as Sahara desiccation increases (see feature link for more). Grasslands and watercourses across and around the Sahara have become greatly compressed, forcing disparate groups to begin to work together along the Nile to form the basis of an emerging civilisation.

2500 - 1500 BC

Western Nilotic speakers (the Luo) begin to move southwards to escape ever-increasing aridity. They reach better cattle-grazing and agricultural conditions in the middle Nile valley.

Eastern Nilotes and Southern Nilotes advance even farther southwards to reach modern southern South Sudan. Western Nilotes intermix with the Koman while absorbing their cattle-raising and fishing techniques.

Having entered into the region to the south-west of Ethiopia, Southern Nilotic-speakers intermix with and acquire customs from Cushitic peoples, especially in terms of organisation.

Never quite as grandiose as the pyramids of Giza, the pyramids of the Kushite state at Meroë contain the bodies of a large number of kings, although today most of the structures are in ruins

1000 BC - AD 100

Western Nilotes and Eastern Nilotes spread their knowledge of the African Iron Age, due to their proximity to an unknown people in the region between Lake Chad and the southern Nile who had much earlier developed that skill.

800 BC - AD 700

Southern Nilotes migrate again from what will become South Sudan, heading gradually into present-day central and western Kenya and northern Tanzania.

by c.1400

The 'River Lake Nilotes' probably migrate southwards from the area around the River Akobo into the region to the west of Lake Turkana, and may also later migrate into modern central Tanzania.

c.1500 - 1800

The Paranilotes of modern Eastern Nilote South Sudan, northern Uganda, and areas which lay to the west of northern Lake Turkana in Kenya are known to be migrating in a south-eastwards direction.

The 'Conquest of the Shanqella', is a traditional Ethiopian artwork which depicts a typical military campaign, led by Ethiopian figures such as Ras Gobena during the reign of Emperor Menelik II in the late 1800s - 'Shanqella' was an Ethiopian highlander name for various Nilotic and Cushitic-speaking ethnic groups of the western and southern Ethiopian border zone

c.1600

The 'Plains Nilotes' inhabit the region around Lake Turkana, from where they later migrate southwards to reach areas of modern central Tanzania.

Nilotic-speakers at the end of the twentieth century number some seven million. They primarily occupy areas of South Sudan, northern Uganda, and western Kenya in East Africa. A few are in Tanzania or Democratic Republic of Congo.