Iteso traditions relate that they originated somewhere in what is now Sudan and moved south over a period of centuries. It is not possible to calculate the time of this movement. A body of Iteso is said to have separated from the Karamojong and moved further south. This may have been a very early separation because the clan names and ritual customs associated with the second of two distinctive groups of Karamojong and Jie people are not found among the Iteso. Unlike the other Teso-speaking ethnic groups, the Iteso have never been transhumant or nomadic; agriculture has played as significant a role in their social, economic, and expressive lives as cattle have among the other groups.
Iteso clan names reveal a history of long-standing ethnic interactions. Names of Bantu and Northern Nilotic origin are found among them. The Iteso were probably well established in their northern Uganda heartland by the mid-eighteenth century, when they began to move farther south. The history of the Iteso and neighboring peoples has not been extensively documented. Traditions recorded among the JoPadhola indicate there were two waves of Iteso migration. The first was family based and peaceful. It was followed by a more extensive and aggressive migration that left the Iteso in control of a large swath of territory that by 1850 extended as far as the western highlands of Kenya. European travelers record extensive fear of Iteso warriors; nonetheless, the Iteso soon suffered reverses that caused them to draw back to their current territory in Kenya. Since then, the Northern and Southern Iteso territories have been separated. Relations with other societies throughout the precolonial period were alternately peaceful and acrimonious. As a result of spatial intermixture and intermarriage, Iteso elements and customs can be found among neighboring peoples and vice versa. Intermarriage has always been extensive. It is likely that ethnic identity hardened during the colonial period, as it has since, when resources such as land were newly defined as belonging to "tribes."
The Iteso in Kenya and Uganda were conquered by African colonial agents of the British and indirectly ruled through them. Western Kenya was transferred from Uganda to Kenya in 1902. As a result, the economic and political histories of the Northern Iteso and the part of the Southern Iteso living in Kenya have taken vastly different courses. At independence, the Ugandan Iteso were far more wealthy than their Kenyan counterparts. This difference resulted from the status of Uganda as a protectorate reserved for "African development" and Western Kenya's status as a labor reserve for the European-owned farms in the "White Highlands." As a minority people in Kenya, the Iteso are not well known and have been viewed with some suspicion by surrounding peoples. On the other hand, the Kenyan Iteso have not suffered from the political destabilization in Uganda since 1970. Events in the colonial period and since have elaborated cultural differences among the Iteso that were regional in origin. The language of the Northern Iteso, for example, was extensively influenced by the Baganda people, who ruled the Iteso on behalf of the British colonial regime, whereas that of the Southern Iteso is in some ways closer to Turkana. As a result of living among Bantu- and Nilotic-speaking peoples, the Southern Iteso have probably been subject to a greater variety of cultural influences. The economic infrastructure is far more developed in Kenya than in Uganda, and cash income is also higher, reversing a pattern found in the 1960s. The Kenyan Iteso undertook considerable labor migration: most men between the ages of 60 and 80 have worked outside their home territory; many served in places such as Burma during World War II. In the early 1980s government-sponsored cooperatives that ran cotton ginneries in western Kenya failed to pay for cotton delivered by the Iteso and others. Consequently, they began experimenting with new cash crops, such as tobacco, grown with the aid of loans from large agricultural companies. In the early 1990s there was a partial revival of cotton growing, and the ginneries have been resuscitated.
Now, am trying to trace for the origin of the Kamarinyag Clan in Uganda.
Help me, and also I want to know more about my two names: OKWARA & IMARAKE.
I have just discovered that these names are common in Nigeria, Whats the relationship?
Also in relation to my Clan the Ikamarinyang, there is a tribe called the Ikarinyang in Kotido Uganda, What is the relationship.
In actual sence where do I belong?
Yalama noinoi ikanachana.
bia=come
ala=land
madu=human
isi/ishi=head
eye=anya
what?=gini?
Nose=imi
ear=nti
water=miri/mili.pls compare n contrast
hen/chicken=okuko
hand=aka
leg=ukwu
okwara,okere are igbo words too.
as of NIGERIANS,i believe,without doubt,seriously have you guys looked at our brothers from west nile,their names(aluma,anguyo...) the way they speak(their is that nigerian tongue in there),their average height(they are big guys by the way) ,the way their women dress,seriously west nilers come from nigeria(
Please, let's keep up with the search. One day I was even shocked to hear someone claim that there are also Iteso in Venezuela. He even added that these Venezuelan Iteso have written books on Medicine, Sociology, and several other disciplines in Ateso language!
One Nigerian told me that Okwara and Marachi are their farmily names.
In Somalia dialet, Itomon(ten) they say Itoban.
The three groups of people among other similarities have similar way of life, dancing with spears, love for animals etc.
Right now I m a student in Kenya (Malindi) and I study with some of southern Ethiopian students but
whenever I speak to them some of their word are similar with us (iteso) .
so i real think and know that the origin of iteso is western and southern Ethiopia
As for you Iteso, you might want to check out Zephaniah 3:10 and Isaiah chapter 18 in the bible. Igbo and Iteso are brothers but not African... sorry I took so long. Also some very good History books to check out:
From Babylon to Timbuktu by Rudolf R. Windsor
Hebrewisms of West Africa by Joseph J. Williams
We might have some connections somewhere and this may be discovered in the future. But all in all a tribe who beleives and serves the Triune God will grow and be powerful.
There are other Ethiopian names which are common in Teso for example "Akol, Malinga, Alemu, Enyakoit etc.
I had two incidences that amused me. I went for an international conference in Canada, during lunch time, as I joined a queue to get my plate, I saw a name tag of a gentleman that bore a name of an "Etesot" and confidently I greeted him in Ateso langage: " Ejakait, akiro biai?" meaning," How are you,sir?" To my surprise the man asked me what I was saying. I wondered if he had lived outside Teso for so long that he forgot his language or he had been given an Etesot name so I told him that I was greeting him in my vernacular from Teso in Uganda. He told me that he was an Igbo from Nigeria.
At my place of work I had one Sudanese who was expecting his relatives from the Middle East and had wanted me to get them some help once they arrived. As a friend of mine for 3 three years, I promised to help him very fast. Here comes the family of seven people, husband and wife and their five children plus my friend. They come to my office and the friend tells his people in their vernacular " Ekile ngol abala eong yes ebe epedori akingarakin yes logo" meaning " this is the gentleman I told you can help us." I was shocked because for the last three years I had treated this friend as a foreigner, we only used English, so I jumped up and exclaimed that I was their own man and we exchanged greetings and many other things.
In Kitale and Teso Kenya, I was surprised at the similarities between the Turkana and Iteso there with their counter parts in Uganda: language, houses/homesteads.
I had a conversation with one train driver; through introduction we learnt that we shared so many things in common. He is an Oromo from Ethiopia. He asked me about our ways of life and every thing I told him, he just threw his hands up saying, " that is exactly how we do it. For example on how we milk cows, what we use, how we treat milk or how to clean utensils before and after milking. He asked me how a calabashes are cleaned if they spoil milk. I grew up in Usuk and I told him that we get a certain weed from the bush and use it for washing/scrubbing, you should have seen the gentleman smiling. We concluded that we came from the same roots.
In the Book of Ruth in the Bible, you can see the similarity of the Jewish culture and that of Iteso: how orphans, widows and clan members are cared for; wife inheritance, keeping of customary land etc. In other books in the bible one can see too much similarity between Iteso and the Jews.
All in all, our origin is complex; I hope to go to Ethiopia via Karamoja/Turkana following a reverse root.
Indeed we need more research on the history of the Itesots and their interlinkage with other tribes in Africa.
I am doing an academic study on the history of Itesot, the people their culture and social economic dynamics. kindly share with any citable info on the address above
Please keep this dialogue up
Am amazedabout how similar our culture and language is to other tribes in other countries. Makes me proud to be who i am. Emuria Kolia.
I am an American married to an Itesot from Apopong, Kolir, Bukedea. Since Feb 2015 I have been searching far and wide for history of the Iteso. Im so happy to have found this wonderful conversation.
As for Igbos in Nigeria, whenever I go to Nigeria for professional work, they think I am Nigerian because my name is 'Osika', while in Nigeria they have the name 'Osita'. So, there is something big to dig up there that is not documented yet. As for Somalia, historians write that some people who may have been ours, moved there from Abysinia but were outnumbered and assimilated. As you know it is easy to move from Ethiopia to Somalia as they have a border to this day.
I also found an interesting piece of information that one of the 700 wifes of King Solomon was actually one of our beautiful Teso girls, though I cannot fully validate this assertion. I urge all of us to ardently love the Iteso culture as it is the richest culture ever.
The name Kumi According to papa who is now 82 years of age and Papa Oitamong David Livingstone aged 117 years and still strong to walk and is married to my aunt esther Naume Alenyo, say there was a tree called EKUM in ateso near where Kumi Health Center IV now is. This tree was where Oumo Used take rest from whenever he would come from his orther in Tisai Island to his main home in Kabata Village which was about One square Kilometer. He Had over 80 women and 10,000 heads of Cows. The indians and the Nubeans who came to do business could not call this tree Ekum instead they called it Kumi and that is how the name kumi came from Now Known as Kumi District.
thnaks a lot
About the igbo(Nigeria), I saw alot of names matching my brothers names! Names like ojie, Oluka, olupot etc.
Sometimes I ask myself, that could Iteso be the alleged descendants of the Biblical Joseph who was said to have had a black woman as one of his wives?
I wish someone could tell me why Ateso words exist in all the countries I have mentioned above, then we could possibly trace our true origin
have slimier pronunciations of words like itesots of tororo rather not so alike like the itesots from the other parts of uganda
In Abyssinia in Ethiopia, l met people speaking ateso that sounds more of karamojong. I an sure iteso originated from Ethiopia.
My brother went to Ethiopia last Month for a work shop and he confirmed to me that there are some Iteso living in Abyssinia in Ethiopia.
One of the priests Fr.Wasiwasi went to Ethiopia and he found one shop named Etunganan- meaning a human being in Ateso.
I am also very interested in knowing our Origin. I have Ateso Dictionary written by the late Fr.Kigen in 1953 before some of us were born and it says that Iteso originated from Ethiopia. They did not mention South Sudan.
that the Iteso people must have certainly separated from the mainstream Ateker group very early and as result interacted with the economically agrarian communities, largely bantus and some nilotes hence abandoned pastoralism, the Ateker economic main stay. That their dialect didn't become extinct as the Kumam people is a miracle of the century. They are however of the Ateker people and need more integration back to their roots.
I'm an Etesot from Chakol, Busia Kenya. Thanks 4 your contributions. The Iteso originated from "Libna" meaning germinating in the present day Libya & Egypt. They moved south to Sudan & Ethiopia and some interacted with central Atlantic languages of Chad, Nigeria(Igbo) Congo, Cameroon. Tesos were aggressive & conquerors by nature. They even believed in the Charles Darwin theory of creation before the advent of the white man in Africa, that humans evolved like a tadipol (elelemete). They have a strong view about culture , economics, leadership & law based on their experiences under different dynasties from Lybia - Ethiopia - (West & Central
Africa) - Sudan - Kenya - Tanzania
Iteso are educated tribe but forgot to dig deeper into their origin and relations to other tribes in other countries who share with them same origin and similar languages to date.
I have read another story tracing our origin to Egypt. That Joseph the Israelite slave in Egypt married a black Egyptian, and when the Israeli slaves left Egypt for the promised land, the group continued the through the blue Nile and settled in Ethiopia, then they moved South Easterly direction, till they settled in Uganda- Karamoja and so on. Does it mean this theory tracing our origin to Ethiopia picks it halfway or???
Eyalama noinoi
Eyalama noi.