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Sirikwa people
The Sirikwa people were a historically attested community in the western highland regions of present-day Kenya, remembered primarily through oral traditions and early colonial-era ethnography. While their name has since been applied to a broader archaeological horizon—the so-called Sirikwa culture—the Sirikwa themselves seem to have been a clan or sub-tribe within the larger East African Pastoral Iron Age complex, and may not have been the sole bearers of that material tradition.
Oral traditions consistently place the Sirikwa on the Uasin Gishu plateau and adjacent highlands prior to their dispersal in the mid-19th century. Many of these traditions—particularly those preserved by the Pokot and neighboring Kalenjin-speaking groups—emphasize that the plateau was never inhabited by a single people, but was instead shared by at least two distinct communities. This suggests a multi-ethnic or segmented settlement pattern, with the Sirikwa forming just one of several culturally related groups that once inhabited the region.
Their legacy survives both in oral tradition and in the archaeological nomenclature that continues to bear their name.
Accounts recorded in the early 20th century strongly associate the Sirikwa with a community known as Uasin Gishu Maasai. Huntingford (1910) reports that;
There is no doubt that they are the people called il-Mukwan by the Uasin Gishu Masai (hereinafter referred to as Ipkopek, their Kony name). They appear to have been a section of the Ipkopek, who say that the il-Mukwan were driven out by them and fled to Tanganyika Territory, where their remnant still lives, called Sirikwa (Sirikwek) by the Nandi and the Kony of Elgon.
This 'Kony perspective' is notably corroborated by certain elements recorded in A. C. Hollis’s The Nandi: Their Language and Folklore (1909). He notes that the Nandi use the term "Mokwanisiek" (derived from Mukwan/Mukwanik) to describe the distinctive earthworks—now referred to as Sirikwa holes—which they attribute to an earlier people. Hollis also records that the Nandi refer to the Maasai as "Ipuapcho (pl. Ipuapek)", directly paralleling the Kony’s term Ipkopek.
An earlier account by C. W. Hobley, writing in 1906, offers further support:
"On the ..Uasin Gishu plateau between Mount Elgon and Elgeyo, are the remains of a past race in the form of numerous ruined stone kraals, circular in shape. The Uasin Gishu people who formerly inhabited the plateau declare that they are the relics of a race called Mokwan (possibly the people were called Sirikwa, and the kraals Mokwan) who peopled that region previous to themselves."
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Sirikwa people
The Sirikwa people were a historically attested community in the western highland regions of present-day Kenya, remembered primarily through oral traditions and early colonial-era ethnography. While their name has since been applied to a broader archaeological horizon—the so-called Sirikwa culture—the Sirikwa themselves seem to have been a clan or sub-tribe within the larger East African Pastoral Iron Age complex, and may not have been the sole bearers of that material tradition.
Oral traditions consistently place the Sirikwa on the Uasin Gishu plateau and adjacent highlands prior to their dispersal in the mid-19th century. Many of these traditions—particularly those preserved by the Pokot and neighboring Kalenjin-speaking groups—emphasize that the plateau was never inhabited by a single people, but was instead shared by at least two distinct communities. This suggests a multi-ethnic or segmented settlement pattern, with the Sirikwa forming just one of several culturally related groups that once inhabited the region.
Their legacy survives both in oral tradition and in the archaeological nomenclature that continues to bear their name.
Accounts recorded in the early 20th century strongly associate the Sirikwa with a community known as Uasin Gishu Maasai. Huntingford (1910) reports that;
There is no doubt that they are the people called il-Mukwan by the Uasin Gishu Masai (hereinafter referred to as Ipkopek, their Kony name). They appear to have been a section of the Ipkopek, who say that the il-Mukwan were driven out by them and fled to Tanganyika Territory, where their remnant still lives, called Sirikwa (Sirikwek) by the Nandi and the Kony of Elgon.
This 'Kony perspective' is notably corroborated by certain elements recorded in A. C. Hollis’s The Nandi: Their Language and Folklore (1909). He notes that the Nandi use the term "Mokwanisiek" (derived from Mukwan/Mukwanik) to describe the distinctive earthworks—now referred to as Sirikwa holes—which they attribute to an earlier people. Hollis also records that the Nandi refer to the Maasai as "Ipuapcho (pl. Ipuapek)", directly paralleling the Kony’s term Ipkopek.
An earlier account by C. W. Hobley, writing in 1906, offers further support:
"On the ..Uasin Gishu plateau between Mount Elgon and Elgeyo, are the remains of a past race in the form of numerous ruined stone kraals, circular in shape. The Uasin Gishu people who formerly inhabited the plateau declare that they are the relics of a race called Mokwan (possibly the people were called Sirikwa, and the kraals Mokwan) who peopled that region previous to themselves."