| dc.description.abstract | The major theme of this thesis is the growth and development of
the ethnic group and the ethnic awareness of the Chuka people of Mt.
Kenya region. The thesis begins with the earliest recorded traditions
which have been dated c. 1400. It traces the origins and migrations of
the three cultural and linguistic groups - Cushites, Paranilotes and
Bantu - which interacted and went into the Chuka amalgam. It demonstrates
that Chuka ethnicity which developed in the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries was not tribal or an expansion of kinship loyalties.
Despite the "youthfulness" of Central Kenyan historiography or
perhaps because of it, a number of half-truths and historical myths have
become a part of the literature of the area. The thesis seeks to demolish
or clarify a number of these including the pure tribe theory, the ancient
Bantu myth, assumptions of eastern origins, the Thagicu hypothesis and
the primitive aboriginal Chuka image. | en |
