Culture Of El Molo People Of Kenya.

  

Date Posted: 12/1/2013 8:24:10 AM

Posted By: jvk  Membership Level: Silver  Total Points: 330

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The Culture of El molo People of Kenya.

El molo is a community or a tribe that lives along the shores of Lake Turkana on the southeastern side of the lake. They are the smallest community in Kenya because they have a population of about 300 people. The name of this tribe (El molo) originated from a phrase of Maasai community meaning “those who make a living from other sources other than cattle”.

The original homeland of El molo is not known because some people are saying that they came from Somalia while others are saying that they came from Ethiopia. With increase in the intermarriages between the El molo and Samburu and Turkana people, there is increase chance of extinction of the El molo community. In fact there are few people from El molo community who speak the language purely. The language is only spoken well by the elders.

The mode of dressing of El molo has changed drastically with time because it is only the elders in that community who are dressing traditionally while the school going children are dressed in the modern ways (western style).

Since the El molo are living near the shores of Lake Turkana, their main source of food is obtained from fish and their most preferred fish is the Nile perch. This fish is gotten through fishing by the use of spears and the nets although at times they also use harpoons (made from roots of acacia). El molo also eat some meat from hippos and crocodiles killed along the shores of Lake Turkana. They use rafts which are made of doum palm logs to drive to Lake Turkana during fishing. There is another fruit (called nut) which is mostly eaten by small children from the El molo. They are nuts from doum palm ;

a tree that grow naturally along the Lake Turkana.

The houses of El molo are called huts and are normally round in shape. These huts are made from doum palm fronds and are held in position by the woods obtained from acacia tree. Just like the Turkana people and Samburu, the El molo also wear necklaces that are made from different colours of beads.

El molo do not have fresh drinking water because they are taking their water from Lake Turkana and yet the water is more of alkaline in nature. This water gets contaminated by El molo people and there have been reports of cholera outbreak among them. This led to establishment of a non governmental organization (NGO) called Wildize foundation that has tried to help El molo get fresh water for drinking.

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