The El Molo, also known as Elmolo, Dehes, Fura-Pawa and Ldes, are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the northern Eastern Province of

Kenya ) , national_anthem = " Ee Mungu Nguvu Yetu"() , image_map = , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Nairobi , coordinates = , largest_city = Nairobi ...

. They historically spoke the El Molo language as a mother tongue, an Afro-Asiatic language of the

Cushitic The Cushitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They are spoken primarily in the Horn of Africa, with minorities speaking Cushitic languages to the north in Egypt and the Sudan, and to the south in Kenya and Tanzania. As o ...

branch, and now most El Molo speak Samburu.

History

The El Molo are believed to have originally migrated down into the

Turkana Basin An '' Acacia'' tree in the Kokiselei river, northern Kenya The greater Turkana Basin in East Africa (mainly northwestern Kenya and southern Ethiopia, smaller parts of eastern Uganda and southeastern South Sudan) determines a large endorheic ba ...

around 1000 BC from

Ethiopia Ethiopia, , om, Itiyoophiyaa, so, Itoobiya, ti, ኢትዮጵያ, Ítiyop'iya, aa, Itiyoppiya officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the ...

in the more northerly Horn region. Owing to the arid environment in which they entered, they are held to have then abandoned agricultural activities in favor of lakeside fishing. Historically, the El Molo erected tomb structures in which they placed their dead. A 1962 archaeological survey in the Northern Frontier District led by S. Brodribb Pughe observed

hieroglyphics Egyptian hieroglyphs (, ) were the formal writing system used in Ancient Egypt, used for writing the Egyptian language. Hieroglyphs combined logographic, syllabic and alphabetic elements, with some 1,000 distinct characters.There were about 1,00 ...

on a number of these constructions. They were mainly found near springs or wells of water.

Demographics

The El Molo today primarily inhabit the northern Eastern Province of Kenya. They are concentrated in Marsabit District on the southeast shore of Lake Turkana, between El Molo bay and Mount Kulal. In the past, they also dwelled in other parts of the Northern Frontier District. According to the 2019 Kenya census, there were 1,104 El Molo residents. However, historians have noted that there are few "pure" El Molo left. Most group members are today admixed with adjacent

Nilotic The Nilotic peoples are people indigenous to the Nile Valley who speak Nilotic languages. They inhabit South Sudan, Sudan, Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, Burundi and Tanzania. Among these are the Burun-sp ...

populations, primarily Samburu, with only a handful of unmixed El Molo believed to exist. Many El Molo speakers have also adopted cultural customs from these communities. In 1994, only eight people reportedly could still speak El Molo.

Language

The El Molo historically spoke the El Molo language as a native language. It belongs to the

branch of the Afro-Asiatic family. According to '' Ethnologue'', among other sources, the El Molo language is nearly extinct and there may already be no remaining speakers of the idiom. Most group members have now adopted the Nilo-Saharan languages of their neighbours. The El Molo language has no known dialects. It is most similar to Daasanach.

Religion

Many El Molo practice a traditional religion centered on the worship of

Waaq Waaq (also Waq or Waaqa) is the ancient name for God in the Cushitic languages of both the Oromo people and Somali people in the Horn of Africa.Mohamed Diriye Abdullahi, ''Culture and Customs of Somalia'', (Greenwood Publishing Group: 2001), p.65. ...

/Wakh. In the related Oromo culture, ''Waaq'' denotes the single God of the early pre-

Abraham Abraham, ; ar, , , name=, group= (originally Abram) is the common Hebrew patriarch of the Abrahamic religions, including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In Judaism, he is the founding father of the special relationship between the Je ...

ic, monotheistic faith believed to have been adhered to by Cushitic groups.Mohamed Diriye Abdullahi, ''Culture and Customs of Somalia'', (Greenwood Publishing Group: 2001), p.65. Some El Molo have also adopted

Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global pop ...

Genetics

Recent advances in genetic analyses have helped shed some light on the

ethnogenesis Ethnogenesis (; ) is "the formation and development of an ethnic group". This can originate by group self-identification or by outside identification. The term ''ethnogenesis'' was originally a mid-19th century neologism that was later introd ...

of the El Molo people. Genetic genealogy, although a novel tool that uses the genes of modern populations to trace their ethnic and geographic origins, has also helped clarify the possible background of the modern El Molo.

mtDNA

According to an

mtDNA Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA or mDNA) is the DNA located in mitochondria, cellular organelles within eukaryotic cells that convert chemical energy from food into a form that cells can use, such as adenosine triphosphate (ATP). Mitochondrial DNA ...

study by Castri et al. (2008), the maternal ancestry of the contemporary El Molo consists of a mixture of Afro-Asiatic-associated lineages and Sub-Saharan haplogroups, reflecting substantial female gene flow from neighboring Sub-Saharan populations. A little over 30% of the El Molo belonged to the West Eurasian haplogroups I (23%) and HV1 (8%). The remaining El Molo samples carried various Sub-Saharan macro-haplogroup L sub-clades, mainly consisting of L3* (26%), L0a2 (17%) and L0f (17%).

Autosomal DNA

The El Molo's

autosomal An autosome is any chromosome that is not a sex chromosome. The members of an autosome pair in a diploid cell have the same morphology, unlike those in allosomal (sex chromosome) pairs, which may have different structures. The DNA in autosom ...

DNA has been examined in a comprehensive study by Tishkoff et al. (2009) on the genetic affiliations of various populations in Africa. According to the researchers, the El Molo showed significant Afro-Asiatic affinities. They also shared some ties with neighboring Nilo-Saharan and Bantu speakers in eastern Africa due to considerable genetic exchanges with these communities over the past 5000 or so years.; Also se
Supplementary Data
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Notes

References

Ethnologue - El Molo languageBBC - El Molo language

External links

Glottolog - Language: El Molo
{{authority control Ethnic groups in Kenya Cushitic-speaking peoples