The savanna north of the Victoria Nile and Lake Kyoga, and West Nile beyond the Albert Nile.
Before the Luo (Lwoo) moved in from the north in the fifteenth century and after, much of this country was held by Central Sudanic-speaking farmers, ancestors of the Madi, Lugbara and their kin (linguistic and traditional evidence), with Eastern Nilotic and other herders to the east. On 1 January 1200 they are farming clans under elders and rain chiefs; the Acholi and Lango peoples and their chiefdoms are later.
Who holds it
- Name
- Not named
- Title
- Clan elders and rain chiefs
- Since
- Not pinned
- Confidence
- low
What it holds
- West Nile
- The Acholi and Lango plains (before the Luo)
How things stand that morning
Self-governing clans.
Customs
Clan elders; rain chiefs.
Where the sources disagree
Evidence: Linguistic reconstruction and the traditions of later arrivals.
On the map: Rough outline; peoples not identified with confidence.
Sources and studies
- C. Ehret, An African Classical Age: Eastern and Southern Africa in World History, 1000 B.C. to A.D. 400 (1998) and History and the Testimony of Language (2011), on the language families of East Africa
- J. E. G. Sutton, A Thousand Years of East Africa (1990)
Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.