The open plains from the Loita hills and the Mara to Kajiado and Amboseli, later the heart of the Maasai country, were in 1200 grazed by herders of whom little is known: Southern Nilotic speakers related to the peoples of the highlands and the Datooga, and remnant Southern Cushitic herders, with Okiek and other hunter-foragers in the hills.
The Maa-speaking Maasai moved south into these plains in the following centuries (Spear and Waller).
Who holds it
- Name
- Not named
- Title
- Herding elders
- Since
- Not pinned
- Confidence
- low
What it holds
- The Loita and Mara plains (Kenyan side)
- The Kajiado plains and Amboseli
- The southern Rift floor round Magadi
How things stand that morning
Self-governing herders; peoples not identified with confidence.
Customs
Not recorded for 1200.
Where the sources disagree
Evidence: Inference from linguistics and the late arrival of the Maasai; little excavation for this period.
On the map: Bounded on the south by the modern Kenya-Tanzania border for convenience; the Tanzanian plains are zan's.
Sources and studies
- T. Spear and R. Waller (eds.), Being Maasai: Ethnicity and Identity in East Africa (1993), on the Maa-speakers' later arrival in the Rift
- C. Ehret, Southern Nilotic History: Linguistic Approaches to the Study of the Past (1971)
Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.