Kavirondo

This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these messages) This article may not provide balanced coverage on a geographical region. Please improve this article or discuss the issue on the talk page. (January 2024) The neutrality of this article is disputed. Relevant discussion may be found on the talk page. Please do not remove this message until conditions to do so are met. (January 2024) (Learn how and when to remove this message) This article needs to be updated. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information. (November 2010) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Kavirondo is the former name of the region surrounding Kavirondo Gulf (now Winam Gulf) as well as of two native peoples living there under the regime of British East Africa (The "Nilotic Kavirondo" and the "Bantu Kavirondo"). Broadly, this was defined as those who dwelt in the valley of the Nzoia River, on the western slopes of Mount Elgon, and along the northeast coast of Victoria Nyanza.^{[citation needed]}

Suggested etymologies of the name "Kavirondo" include

• From local young warriors, armed with spears, bows, arrows, & clubs, who were observed to sit on their heels, which in Swahili is kaa virondo. Thus the region became Kavirondo, the inhabitants pejoratively called wa-Kavirondo: “people who sit on their heels”^{[citation needed]}
• From kaba-londo: In Buganda two unusual words related to royalty were combined, kabaka, the king & namu-londo, the stool used as throne on which the king is crowned.

(Both putative origins may be doubtful).

A more plausible etymological origin of the name Kavirondo, is from the Kalenjin language "Kap-Kirondo" meaning "The place of Reeds" denoting the reeds by the Lake Victoria. Historian Alfred T. Matson explains in fair detail the obscure origins of the name and its first usage at the dawn of British rule in East Africa.^[1]