- Luo
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1. a member of a people living mainly in southwest Kenya.2. the Nilotic language of the Luo people.
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People of the flat country near Lake Victoria in western Kenya and northern Uganda.They speak a language of the Nilo-Saharan family. Numbering 3.2 million, the Luo are the third-largest ethnic group in Kenya. They are settled agriculturalists who also keep cattle; many work as agricultural labourers and in urban occupations. Most are Christians. See also Nilot.* * *
▪ peoplealso called Kavirondopeople living among several Bantu-speaking (Bantu languages) peoples in the flat country near Lake Victoria (Victoria, Lake) in western Kenya and northern Tanzania. More than three million strong, the Luo constitute the third largest ethnic group in Kenya (about one-tenth of the population) after the Kikuyu (with whom they shared political power in the first years after Kenya achieved independence) and the Luhya. The Luo speak a Nilotic language (Nilotic languages) of the Nilo-Saharan language family.They are fishermen as well as settled agriculturists who also keep many cattle. Luo are found throughout East Africa as agricultural labourers and tenant farmers and as urban workers.Traditionally, each Luo group is an autonomous political unit controlled by a dominant clan or lineage. This segmentary lineage structure, associated with territorial units, is not organized around a particular office; there is no chief. The segmentary system itself is the basis of organization and cooperation. The Luo traditionally believed in a supreme creator, whom they called Nyasi (Nyasaye), and had a strong ancestor cult. At the turn of the 21st century, most Luo were Christians.* * *
Universalium. 2010.
