Days before there was Nairobi City!

Meria

Elder Lister
Staff member
The Empakasi people once roamed and hunted elephant on the grass plains immediately east of Nairobi River. When the Maasai arrived from the north following the Rift Valley and arrived at Enkong e Munyi (Ngong hills), they were attracted by the vast green pastures through which flowed the Enkare Ol-Kejuado (the long river). With grass and water, the Maasai thought they had reached paradise. They descended onto the Uaso Lo’ngata at the easten base of the hill and entered the vast plain which they soon discovered was Engop L’Empakasi (the land of Empakasi). Discovering that the Empakasi lived on hunted game, they Maasai were so infuriated at such self-denigration that they contemptuously referred then as Ol Toroboni (useless people). It is this name that the British later turned into Dorobo. The Maasai chased the Dorobo out of their traditional land of Empakasi (Bagathi in Kikuyu) and into the Kabete forest which was on the west of Nairobi River and extended north all the way to the land of Metumi (Mũrang’a) beyond Chania River which was the land of Agĩkũyũ.
The Agĩkũyũ were becoming very populated and were slowly expanding into Gaki (Nyeri) in the north and to Kabete to the south. When they arrived into Kabete forest, they found the Empakasi already occupying the land thought them the owners. The Gĩkũyũ called them “Athi”. It is from the Athi that Agĩkũyũ bought land and settled all the way to the banks of Nairobi River. Though the had great esteem for the Athi, they changed the Maasai’s contemptuous name for them, Dorobo, to “Thũrũgũ” but never used it in reference to the Athi. They strictly used it to refer to “useless” people of any tribe.
The Maasai referred to the land west of Nairobi River as “Nakusontelon” meaning, “Where the beauty begins”. They however, being plainspeople, stayed away from the forest where. The Agikuyu and the Dorobo also stayed out of the former Athi plains except at those times they were sure the nomadic Maasai had migrated to other areas. The Ngaara family whose name has persisted to this day, had settled on the land just to the immediate west of Nairobi River, often sneaked their livestock across the river on to the land which they referred to as “Werũ wa Mũthurwa” and watered them at “Enkare Nairobi”, Nairobi river which translates to “cold water”. When they were sure the Maasai were far south into Ol Kejuado, they could risk taking he animals further east to the area he Maasai referred to as “Ol Luai”. The term refers to a short acacia that has a bulb from which grows thorns. It is from that term that the Agĩkũyũ coined the name “Ruiai” by which it is known to this day!
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Mwalimu-G

Elder Lister
Point of clarification Mr Speaker Sir/Madam. Was Empakasi the name of a people or one of the rivers traversing Nairobi County and that eventually combine with others to form Athi River?
 
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