ABSTRACT
The Gusii are a people of about two hundred and eighty thousand population inhabiting the fertile highlands of south-western Kenya just east of Lake Victoria. Although part of the vast Bantu-speaking majority in Africa south of the equator, they are completely surrounded by non-Bantu peoples; the Luo, Kipsigis, and Masai. Their closest linguistic and cultural affinities are with other Nyanza Bantu groups, viz. the Kuria, who straddle the Kenya-Tanganyika border in the south, and the Baluyia peoples (particularly the Logoli) north of Lake Victoria. Practising agriculture and animal husbandry, the Gusii are relatively wealthy despite rising population densities which exceed seven hundred per square mile in some areas.
