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Pokomo are an ethnic group of Kenya, from the Bantu language group and is not one of the groups that make up the Mijikenda (which means ''"Nine Villages"''); they are a distinct tribe with their own sub-clans/tribes. They are predominantly agriculturalists and both fresh and ocean waters fishermen living along the Tana River in the Tana River County. They speak the Pokomo language, which is descended from the Kingozi language. The Pokomo mostly live along the River Tana up to the delta where they grow their crops, which used to be mainly rice. The Tana River also supplies the Pokomo with catfish (''mtonzi'' or if it is the largest, it is called ''mpumi''), tilapia (''ntuku''), trout (''ningu''), eel (''mamba''), and crocodile (''ngwena''). Catfish is mainly boiled or sun dried/smoked prior to eating. Other food sources include plantains, palm tree seeds, bananas, peas, and pumpkins. The Pokomo council of elders are known as ''Gasa''. They deal with solving disputes about marriage, land, and family conflicts and others. The Pokomo dances include ''Kitoko, Mwaribe, Miri'' among others and these are usually performed at various ceremonies. The passage to adulthood for men is by initiation which involves circumcision – ''kuhinywa''. The population in Kenya is currently more than 150,000. The Pokomo population is split into two groups; the Upper Pokomo, who make up 75% of the population, and the Lower Pokomo. The Upper Pokomo people are mainly Muslim, and have been so since the first half of the 20th century. The Lower Pokomos, who live along the lower part of the Tana up to the delta, were receptive to the teachings of the Christian missionaries who arrived in the area in the late 1870s, and, by 1914, were almost exclusively Christian.〔(【引用サイトリンク】 title=People of Kenya: Pokomo )〕 The Joshua Project site states that their primary religion is Christianity with 90.00%, (Evangelical: 44.00%),〔(【引用サイトリンク】 title=Pokomo of Kenya )〕 but they must have taken into account only lower Pokomo. Ethnologue also indicates that the group is mainly Muslim.〔(【引用サイトリンク】 title=Kipfokomo: A language of Kenya )〕 The tune of the Kenya National Anthem is an African Song whose tune was borrowed from the Pokomo community lullaby. This traditional lullaby song is sung even to date by mothers to their babies to make them sleep; the song goes as: ''Bee mdondo bee, mwana kalilani njoo mudye mwana ywehu alache kuliloo" –'' roughly translated it means: ''"you animal, you animal, our child is crying, please come and eat it so that it can stop crying".'' The song was composed by the late Mzee Menza Morowa Galana of Makere village, Gwano location in Wenje division. The hero (Mzee Menza) died on Thursday 12, November, 2015 at the age of 96 after developing pneumonia disease. Pokomo people are musical and they use music to blend their culture in celebrating achievements; harvest, fishing, hunting, wedding, circumcision and also when new babies were born, this was done in the form of songs and dances. Pokomos are found along the Tana riverine up to the delta and the flood plains. "Tana" comes from the word ''"Chana"'', which means river. The Pokomo have always referred to River Tana as "Chana Maro", that is "River Maro". Probably the word ''Chana'' is coined from either side with the Kikuyu word ''Chania'', which is the same word that Kikuyu use to refer to one of the tributaries of Tana: River Chania. Pokomos are mainly farmers and have always depended on the flooding regime of River Tana to grow rice, bananas, green grams, beans and maize. The staple foods of the Pokomo are rice and fish. Other famous foodstuffs include ''matoli'' – cooked banana chips mixed with fish, ''marika'' – cooked banana mixed with fish and smashed together,''konole'' – cooked mixture of sifted maize and green gram/beans,''nkumbu'' – ash baked or boiled banana. Currently, "sima" or "ugali" in Kiswahili, or stiff cornmeal porridge in English, has become the main Pokomo dish due to changing or non existence of river flooding regimes and weather that is not able to support the cultivation of rice. ==Subgroups== In his paper published in the ''Journal of History in Africa'' 10(1983), 207–237 entitled "History of Linguistics: Case Study of Tana River", Dereke Nurse confirmed that the Pokomo regard themselves and their language as being divisible into Lower (LP) and Upper (UP) Pokomo.〔Derek Nurse (1983) History in Africa Vol. 10: "History from Linguistics: The Case of the Tana River" pp. 207–238 (32 pages)〕 The people and the language of roughly the northern one-third of the River Tana towards Garisa are known as Malakote (M: also known as Ilwana or El-Wana). Malakote differ considerably from UP and LP. Even the two-way split UP: LP is partly artificial linguistically, as in any continuum. The major break does occur around Mwina, but these are also internal isoglosses dividing UP and LP. Some of these link adjoining part of UP and LP. Within Pokomo there is considerable linguistic variation at all levels: lexical, phonological and morphological. Despite the smallness of the Pokomo Community, there is at least as much internal difference between UP and LP as between the two poles of the 150 mile-long Malakote Community. Van Otterloo assess the level of lexical similarity between UP and LP as much as the same as that between Giriama and Digo. UP and LP refer to each other jocularly as "two-week" languages; that is, they take two weeks to learn but Malakote, within UP is regarded as a "two-months language". It is therefore clear that Pokomo are not part of the Mijikenda Community, which is composed of nine (9) sub-tribes some of these are the (i) Kauma, (ii) Chonyi, (iii) Jibana, (iv) Giriama, (v) Kambe, (vi)Ribe, (vii)Rabai, (viii)Duruma and (ix) Digo. The Pokomo are subdivided into eleven (11) sub-tribes: six (6) sub-tribes in the Upper Pokomo (Mila Julu) and five (5) sub-tribes in the Lower Pokomo (Mila Nchini). The word ''Mila'' connotes ''culture'', ''julu'', ''nchini'' and ''kote'' mean ''up'', ''lower'' and ''both'' respectively; therefore the word ''milajulu'' refers to culture of the Upper Pokomo and ''milanchini'' to the culture of the Lower Pokomo. Thus, ''milakote'' (with time being pronounced as ''malakote'') connotes culture from both sides (here referring to blended culture of Pokomo and Orma/Somalis/Borana). 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Pokomo people」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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