Sirikwa holes
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Sirikwa holes are saucer-shaped hollows found on hillsides in the western highlands of Kenya[1] and in the elevated stretch of the central Rift Valley around Nakuru.[2] These hollows, each having a diameter of 10–20 metres and an average depth of 2.4 metres, occur in groups, sometimes numbering fewer than ten and at times more than a hundred. Archaeologists believe that construction of these features may have begun in the Iron Age.[3][4]
Some accounts credit Mary Leakey with having introduced the term "Sirkiwa holes' following excavations at Hyrax Hill between 1937 and 1938.[5] An account in the introduction to Hollis' book on the Nandi, published in 1909, indicates that the term Sirikwa was already in use:
...the Nandi have a tradition that they were once expelled from their country by the Sirikwa, a tribe who once lived on the Uasin Gishu plateau and built stone kraals
— From Introduction by Sir Charles Elliot to Hollis, A., The Nandi - Their Language and Folklore, Oxford, 1909
An origin narrative from the Sengwer gives an earlier origin of the name:
Sengwer had two sons named Sirikwa (elder) and Mitia. Sirikwa occupied the plains (Soi) of what is now part of Trans Nzoia, Lugari and Uasin Gishu districts. Sirikwa had his first son named Chepkoilel. The plains have since been referred to as Kapchepkoilel. The children of Sirikwa and Mitia form the sub-tribes of Sengwer...[6]
It is thus likely that Sirikwa was the name of one of the two major groupings within the Sengwer of the Sirikwa era, and correctly passed on to Thompson from his Okiek guide as the descriptor of the name of the people who built those cattle pens that he saw in the Uasin Gishu. By 1909, the name had generally passed on to the wider culture associated with this type of structure and Mary Leakey picked it to describe the finds she found at Hyrax Hill. It has been argued by some that use of the word holes to describe the feature is misleading.