Homeland
The Taita live in the Taita Hills, which rise out of the Tsavo plains in Taita-Taveta County. The 2019 census counted 344,415 Taita.
Sub-groups and language
There are three sub-groups: the Dawida of the main massif, the Sagalla and the Kasigau. Kidawida is a Coastal Bantu language. Kisagalla is closer to Mijikenda speech, and the Kasigau dialect is closer to the speech of the Pare and Chagga of Tanzania.
Origins
Bantu speakers reached the hills around AD 1000 to 1300. Historian Bill Bravman's Making Ethnic Ways (1998) shows a unified Taita identity forming between 1800 and 1950.
Belief
Traditionally, the skulls of the dead were exhumed and placed by lineage in caves and rock shelters, which remain sacred. Sacred forests called fighi parallel the Mijikenda kaya. Historically, a secret society, the Wabasi, was widely feared.
Livelihood
The Taita farm terraced hillsides, and in the lowlands some work in gemstone mining.
Today
Christianity is stronger in Taita than on the Muslim coastal strip. Like most Kenyans, Taita people today usually speak Swahili and English as well as Kidawida.
Further reading
- Making Ethnic Ways, Bill Bravman (1998)
Sources
From The Peoples of Kenya: An Ethnographic Reference (Kenya Experience, November 2026), a synthesis of published sources. Practices described as traditional are historical baselines; today most Kenyans are Christian or Muslim, live in or near towns and speak Swahili and English. Spot something to correct? Write to kibetck@kenyaexperience.org.
