Krapf made his first trip into the interior the following month and encountered reports of the nearby Okooafee and their southern neighbors, the Quapee.

In an early account, Thomas Wakefield described the "poor Wakwavi ... [who,] having long since been robbed of their cattle by the Maasai, were compelled to turn their attention to agricultural pursuits".

Charles New concurred in 1873 with his predecessors' assertion that the Maasai and "Wakuavi" called themselves Orloikob, which he translated as "possessors of the soil"; both groups were pastoralists.

Von Höhnel (1894) and Lamphear (1988) recorded narratives concerning conflict between the Turkana and Burkineji or at least the section recalled as Sampur that appear to have been caused by even earlier demographic pressures.

Therefore Turkana cattle camps began to push further down the Tarash, which ran northwards below the foothills of the Moru Assiger massif on their right and the escarpment on their left.

Pelekee which loomed up in the distance directly before them... Lamphear notes that Tukana traditions aver that a dreamer among them saw strange animals living with the people up in the hills.

[13] According to Von Höhnel (1894) "a few decades" prior, the Burkineji occupied districts on the west of the lake and that they were later driven eastwards into present day Samburu.

[14] According to Maasai traditions recorded by MacDonald (1899), the expansion of early Eloegop (Loikop) communities into a society occurred from a base east of Lake Turkana on three fronts.

[15] Pushing southward from the country east of Lake Turkana the Loikop conquered a number of communities to occupy the plateaus adjacent to the Rift Valley.

The third front occupied the western escarpment, conquering the 'Senguer' people who dwelt on the plateau now known as Uasin Gishu and almost annihilated this community.

The Guash Ngishu occupied the grass plateaus of the Uasin Gishu and Mau while the Maasai territory extended from Naivasha to Kilimanjaro.

[15] The mythological rendition of this account as record by Straight et al. (2016) states that "three Maa clan clusters – Loiborkineji, Maasai, and Laikipiak – came out together...from the (baobab) Tree of Tangasa".

[21] According to traditions captured by MacDonald (1899), the Uasin Gishu were one of the three principal groupings that formed following fragmentation of the Loikop society.

[22] Samburu historians interviewed by Straight et al. (2016) state that there was an initial fragmentation of Loikop society into three groupings and that one of these were 'the Laikipiak, who "went around Mount Kenya and northward"'.

[16] However, certain accounts note that the name 'Laikipiak' arose after their livestock were afflicted by rinderpest, after which they were called Lorere Lokipei ("people whose cattle have the disease").

[26][27] Krapf writing in 1854, as the Iloikop wars raged, wrote about the conflicts that affected the 'Engánglima tribe which occupied the vast territory situated between Usambara, Teita, and Ukambani...'.

He notes that they; ...first received a mortal blow from their brethren the Masai, and afterwards from the united forces of the Wakamba, Wanika, Wasuahili and Wateita (and) in consequence of this disastrous catastrophe either disappeared, or retreated to the territory of other Wakuafi in order to escape utter destruction... New (quoted in Markakis) writing in 1873 recorded accounts of conflict between the Masai and a community he refers to as 'Wakwavi', he states that; In the course of time, the Masai, emerging from the west, swept over the open plains, smote the Wakwavi and scattered them to the winds, leaving however the Wataveta in the forest fastness in perfect security.

He notes that prior to the attack by the Maasai, the Kwavi whose original home comprised "the large district lying between Kilimanjaro, Ugono and Pare on the west, and Teita, and Usambara on the east" had suffered repulses in raids against the 'Wa-gogo' and later against the 'Kisongo', their land had also been afflicted by locusts and...; While the Wa-kwafi were in this unhappy plight,the Masai of the plains to the west fell upon them and smote them hip and thigh, and thus broke up and revenged themselves upon the most powerful division of the tribe.

The narratives recorded by MacDonald state that at the time of fragmentation of the Loikop peoples, there was a certain internal jealousy that gradually developed into open conflict.

After some initial defeats, the Masai detached the Sambur of Lykipia from the hostile alliance and then crushed the Guash Ngishu so utterly that the latter could no longer hold their own against the dispossessed Nandi and their kindred, and ceased to exist as a tribe.

Stigand (1913) also made note of the decision and intention of the Laikipiak to "attack and completely overwhelm the southern Masai...that they might cease to exist as a tribe".

[31] Thompson later recounts a trek past 'Giligili' where he noticed "an ernomous Masai kraal, which could not have held less than 3000 warriors, and then some distance beyond appeared another of equal, if not larger dimensions."