Ik people

The Ik are a small mountain people in northeastern Uganda and Kenya. Their language is the Icetot, which belongs to the eastern branch of the Kuliak ostsudanischen languages. In Uganda and Kenya 1,200 5,800 Ik live.

In the 1980s, this nation was famous for the study of the anthropologist Colin Turnbull, who from 1965 to 1966 spent two years with the Ik during a time of great famine. The famine was triggered by drought, the eviction of the Ik from the fertile Kidepo Valley for the purpose of creation of Kidepo Valley National Park and attacks of neighboring tribes. In his book The Mountain People ( German: . The people without love, the social downfall of Ik) Turnbull drew the picture of a barbaric and selfish people. He described, for example, that parents take their children from hunting at the age of three years and will not be allowed into the household, so the children had to fend for themselves. This picture has been found to be incorrect. The temporary, caused by the famine naked egoism is by no means typical of the mountain people and did not lead to " social decline " of the people. It is alive and kicking, and its population has since about 2000 on 7.000gestiegen.

Originally a hunter-gatherer people, the Ik after the expulsion have been forced from their hunting grounds in the Kidepo Valley to settled life and agriculture.

The Ik are also known under the name Teuso, a name which was given to them by neighboring peoples.