Revisiting African indigenous eco-spirituality and eco-solidarity: an autobiographical case of totemism among the Kipsigis

African indigenous knowledge systems and ecologies have often been marginalised in global environmental discourses due to their ‘unscientific’ and non-empirical nature. There is, however, a growing appreciation that African cosmology and ecologies are spiritual, theistic, and ordered where one mode of existence presupposes all the others and that a balance must be maintained among the different forms of life for harmonious coexistence. One way of maintaining balance among the different forms of existence was through totemic taboos. Using the Kipsigis community of Kenya, particularly the belief and practice of totemism, this article examines through oral history and storytelling, how totems created physical and spiritual bonds between the community and environment through taboos. Acknowledging that these invaluable indigenous ecological knowledge systems have eroded due to urbanisation, modernisation, and Christianisation, this article makes an autobiographical case for how young people can revisit such knowledges to inspire an eco-spirituality that, combined with scientific and technological efforts, will enhance environmental conservation. (This article is published in the thematic collection ‘African ecologies: the value and politics of indigenous knowledges’, edited by Adriaan van Klinken, Simon Manda, Damaris Parsitau and Abel Ugba.)