The main ethnic group in the district are the Pokot, a group that shares a common culture and customs with the Pokot and Kalenjin of Kenya.
Because it borders the nilotic Kalenjin languages of the Pokot, Nandi and Sebei to the north, east and west, the Bukusu language spoken in Kitale area has largely retained its original form, save for a number of loan words from those languages.
He then went to Northwestern University, where he was a student of Melville Herskovits, basing his dissertation on field research among the Pokot of Kenya.
She has also been instrumental in bringing a lasting peace between the Pokots and Marakwets.
She is the head of the Helena Kirop Foundation, a charitable organisation aiming to provide education to girls in poor families in the Turkana and Pokot communities.
The Pokot people (commonly spelled Pökoot) live in West Pokot County and Baringo County in Kenya and in the Pokot District of the eastern Karamoja region in Uganda.