states that "some fifty years ago the Turkana owned part of the land on the west now occupied by the Karamoyo, whilst the southern portion of their land belonged to the Burkineji. The Karamoyo drove the Turkana further east, and the Turkana, in their turn, pushed the Burkineji towards Samburuland". Fragmentation 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. 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. On the eastern escarpment, one front occupied the plateau now known as Laikipia and brought the Ogiek there under their patronage. Another front continued the southward expansion to the southern plateaus, as far as or even beyond Mount Kilimanjaro. 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. This expansion was followed by the development of three groupings within the Loikop society. The Sambur who occupied the 'original' country east of Lake Turkana as well as the Laikipia plateau. The Guash Ngishu occupied the grass plateaus of the Uasin Gishu and Mau while the Maasai territory extended from Naivasha to Kilimanjaro. 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". From these accounts, it is possible to surmise that the society once referred to as Loikop fragmented into the Samburu, Maasai and the Kwavi communities (the latter itself later fragmenting into the Laikipiak and Uasin Gishu communities). Indeed, this was stated explicitly by McDonald when he writes that the "..Masai, Kwafi (or more properly Guash Ngishu, for Kwafi, is a Swahili term) and Sambur (or Kore) are three divisions of one tribe,the Eloegop..." Territory Stigand (1913) made notes concerning "the old Laikipia, the Loikop" people and their territory. He stated that "according to (his) informants, the country north of Gilgil and extending from this place to the Borana was in the old days called 'Laikipia', a name which is now confined to the plateau between the north of the Aberdres ranges and the Lorogai Mountains. The Masai inhabitants of this tract were called 'Loikop'