Lake Victoria made the Luo who they are. The tilapia, the lung fish, the rhythms of the water gave them an economy built on nets and canoes rather than cattle and raids. Fishing created social structures, gender roles, and trading networks that stretched inland. When the British arrived, they found a people whose wealth was measured differently, whose relationship to land and water confounded colonial categories. The lake was not backdrop. It was the organizing principle of an entire society.