Teso refers to the traditional homeland of the Iteso, and Ateso is their language. Etesot is for male person from Teso and Atesot is feminine. Iteso are believed to have migrated from Abyssinia Ethiopia. Iteso are very generous and hospitable people. The cultural drink of Iteso is 'ajon' , commonly consumed in local ceremonies and social gatherings.
They practice crop and animal farming and attach great value to land. Teso traditions relate that they originated somewhere in what is now Egypt in the area of Alexandra [ citation needed ]. They are believed to have descended from the Hebrew Joseph who had married a black Egyptian [ citation needed ].
Later when the Israeli slaves left Egypt for the promised land, the group followed the blue Nile river into Ethiopia [ citation needed ]. They then moved in a south easterly direction and settled in North Eastern Uganda, in what is now Karamoja. The word Karamoja lends itself into Karamojong which means " the old person is fatigued".
Legend has it that either as a sect, a clan or of a similar tribal identity to the Karamojong, tt is from here that they obtained the name Iteso, a derivative word, meaning "graves". The oldmen--the Karamojong where concerned, perhaps even anxious that if these group of Karamojong moved on, they would die hence becoming "graves", from which the word "atesia" originates, and the tribal name, Iteso, took on.
Some accounts indicate bible or scriptural influence where by the Iteso saw a land, part of the promise to Jacob, the grand son of Abraham, as a land divided by small rivers originating from the White Nile, theirs was the Upper Nile area. From the Ethiopian mountains is where they saw the land.
