Twenty-five Bukusu elders have petitioned President Mwai Kibaki to lift the 1968 ban on the Dini ya Musambwa sect.
"Go tell the President, his cabinet and Members of Parliament that we are tired of living like animals in the forest, having been hunted down during the Kanu reign and wish to be allowed to worship our God freely," their spokesman, Mr Wanjala Kapule, told the Nation.
He spoke after chairing a meeting of the sect's top committee at the Matili home of Mr Israel Khaoya in Bungoma District. Those at the meeting included 19 men and five women.
Mr Khaoya, Mr Elijah Masinde, Mr Joash Walumoli and Mr Benjamin Wekuke, who have since died, founded the sect in the early 1940s. The faith gained national fame for its fight against colonialism.
But it was banned for the second time 35 years ago by then Attorney-General, Mr Charles Njonjo, and Mr Masinde jailed for incitement.
It was first proscribed by the colonial regime in 1948 when its leaders began to oppose the presence of white settlers in western Kenya.
"If we have wronged anyone before, we ask for forgiveness, but why is it only us who have been forgotten and harassed, yet we fought against social injustices before and after independence?" Mr Kapule asked.