Aoyate drought

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The Aoyate drought was an acute meteorological drought that according to Turkana tradition affected much of the Rift Valley region of Kenya during the late 18th century or early 19th century. [1] [2]

18th century Century

The 18th century lasted from January 1, 1701 to December 31, 1800. During the 18th century, elements of Enlightenment thinking culminated in the American, French, and Haitian revolutions. This was an age of violent slave trading, and global human trafficking. The reactions against monarchical and aristocratic power helped fuel the revolutionary responses against it throughout the century.

19th century Century

The 19th (nineteenth) century was a century that began on January 1, 1801, and ended on December 31, 1900. It is often used interchangeably with the 1800s, though the start and end dates differ by a year.

Contents

Naming

The word aoyate is from the Turkana language and means long dry time. It is the word that the Turkana use to describe this dry period in their history. [1]

Turkana is the language of the Turkana people of Kenya. It is spoken in northwestern Kenya, primarily in Turkana County, which lies west of Lake Turkana. It is one of the Eastern Nilotic languages, and is closely related to Karamojong, Jie and Teso of Uganda, to Toposa spoken in the extreme southeast of South Sudan, and to Nyangatom in the South Sudan/Ethiopia Omo valley borderland; these languages together form the cluster of Teso–Turkana languages.

Turkana people ethnic group of Africa

The Turkana are a Nilotic people native to the Turkana County in northwest Kenya, a semi-arid climate region bordering Lake Turkana in the east, Pokot, Rendille and Samburu people to the south, Uganda to the west, and South Sudan and Ethiopia to the north. They refer to their land as Turkan.

Periodization

Lamphear (1988) noted that chronological reckonings based on the Turkana age-set system suggested a date in the late eighteenth or early nineteenth centuries. He notes that concurrent drought traditions suggested in the chronological reconstruction of neighboring communities indicates that the drought affected much of the Rift Valley region. [1]

Records of Nile River flood stages date back to the 7th century AD and an analysis of the flood patterns and comparison with water levels in Lake Chad revealed a correlation between high Nile discharge and greater rainfall in equatorial East Africa. The analysis of Nile flood stages indicates a 'Minor Low' for the period 1800 to 1830, this was preceded by a 'Minor High' during the years 1725 to 1800 and was followed by a 'Minor High' which lasted between 1830 and 1870. [3]

Lake Chad lake in Africa

Lake Chad is a historically large, shallow, endorheic lake in Africa, which has varied in size over the centuries. According to the Global Resource Information Database of the United Nations Environment Programme, it shrank by as much as 95% from about 1963 to 1998, but "the 2007 (satellite) image shows significant improvement over previous years." Lake Chad is economically important, providing water to more than 30 million people living in the four countries surrounding it on the edge of the Sahara. It is the largest lake in the Chad Basin.

Studies in Ethiopia by Pankhurst indicated major famines in 1880–1881, 1835 and in 1829. These studies are significant in that the country of Ethiopia borders present-day Turkana county. Meanwhile, Samburu historians interviewed by Straight et. al (2016) state that the Samburu separated from a society known as Burkineji in the wake of the 1830s Mutai. [4] According to a Samburu Laibon interviewed by Fratkin (2011), the Sambur 'Il Kipkeku' age-set were warriors during the period c.1837-1851. [5]

The various narratives, records and reports thus point to a long dry period starting about 1800 seemingly peaking with an intensely arid time during the mid-1830s. This would be congruent with Krapf's (1860) mention of a "great famine of 1836". [6]

Prelude

There are a number of oral traditions from various communities across much of southern Africa that point to the region having experienced declining rainfall levels from about 1800 to about 1830. This saw the progressive desiccation of lakes, rivers and springs, a phenomenon observed by an employee of the East India Company in the 1820s who noted;

...in many parts of the interior of the country the springs and rivulets are drying up and annual rains become more scanty and irregular. The traveler often meets with houses and farms that have been deserted by their owners on account of a permanent failure in the supply of water which they once enjoyed.

— Quoted in Clifton Crais, Poverty, War, and Violence in South Africa [7]

Effects of the drought

Diminished carrying capacity for livestock

The drought decimated the herds of the Chemwal, thought to have been cervicothoraic-humped Sanga crossbreeds, leading to the disintegration of the community. [8]

Famine

Sengwer folklore has it that, "It became dry and there was great hunger. The Siger went away to the east to Moru Eris, where most of them died of heat and starvation. So many died that there is still a place there called Kabosan (the rotten place)". [1]

War

Full scale war flared up between the Turkana and Chemwal. Bands of Turkana warriors forced some Chemwalin northwards to the head of Lake Turkana where they formed the Inkabelo section of the developing Dassanech community. Other Chemwalin were pushed back onto the Suk hills, to the south to be incorporated by the Chok leading to the rise of the ritually important Kachepkai clan while others yet were assimilated by the Turkana where some became a new clan known simply as Siger. The victorious Turkana took possession of the grazing and water resources of Moru Assiger.

Mass migration

Other Chemwalin were forced to abandon their highland abodes and fled eastwards where they ran into even drier conditions and a great many died. [1]

Aftermath

The Aoyate destroyed the lives and livelihoods of many inhabitants of the Rift Valley region.

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The Chemwal people were a Kalenjin-speaking society that inhabited regions of western and north-western Kenya as well as the regions around Mount Elgon at various times through to the late 19th century. The Nandi word Sekker was used by Pokot elders to describe one section of a community that occupied the Elgeyo escarpment and whose territory stretched across the Uasin Gishu plateau. This section of the community appears to have neighbored the Karamojong who referred to them as Siger, a name that derived from the Karimojong word esigirait. The most notable element of Sekker culture appears to have been a dangling adornment of a single cowrie shell attached to the forelock of Sekker women, at least as of the late 1700s and early 1800s.

The Ngaa people were a community that according to the traditions of many Kenyan communities inhabited regions of the Swahili coast and the Kenyan hinterland at various times times in history.

The Siger people were a community commonly spoken of in the folklore of a number of Kenyan communities that inhabited regions of north western Kenya at various points in history.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Lamphear, John (1988). "The People of the Grey Bull: The Origin and Expansion of the Turkana". The Journal of African History. 29 (1): 32–33. Retrieved August 15, 2019.
  2. ↑ Fukui, Katsuyoshi; Markakis, John (1994). Ethnicity & Conflict in the Horn of Africa. Oxford: James Currey Publishers. p. 67. ISBN   9780852552254.
  3. ↑ Hassan, Fekri. "Historical Nile Floods and their Implications for Climatic Change". Science. 212 (4499): 1142. Retrieved September 18, 2019.
  4. ↑ Straight, Bilinda; Lane, Paul; Hilton, Charles (2016). ""Dust people": Samburu perspectives on disaster, identity, and landscape". Journal of Eastern African Studies. 10 (1): 179. doi:10.1080/17531055.2016.1138638.
  5. ↑ Fratkin, Elliot M. (2011). Laibon: An Anthropologist's Journey with Samburu Diviners of Kenya. Smith College: Rowman Altamira. p. 20. ISBN   9780759120679.
  6. ↑ Krapf, Ludwig (1860). Travels, researches, and missionary labours, during an eighteen–year residence in Eastern Africa. London: Trübner and co. p. 142.
  7. ↑ Crais, Clifton (2011). Poverty, War, and Violence in South Africa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 75-76. ISBN   9781139503563.
  8. ↑ Fukui, Katsuyoshi; Markakis, John (1994). Ethnicity & Conflict in the Horn of Africa. Oxford: James Currey Publishers. p. 67. ISBN   9780852552254.
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