Samburu people

Last updated
Samburu
Samburu (samburu).jpg
Total population
333,471 [1]
Regions with significant populations
Samburu county (Kenya)
Languages
Samburu, Swahili, English
Religion
Christianity, Traditional beliefs
Related ethnic groups
Other Nilotic peoples

The Samburu are a Nilotic people of north-central Kenya. They are semi-nomadic pastoralists who primarily herd cattle but also keep sheep, goats and camels. They refer to themselves as Lokop or Loikop, a term varied interpretations among the Samburu. Some believes it means "owners of the land" ("lo" meaning ownership and "nkop" meaning land) while others have a different interpretations.

Contents

The Samburu speak the Samburu dialect of the Maa language, a Nilotic language which also spoken by other 22 sub tribes of the Maa community commonly known as the Maasai. Some Western anthropologists[ who? ] have attempted to categorize the Samburu as a distinct tribe separate from the Maasai, a view that seems[ neutrality is disputed ] that some Samburu people accept today.[ citation needed ]

Samburu National Reserve is one of the well known game parks in the area. Within the Maa community of Kenya and Tanzania, the Samburu sub-tribe is the third largest, following the Kisonko (Isikirari) of Tanzania and Purko of Kenya and Tanzania.

History

Woto (sometimes Otto, [2] *Do, To and Do) is a location which Samburu consider to be their homeland. Woto means north in Samburu. [3] The exact location is unknown. It has generally been identified as being north of Lake Turkana and has been postulated to be somewhere in southern Ethiopia. [2]

Cultural connections

The Nandi have a tradition that the first man who practiced circumcision in Nandi is said to have been one Kipkenyo who came from a country called Do [4] (in other accounts To, indicating the intervocalic Kalenjin *d sound – closest pronunciation Tto).

The story goes that Kipkenyo had a number of brothers and sisters who all died when they reached puberty, so Kipkenyo decided when he had a number of children of his own to 'change' them all at this age. He therefore circumcised them, and as none of his children died, the Nandi followed his example, with the result that circumcision became general.

— Hollis, A. C., The Nandi - Their Language and Folklore, 1909

This corresponds with linguistic studies which indicate significant cultural transfer between Southern Nilotes and Eastern Cushites during a time of intensive interaction prior to Southern Nilotic settlement in western Kenya. [5]

Culture

Samburu warriors near Lake Turkana. SamburuWarriors.jpg
Samburu warriors near Lake Turkana.

Social organization

The Samburu are a gerontocracy. The power of elders is linked to the belief in their curse, underpinning their monopoly over arranging marriages and taking on further wives. This is at the expense of unmarried younger men, whose development up to the age of thirty is in a state of social suspension, prolonging their adolescent status. [6]

Clothing

Samburu chief Kenya's Samburu.jpg
Samburu chief

Men wear a cloth which is often pink or black and is wrapped around their waist in a manner similar to a Scottish kilt. They adorn themselves with necklaces, bracelets and anklets, like other sub tribes of the Maasai community. Members of the moran age grade (i.e. "warriors") typically wear their hair in long braids, which they shave off when they become elders. It may be colored using red ochre. Their bodies are sometimes decorated with ochre, as well. Women wear two pieces of blue or purple cloth, one piece wrapped around the waist, the second wrapped over the chest. Women keep their hair shaved and wear numerous necklaces and bracelets. In the past decade, traditional clothing styles have changed. Some men may wear the 1980s-90s style of red tartan cloth or they may wear a dark green/blue plaid cloth around their waists called 'kikoi', often with shorts underneath. Marani (Lmuran) [7] (warriors) wear a cloth that may be floral or pastel. Some women still wear two pieces of blue or red cloth, but it has become fashionable to wear cloths with animal or floral patterns in deep colors. Women may also often wear small tank tops with their cloths, and plaid skirts have also become common. [8]

Food and society

Samburu men lighting a fire Samburu fire.jpg
Samburu men lighting a fire

Traditionally Samburu relied almost solely on their herds, although trade with their neighbors and use of wild foods were also important. [9] [10] [11] Before the colonial period, cow, goat, and sheep milk was the daily staple. Oral and documentary evidence suggests that small stock were significant to the diet and economy at least from the eighteenth century forward. In the twenty-first century, cattle and small stock continue to be essential to the Samburu economy and social system. Milk is still a valued part of Samburu contemporary diet when available, and may be drunk either fresh, or fermented; "ripened" milk is often considered superior. Meat from cattle is eaten mainly on ceremonial occasions, or when a cow happens to die. Meat from small stock is eaten more commonly, though still not on a regular basis. Today Samburu rely increasingly on purchased agricultural products—with money acquired mainly from livestock sales—and most commonly maize meal is made into a porridge. [12] Tea is also very common, taken with large quantities of sugar and (when possible) much milk, and is a staple of contemporary Samburu diet. [13] Blood is both taken from living animals, and collected from slaughtered ones. There are at least thirteen ways that blood can be prepared, and may form a whole meal. Some Samburu these days have turned to agriculture, with varying results.

Circumcision

Samburu practice male circumsision (foreskin) and female circumsicion (clitoris). Female genital mutilation is illegal in Kenya. Boys get circumcised in their teenage years, and most girls are subjected to female circumcision before marriage. Girls who have not undergone female circumcision will be raped as part of a practice referred to as "beading", and are not allowed to have children. [14] [15]

Religion

Samburu religion traditionally focuses on their multi-faceted divinity (Nkai). Nkai (a feminine noun), plays an active role in the lives of contemporary Samburu. It is not uncommon for children and young people, especially women, to report visions of Nkai. Some of these children prophesy for some period of time and a few gain a reputation for prophecy throughout their lives. Besides these spontaneous prophets, Samburu have ritual diviners, or shamans, called 'loibonok' who divine the causes of individual illnesses and misfortune, and guide warriors. [16]

Samburu believe that Nkai is the source of all protection from the hazards of their existence. But Nkai also inflicts punishment if an elder curses a junior for some show of disrespect. The elder’s anger is seen as an appeal to Nkai, and it is Nkai who decides if the curse is justified. Faced with misfortune and following some show of disrespect towards an older man, the victim should approach his senior and offer reparation in return for his blessing. This calms the elder's anger and restores Nkai’s protection. [17] It is, however, uncommon for an elder to curse a junior. Curses are reserved for cases of extreme disrespect. [18]

Many Samburu are Christians.[ citation needed ]

Samburu have been widely portrayed in popular culture, ranging from Hollywood movies, major television commercials, and mainstream journalism. Such portrayals make good use of Samburu’s colorful cultural traditions, but sometimes at the expense of accuracy. One of the earlier film appearances by Samburu was in the 1953 John Ford classic Mogambo , in which they served as background for stars such as Clark Gable, Grace Kelly and Ava Gardner. [19]

In the 1990s, 300 Samburu traveled to South Africa to play opposite Kevin Bacon in the basketball comedy The Air Up There, in which Samburu are portrayed as a group called “The Winabi” whose prince is a potential hoops star who would propel Bacon to a college head coaching job. Samburu extras were used to portray members of the closely related, but better known, Maasai ethnic group as in the film The Ghost and the Darkness , starring Michael Douglas and Val Kilmer. [20] The 2005 film The White Masai —about a Swiss woman falling in love with a Samburu man—similarly conflates the two ethnic groups, mainly because the authors and directors believed that no one would have heard of Samburu.

Dancing Samburu were included in a MasterCard commercial. Samburu runners were famously portrayed in a late 1980s Nike commercial, in which a Samburu man's words were translated into English as the Nike slogan “Just Do It.” This was corrected by anthropologist Lee Cronk, who seeing the commercial alerted Nike and the media that the Samburu man was saying “I don’t want these. Give me big shoes.” Nike, in explaining the error, admitted to having improvised the dialogue and stated “we thought nobody in America would know what he said." [21]

A tribe in season 3 of the U.S. reality television series Survivor, which was filmed in Kenya in 2001, was named Samburu.

Recent conflicts

In a 2009 article MSNBC took readers on a tour through places purported to be in Samburu County, while asserting that conflicts between Samburu and the neighboring Pokot people was the result of both sides starving because they had more cattle than the rangelands could support. [22]

Armed conflict between the Samburu and Pokot tribes has escalated since 2010 and it is almost entirely centered upon the declining pastures available for increasing cattle herd sizes, numbering now as many as 1,500 cattle in a single herd. With the recurrent droughts since 2010, and catastrophic drought of 2017, the battles for pasture have led to both sides invading the nature conservancies of Laikipia County. The armed conflict is incited by politicians on all sides who use it as a means to improve their credentials among pastoralist communities.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Maasai people</span> Ethnic group located in Kenya and Tanzania

The Maasai are a Nilotic ethnic group inhabiting northern, central and southern Kenya and northern Tanzania, near the African Great Lakes region. The Maasai speak the Maa language, a member of the Nilotic language family that is related to the Dinka, Kalenjin and Nuer languages. Except for some elders living in rural areas, most Maasai people speak the official languages of Kenya and Tanzania, Swahili and English.

The Nilotic peoples are people indigenous to the Nile Valley who speak Nilotic languages. They inhabit South Sudan, Sudan, Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya, the northern border area of Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, Burundi and Tanzania. Among these are the Burun-speaking peoples, Teso people also known as Iteso or people of Teso, Karo peoples, Luo peoples, Ateker peoples, Kalenjin peoples, Karamojong people also known as the Karamojong or Karimojong, Datooga, Dinka, Nuer, Atwot, Lotuko, and the Maa-speaking peoples.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kalenjin people</span> Group of Southern Nilotic peoples indigenous to East Africa

The Kalenjin are a group of tribes indigenous to East Africa, residing mainly in what was formerly the Rift Valley Province in Kenya and the Eastern slopes of Mount Elgon in Uganda. They number 6,358,113 individuals per the Kenyan 2019 census and an estimated 273,839 in Uganda according to the 2014 census mainly in Kapchorwa, Kween and Bukwo districts.

The Oropom were the aboriginal inhabitants of much of Karamoja in Uganda, Mt. Elgon area and West Pokot, Trans Nzoia and Turkana regions in Kenya. Their descendants were largely assimilated into various communities present in their former territories, including the Iteso, Karamojong, Pokot, Turkana and Bukusu. They are or were found in scattered pockets between the Turkwel River, Chemorongit Mountains and Mt. Elgon. One report indicates that they formerly spoke the unclassified Oropom language.

The Eastern Nilotic languages are one of the three primary branches of the Nilotic languages, themselves belonging to the Eastern Sudanic subfamily of Nilo-Saharan; they are believed to have begun to diverge about 3,000 years ago, and have spread southwards from an original home in Equatoria in South Sudan. They are spoken across a large area in East Africa, ranging from Equatoria to the highlands of Tanzania. Their speakers are mostly cattle herders living in semi-arid or arid plains.

Dorobo is a derogatory umbrella term for several unrelated hunter-gatherer groups of Kenya and Tanzania. They comprised client groups to the Maasai and did not practice cattle pastoralism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Turkana people</span> Ethnic group of Eastern 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, to the South Sudan and Ethiopia to the north.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Daasanach people</span> Cushitic ethnic group in Ethiopia, Kenya and South Sudan

The Daasanach are an ethnic group inhabiting parts of Ethiopia, Kenya, and South Sudan. Their main homeland is in the Debub Omo Zone of the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and People's Region, adjacent to Lake Turkana. According to the 2007 national census, they number 48,067 people, of whom 1,481 are urban dwellers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kuria people</span> Ethnic group from Mara Region of Tanzania

The Kuria people (also known as the AbaKurya, are a Bantu community in Tarime District of Mara Region in Tanzania and southern Kenya. Their homeland is bounded on the east by the Migori River and on the west by the Mara River estuary. Traditionally a pastoral and farming community, the Kuria grow maize, beans and cassava as food crops and coffee and maize as cash crops.

Lokori is a Turkana settlement in Kenya's North Eastern Province, adjacent to the Kerio River. The settlement's inhabitants are traditionally pastoralists. Lokori is home to a number of prehistoric Namoratunga rock art and burial sites.

The Kalenjin people are an ethnolinguistic group indigenous to East Africa, with a presence, as dated by archaeology and linguistics, that goes back many centuries. Their history is therefore deeply interwoven with those of their neighboring communities as well as with the histories of Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, South Sudan, and Ethiopia.

The Loikop people, also known as Wakuafi, Kor, Mu-Oko, Muoko/Ma-Uoko and Mwoko, were a tribal confederacy who inhabited present-day Kenya in the regions north and west of Mount Kenya and east and south of Lake Turkana. The area is roughly conterminous with Samburu and Laikipia Counties and portions of Baringo, Turkana and (possibly) Meru Counties. The group spoke a common tongue related to the Maasai language, and typically herded cattle. The Loikop occasionally interacted with the Cushitic, Bantu, and Chok peoples. The confederacy had dispersed by the 21st century.

The Chok were a society that lived on the Elgeyo Escarpment in Kenya.

Mutai is a term used by the Maa-speaking communities of Kenya to describe a period of wars, usually triggered by disease and/or drought affecting widespread areas of the Rift Valley region of Kenya. According to Samburu and Maasai tradition, two periods of Mutai occurred during the nineteenth century. The second Mutai lasted from the 1870s to the 1890s.

The Iloikop wars were a series of wars between the Maasai and a community referred to as Kwavi and later between Maasai and alliance of reformed Kwavi communities. These were pastoral communities that occupied large tracts of East Africa's savannas during the late 18th and 19th centuries. These wars occurred between c.1830 and 1880.

Mutai is a term used by the Maa-speaking communities of Kenya to describe a period of wars, usually triggered by disease and/or drought and affecting widespread areas of the Rift Valley region of Kenya. According to Samburu and Maasai folklore, periods of Mutai occurred during the nineteenth century.

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/Chemwal 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 Siger people were a community commonly spoken of in the folklore of a number of Kenyan communities that inhabited regions of northwestern Kenya at various points in history.

The Laikipiak people were a community that inhabited the plateau located on the eastern escarpment of the Rift Valley in Kenya that today bears their name. They are said to have arisen from the scattering of the Kwavi by the Maasai in the 1830s.They were one of two significant sections of that community that stayed together. The other being the Uasin Gishu with whom they would later ally against the Maasai. Many Maa-speakers in Laikipia County today claim Laikipiak ancestry, namely those among the Ilng'wesi, Ildigirri and Ilmumonyot sub-sections of the Laikipia Maasai.

The Burkineji were a pastoral community who inhabited regions of northern Kenya through to the late 19th century. The present day Samburu consider themselves a descendant community of the Burkineji.

References

  1. ↑ "2019 Kenya Population and Housing Census Volume IV: Distribution of Population by Socio-Economic Characteristics". Kenya National Bureau of Statistics. Retrieved 24 March 2020.
  2. 1 2 Where is The Samburu’s Original Home? “GARDEN OF EDEN”
  3. ↑ Our Samburu, Samburu La online
  4. ↑  Hollis, A. C., The Nandi - Their Language hello and Folklore, Oxford, 1909
  5. ↑ Ehret, Christopher. An African Classical Age: Eastern & Southern Africa in World History 1000 B.C. to A.D.400. University of Virginia, 1998, p.179
  6. ↑ Spencer, Paul, 1965, The Samburu: a study of gerontocracy in a nomadic tribe, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London. Spencer, Paul, 1973, Nomads in Alliance: Symbiosis and Growth among the Rendille and Samburu of Kenya, Oxford University Press, London.
  7. ↑ Plural of moran, as written by the Samburu people. Lesas, David Ltadale, 2014, Member of the Lmasula(Iltarrosero)clan of the Samburu sub tribe
  8. ↑ Straight, Bilinda. 2005. Cutting Time: Beads, Sex, and Songs in the Making of Samburu Maasai Memory. Pp. 267-283 In The Qualities of Time: Temporal Dimensions of Social Form and Human Experience. Wendy James and David Mills (eds.). ASA Monograph Series, Berg.
  9. ↑ Sobania, Neal. 1980. The Historical Tradition of the Peoples of the Eastern Lake Turkana Basin c. 1840-1925. Ph.D. Dissertation, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.
  10. ↑ Sobania, Neal. 1988. Herders: Subsistence, Survival and Cultural Change in Northern Kenya. The Journal of African History 29(1): 14-40.
  11. ↑ Sobania, Neal. 1991. Feasts, Famines and Friends: Nineteenth Century Exchange and Ethnicity in the Eastern Lake Turkana Region. Pp. 118-142 In John G. Galaty and Pierre Bonte (eds.) Herders, Warriors, and Traders: Pastoralism in Africa. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
  12. ↑ Holtzman, Jon. 2009. Uncertain Tastes: Memory, Ambivalence, and the Politics of Eating in Samburu, Northern Kenya. Berkeley: University of California Press .
  13. ↑ Holtzman, Jon. 2003. “In a Cup of Tea: Commodities and History Among Samburu Pastoralists in Northern Kenya.” American Ethnologist 30: 136-59
  14. ↑ "Samburu Rites of Passage: Beading, Female and Male Circumcision". Change Insights. 2012-05-15. Retrieved 2018-07-09.
  15. ↑ David McKenzie (2011-05-11). "Activist battles Kenyan tradition of rape 'beading'". CNN .
  16. ↑ Straight, Bilinda. 2007. Miracles and Extraordinary Experience in Northern Kenya. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
  17. ↑ Spencer, Paul, 2003, Time, Space, and the Unknown: Maasai Configurations of Power and Providence. Routledge, London. (pp.67-97, “Providence and the Cosmology of Misfortune.”)
  18. ↑ Lesas, David Ltadale, 2014, member of the Lmasula clan of the Samburu.
  19. ↑ Chenevix-Trench, Charles 1993 The Men Who Ruled Kenya. London: I.B. Taurus.
  20. ↑ Askew, Kelly 2004. "Striking Samburu and a Mad Cow: Adventures in Anthropollywood." Pp.31-68 in Off Stage/On Display: Intimacy and Ethnography in the Age of Public Culture, edited by Andrew Shryock. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
  21. ↑ "Opinion | TOPICS OF THE TIMES; If the Shoe Doesn't Fit". The New York Times. 1989-02-15. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2023-02-09.
  22. ↑ "World Blog - Kenyans battle for resources with guns and swords". Archived from the original on 2012-03-19. Retrieved 2011-05-15.

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