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The Samburu of Kenya - Part 1/4

The Samburu are found south of Lake Turkana in the Rift Valley part of Kenya. Traditionally they keep cattle goat and sheep. Their language is called Samburu. It is also a Maa language, very close to the Maasai dialects. The Samburu got separated from the other Maa speakers due to the migration of Maasai farther south and of other ethnic various groups around them.
According to the Samburu, the Maa people descended from four individuals who emerged from “ndikirr e loosilale”, a pass between two hills which they say are hundreds of miles to the north of their present territory. The four individuals went by the names:Ilmasulani, llnyaparrani, lukumani and Nkongelian. All of them but Nkongeliani were males, at a place called Otto, Ilmasulani engaged in a love affair with Nkong’eliani. From that affair came fourth girls who got married to the other two men and their population rose steadily thereafter from generation to generation until four big groups: Sampurr (Samburu), Ilmaasae (Maasai), Laikipiak and Ilchamus (Njemps) developed from original single entity.
The four groups cohesively ventured to the south in their perpetual search for water and pasture for their livestock. Their southward migration took the Maa people through Ildoinyio Lo Loosaen to Ntorror (the present day homeland of the Samburu) where they split up due to a severe drought, which wiped out many animals and caused famine. Each group went its own way looking for ways and means of successfully going trough the hard time. The Samburu were left behind at Ntorror while the Maasai and the Laikipiak went to the south together. The Ilchamus took southwesterly direction and found refuge on the shores of lake Baringo where they live to date. They opted to fish and they are still the only Maa speakers who fish and eat fish while tending cattle, goats, and sheep and growing some food crops by irrigation on a small scale. At some point the Laikipiak disagreed with the Maasai on carrying on with the southwest migration and therefore broke away going to the east towards Loibwor-gos (Mt. Kenya) raiding and pillaging as they went through the country. They finally settled on the plains west of Mt. Kenya where they constantly organized raids on the Maasai and the Samburu. Several pacific missions were sent to them by both the Maasai and the Samburu but in vain.
A combined force of the Maasai and the Samburu wiped the Laikipiak off the face of the earth. Currently the Maasai live in the Southern Kenya and northern Tanzania rearing cattle, goat and sheep. Due to contacts with other tribes some of the Maasai have come to take up both food and cash crop farming. Relations between these groups (the Maasai Ilchamus and Samburu) are still cordial. They speak the same language (Maa) with only slight variations in dialects and accents due to the distance between them in time and space. Their cultural practices are also the same. In essence they regard themselves as a people only split up geographically.
Roles
A social structure exists which is based on gender and the roles that the different groups of individuals play in the daily management of the community affairs, these roles are shared according to ages or stages of the members of the community in their lives. Elders (ilpayiani) fall into the highest echelon of this social structure followed by warriors (Ilmurran) and women and children.
Elders
An elder in the Samburu community is a married man who has graduated from warriorhood. Every morning an elder wakes up before sunrise to thank Nkai (God) for the peace his people and livestock enjoyed at night and pray for more peace in the new day. After seeing their herds and flocks off into the grazing fields elders in the village meet under a shady tree in their village where they sit and talk all day long. One may think they are simply idling but they are not-they are governing the tribe. It is there that they solve cases, arrange ceremonies (wedding, circumcision), and discuss deviant characters and map out strategies of checking them before they get out of hand. With unmatched precision they collect and analyze news from all over the territory and beyond from visitors and passers by. They get an update of weather conditions in different parts of their territory, availability of water and pasture, migratory patterns of neighboring villages and other tribes, and fixtures of social activities taking place in the different parts of the tribal land.

An elder is therefore an administrator, a politician, lawmaker, judge, religious leader, husband, father and guardian in the eyes of all the community members. By amicably executing their roles and thereby ensuring cordial social intercourse between all their social organs of the tribe, the elders have earned themselves immense respect from the rest of the tribe members.
The respect even translates into fear where the elders are believed to posses some super-human powers to curse errant individuals or groups and bless those who have problems. There are no prisons to lock up culprits in the community. They are therefore either whipped or fined. The punishment that goes with each offense is determined and imposed by the elders basing their judgment or precedence.
Warriors
Second to the elders in the tribe’s social structure are the warriors (ilmurran). Circumcised in masses between the ages of fifteen and twenty in successive age-sets, men in each age-set at a time make the standing army of the tribe for an average of fourteen years then marry and become elders. The men are circumcised in public in broad daylight without any form of anesthetic, and yet they are not expected to wince or flinch lest they bring disgrace to their clans, families and most of all to themselves. After a month or so of healing, the initiates graduate into warriorhood a carefree stage where they roam the country singing and dancing wherever the go. Always armed with their needle sharp and pointed spears razor sharp double edged swords and hardwood clubs and cudgels the ilmurran unleash terror on unfriendly neighboring tribes by constantly raiding them in well organized gangs in a bid to capture livestock from them. They bring home the animals acquired through the raids to be received by young unmarried women (ntoyie) who compose praises for the warriors’ bravery and achievements in the lyrics that accompany the dances they perform together.
The warriors are in the dire need of the cattle to pay dowry for their wives and raise their families when their time to marry is ripe. A warrior therefore does not strive to acquire more and more cattle but tends them diligently so that they increase in the number and improve in health. He knows where pastures and water are fresh and where natural saltlicks are plenty.When there is plenty of water and pasture that is the case in a successful rain season, the warriors leave the tending of livestock to be done by uncircumcised boys (layiok). It is then that the warriors have all the time in the world to braid their hair and sing and dance almost everyday.

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The Writer is a Director of Africanvoyages Ltd.. A premier online tours travel booking agency. www.africanvoyages.com

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