An outline of the Samburu
This is an introduction to the outline of the Samburu.
| An outline of the Samburu | The daily life of the livestock rearing | Life together with livestock | The changing lifestyle |
The Samburu (self-professed "Iloikop") are the semi-nomadic pastoralists who dwell in the Samburu District in north central Kenya. They speak the North Maa language which belongs to the East Nilotic language. The population is estimated at 106,879 according to the Kenya Population Census in 1989.
In present, most of the Samburu rear cattle, sheep, and goats. The Samburu society are characterized by the gerontocracy with age systems.
The daily life of the livestock rearing
The daily livestock keeping activities of the Samburu is organized by the division of labor between the sexes and the ages. Uncircumcised boys
and girls graze the animals and return in one day. The circumcised young man are admitted to the age set and are supposed to maintain the local security. After the marriage, old men are in charge of the control over his family and animals. Women are married at even 12 years old after the circumcision. Wives not only keep housework but also check and milk the animals every morning and evening.
The Samburu mainly live on milk. Their staple food is the stock products like yogurt, butter, boiled meat, and roasted meat. Cattle blood is drawn to drink sometimes mixed with milk. Stock products are also utilized as the various dairy commodities. Clothes, footwears, ropes, and bed sheets are made of animal's skins. They plaster their house wall with cowpat.
In this way, the livestock keeping of the Samburu under the division of labor realizes the self-sufficient lifestyle. It is commonly said that the Samburu could live without any cash under this self-sufficient system.
Life together with the livestock
For the Samburu, the livestock are important not only as a means of subsistence but also as a means of social communications. For example, If a person gives a castrated goat to another person, they call their names "pakine" which means " a castrated goat" each other without referring to their proper name. Like this, in the Samburu community, the livestock can be a medium of the social ties. Without paying livestock as bride wealth to their affines, no man can marry in the Samburu society. To become mature, it is necessary for any Samburu to perform many rites of passage. But in many cases, to perform the rites, they need livestock and its products. Therefore, without livestock, parents cannot make a man or woman out of their son or daughter. For example, when sons and daughters are circumcised, an old man smears some butter on the head of the father. For the Samburu to make their family large is to have as many number of livestock as possible.
Therefore livestock is akin to money. One day a Samburu old woman told me:
Kesham shilingini XXXX, kotwana Iloikop o nketen.
(As the XXXX [another ethnic group] love Kenya Shillings, so the Samburu love cattle).An English proverb says "No amount of money can buy happiness". The premise of the proverb is the world where the money dominates everything. However for the Samburu this sentence can not be a proverb, but just a premise of their world.
In recent years, the Samburu have been recurrently devastated by the serious drought and cattle disease. My informants have reported serious droughts in 1974, 1984, and 1994. Above all, a drought damaged their cattle most severely in 1984, the cattle herd are reduced by half or completely destroyed. Although the Samburu still make their living through livestock-keeping, there are now many wage workers as night watchmen, policemen, soldiers and teachers. Government of Kenya and foreign development agencies have taken measures to ameliorate this situation. The first periodic livestock market in Samburu District was established in Suguta Marmar town in 1991. The livestock which used be transferred within the Samburu community now is integrated into market economy.
This brought so many changes of the lifestyle to the Samburu community. People now eat not only the livestock products but also agricultural products which are bought with cash. The skirt made of the goat skin is replaced by the ready-made dress made in Indonesia. The necklace made of the doom palm (Scientific name: Hyphaene compressais) is also replaced by the plastic beads made in Czechoslovakia. In present it is not rare to find the watch made in China, the radio made in Japan, and the bicycle made in India.
My research theme is to clarify what will happen when cash get inside of the society where the livestock has already played a similar role to money for long time.
