A Tapestry of African Histories by Nicholas K. Githuku

Author:Nicholas K. Githuku [Githuku, Nicholas K.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781793623935
Publisher: Lexington Books
Published: 2021-09-25T00:00:00+00:00

Peter Waweru, too, has recorded a similar heartrending tradition of animals dying “so swiftly that a herd of cattle that appeared healthy when let out of the pen in the morning would all die before the sun reached overhead.”25 Another tale concerns the game afflicted by the virus so that “dozens of the wild creatures would stand, heads lowered pitifully and too exhausted to move even when touched by an observer.”26

With the death of as many as 95 percent of their cattle, the Samburu lost their principal means of sustenance and the bony hand of famine wreaked a cruel toll on the human population as well. Some abandoned pastoralism to “become Dorobo” and live by hunting and gathering, while other destitute Samburu found refuge with neighboring communities such as the Dasanech and Elmolo. Previously, the pastoralists had managed to live in harmony with their environment. Now, they found themselves at the mercy of forces beyond their control, and fatalistically accepted Nkai’s judgment.27

The eyewitness account of William Astor Chanler gives some idea of the desolation wrought by rinderpest. In 1893, the New Yorker made an abortive journey from Embe Country north of Mount Kenya toward Lake Turkana. Baluchi traders told him that famine was raging along his intended route all the way to Dasanechland. The Harvard drop-out, who became a friend to Theodore Roosevelt, learned further of a “plague” between Lake Turkana and Mount Kilimanjaro that had just “exterminated vast herds of buffalo and had even destroyed a large number of antelope, [yet] had apparently left the zebra untouched.” The American’s caravan, which included the returning Höhnel, bore witness to the suffering of the local population when it encountered 50 starving hunter-gatherers that August along the seasonal Seya River on the northeastern extension of the Laikipia Plateau.28 Nevertheless, Chanler gave an eyewitness description of the Lorroki Plateau as, “contain[ing] hundreds of square miles of the most magnificent pasture land I have ever seen. The country is well watered, and the climate as healthy as any portion of the world I have yet visited.” He added significantly that, “This country is now uninhabited as the Masai have vanished with the death of their cattle.”29

A Samburu who had “become Dorobo” told the American adventurer that the pastoralists had suffered defeat at the hands of the Maasai and their animals had died from the epizootic. The cattle-herders were thus left in “semi-serfdom to the Rendile” as Chanler understood the relationship of those who acted as laborers with their Rendille sotwatin, or patrons who owned the livestock the Samburu tended. He subsequently met with a hundred Samburu murran, or warriors, whom he averred, “exactly resembled Masai warriors,” and tried to trade with them. The murran were eager to exchange donkeys for cattle; however, and since Chanler required camels and horses, they could not do business.30 Shortly afterward, the expedition suffered twin disasters. First, a rhinoceros gored Höhnel so badly that he had to be evacuated from Lorroki to the coast. Then, 70 out of 85

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