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Hunters or Hunted? Towards a History of the Okiek of Kenya*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 May 2014

John A. Distefano
John A. Distefano*
Affiliation:
University of Maryland/Baltimore County
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Extract

In the historiography of east Africa, hunter-gatherers have been given occasional mention almost since the beginning of European contacts with the interior. Early European travelers, hunters, and colonial administrators all took note of the ubiquitous “Dorobo,” as these hunters have come to be known in the literature. Furthermore, oral tradition collections from among east Africa's food-producing populations generally recall an earlier hunter-gatherer community who are said to have “disappeared,” “gone underground,” or were “driven away.”

Recent scholarship has attempted to look at these hunter groups in economic terms: (1) as a stage of economic development before achieving a “higher” level of production; (2) as a retrograde step from a food-producing economy; or (3) simply as a mode of production. But east Africa's hunter-gatherers remain inadequately dealt with in historical literature, primarily because they have usually been ignored by researchers but also because of their neighbors' and the academic community's prejudicial or misconceived notions about them.

To begin, some of the literature concerning these people will be selectively surveyed to see how ideas about them have developed. Next an attempt will be made to identify and delineate properly the various groups of hunter-gatherers living in East Africa today and in the recent past. Finally, the largest remaining community of hunter-gatherers, those living in the western highlands of Kenya who usually call themselves “Okiek,” will be looked at more closely in an attempt to advance the discussion of hunter-gatherers in general by presenting some observations concerning their socio-economic history.

Type
Research Article
Information
History in Africa , Volume 17 , January 1990 , pp. 41 - 57
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1990

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Footnotes

*

This article was first presented as a paper for the African Studies Association meeting, 1983. Special thanks for their assistance should go to Chris Ehret, Stan Ambrose, and Corinne Kratz.

References

Notes

1. Also recorded as “Ndorobo,” “Wandorobo,” “Andorobo,” “Eldorobo,” or, as they call themselves, “Okiek.”

2. See Berntsen, J.L., “The Maasai and Their Neighbors: Variables of Interaction,” African Economic History, 2 (1976), 1–11CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kenny, Michael G., “Mirror in the Forest: The Dorobo Hunter-Gatherers as an Image of the Other,” Africa, 51 (1981)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; van Zwanenberg, R.M., “Dorobo Hunting and Gathering: a way of life or a mode of production?” African Economic History, 2 (1976), 12–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3. Hobley, C.W., “Notes Concerning the Eldorobo of the Mau, British East Africa.” Man, 3 (1903), 33–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4. Hobley, C.W., “Further Notes on the El Dorobo or Oggiek,” Man, 5 (1905), 40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5. Ibid., 40. See also Huntingford, G.W.B., “Modern hunters: Some Account of the Kamalilo-Kachepkendi Dorobo (Okiek) of Kenya Colony,” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 59 (1929), 338.Google Scholar

6. Leakey, L.S.B., The Southern Kikuyu Before 1903, Vol. 1 (London: 1977), 51.Google Scholar

7. Maguire, R.A.J., “Il-Torobo,” Journal of the African Society, 27 (1927/1928), 130.Google Scholar

8. Ibid., 134.

9. Ibid., 141.

10. Ehret, Christopher, The Historical Reconstruction of Southern Cushitic Phonology and Vocabulary (Berlin, 1980), 11.Google Scholar

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15. Ibid., 142.

16. Ibid., 144.

17. Ibid., 144. This differs from the group described by Huntingford in 1951, for which the clan (oret) was the primary unit. The Huntingford case is most probably a result of neighboring Nandi influence.

18. Blackburn, , “Okiek,” 145.Google Scholar

19. Van Zwanenberg, , “Dorobo,” 12.Google Scholar

20. Ibid., 17.

21. Ibid., 18.

22. Kenny, , “Mirror,” 479.Google Scholar The Asa did speak a Southern Cushitic language, but the Ik and Soo (Tepeth) today speak Nilo-Saharan Kuliak.

23. Ibid., 476. Similar arguments are presented in the more recent article by Sobania, Neil, “Fishermen Herders: Subsistence, Survival and Cultural Change in Northern Kenya,” JAH, 29 (1988), 44–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar, using Spencer's, Paul work in Nomads in Alliance (London, 1973).Google Scholar

24. With the meaning “short” in Huntingford, , “Modern Hunters,” 335Google Scholar; “poor” in Blackburn, , “Okiek History,” 139Google Scholar; and “tseste fly” in Maguire, , “Il-Torobo,” 129.Google Scholar The variant forms of “Dorobo” are all adoptions from the Maasai version, reflecting their domination of the more recent history of the Rift Valley area. However, it is my belief that this Maasai form was itself a loan into Maasai with a semantic change in meaning from a Dadoga word, darabeida (*torop-), hence ultimately Southern Nilotic in origin, meaning “forest.” The Maasai, first coming across these people as forest dwellers then reinterpreted the word with the original Maasai meaning of “people of the forest,” only later coming to give the implication of “poor” or “cattleless,” or all the other variant definitions of “Dorobo.”

25. Ambrose, S., “Historical Linguistic Reconstructions in East Africa: The Archeological Evidence,” paper presented at the UCLA Archeology/Linguistic Colloquium, Los Angeles (1979), 32–33.Google Scholar

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28. Ambrose, , “Reconstruction,” 40.Google Scholar

29. Ibid., 41.

30. Ibid., 38.

31. Ehret, , “Southern Nilotic,” 65.Google Scholar

32. Ibid., 67.

33. Ibid., 67.

34. Ibid., 65-66.

35. Heine, B., Rottland, F., and Vossen, Rainer. “Proto-Baz: Some Aspects of Early Nilotic-Cushitic Contacts,” Sprache and Geschichte in Afrika, 1 (1979), 82–83.Google Scholar

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37. Winter, , “Language Shift,” 183–86.Google Scholar

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39. Bernsten, , “The Maasai,” 3.Google Scholar

40. Ibid., 3.

41. Ibid., 4.

42. Blackburn, , “A Preliminary Report of Research on the Ogiek tribe of Kenya,” University of Nairobi, Institute of Development Studies, discussion paper no. 89 (1970), 8.Google Scholar

43. Muriuki, Godfrey, The History of the Kikuyu (Nairobi, 1974), 39.Google Scholar The use of the term “Dorobo” is an indication of Maasai influence in Southern Kikuyu or “Kabete.” In fact, the name for this area, “Kabete,” is probably derived from a Maasai branch called “Kaputie,” which is itself a word of Southern Nilotic origin meaning “place of warthogs,” or “people of the warthog” (cf. Okiek kap-).

44. Merritt, Hollis, “A History of the Taita of Kenya to 1900” (PhD. dissertation, Indiana University, 1975), 28.Google Scholar In 1852 Krapf mentioned the same name and story from among the Wasambara of Tanzania.

45. Muriuki, , “Kikuyu,” 39.Google Scholar

46. Ibid., 39.

47. Ibid., 40.

48. Dundas, K.R., “Notes on the Origin and History of the Kikuyu and Dorobo Tribes,” Man, 8 (1908), 138.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

49. Muriuki, , Kikuyu, 40.Google Scholar

50. Hobley, , “Further Notes,” 40.Google Scholar

51. Muriuki, , Kikuyu, 45–46.Google Scholar

52. Ibid., 43. This is evident in the remembrances of taboos on certain game animals for some clans like the Angari and the Aizerandu, and even in the recollections about the founders of certain mbari like that of Muniu in Githunguri.

53. Leakey, , Southern Kikuyu, 34.Google Scholar

54. Ibid., 88-89. This is exactly how they are described by Blackburn for the Mau Okiek: Blackburn, , “ Okiek,” 5.Google Scholar

55. Leakey, , Southern Kikuyu, 88–89.Google Scholar

56. Ibid., 91.

57. Ibid., 93.

58. Ibid., 100-102.

59. Kenya Land Commission. Report (London: 1933), 79.Google Scholar

60. Ibid., 83.

61. Ibid., 80. While it might be easy to say that these were actually Kikuyu claiming to be “Dorobo” for reasons of personal gain, there is simply too much evidence that “real” Okiek/Dorobo were present.

62. Ibid., 87.

63. Ibid., 89.

64. Blackburn, , “Okiek,” 148.Google Scholar

65. Blackburn, , “The Okiek and their Neighbors: the Ecological Distinction,” paper presented at the African Studies Association Conference (Baltimore, 1978), 4.Google Scholar

66. Blackburn, , “Preliminary Report,” 6.Google Scholar

67. Man the Hunter, ed. Lee, Richard B. and DeVore, Irven (Chicago, 1968), 33, 85.Google Scholar

68. Blackburn, , “Preliminary Report,” 4–5.Google Scholar The general Kalenjin word for both “path” and “clan” is oret, while the particular path through one's territory and the lineage territory itself are both called “kinoito,” by the Okiek.

69. Ibid., 4-5.

70. Blackburn, , “Okiek History,” 142.Google Scholar

71. Ibid., 154.

72. For a fuller discussion see Distefano, J. A., “The Precolonial History of the Kalenjin of Kenya” (Ph.D., UCLA, 1985).Google Scholar

73. Blackburn, , “Okiek History,” 155.Google Scholar

74. Tinet oral traditions, interviews with: Chesulsul, Kapcheromo clan, Tinet, 23 June 1977; Kipsang arap Towett, Kirobon Village, 25 July 1977; Arap Toi, Bangani Village, 22 August 1977.

75. See note 74.

76. Blackburn, , “Okiek,” 155.Google Scholar

77. Toweett, , History of the Kipsigis (Nairobi, 1979), 13–14.Google Scholar

78. Arap Toi, Bangani Village, 22 August 1977.

79. See note 82.

80. Kratz, C., “Are the Okiek Really Masai? or Kipsigis? or Kikuyu?,” African Studies Association 21st Meeting (Baltimore, 1978), 7–8.Google Scholar

81. Kipkorir, B.E., The Marakwet of Kenya (Nairobi: 1973), 72–73.Google Scholar

82. Kratz, , “Okiek,” 11.Google Scholar

83. Ibid., 15.