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The Samburu tribesmen of northern
Kenya call themselves Il Logop "The World 's Top People" -and
believe it. It sums up the outlook of a tribe
who cling to their own way of life and yet
contrive to make a success of cattle-raising
and stock marketing. A century ago, when
these Egyptian-featured, pigtailed nomads
moved into Kenya from the Nile Valley,
they numbered 5,000 people, with 30, 000
cattle. Today the tribe is 35,000 strong
and owns about 350,000 hump-backed
beasts which can, with modern breeding
methods and careful husbandry, produce
some of the finest beef on - the African
continent.
After a dour battle against thirst and
starvation in the volcanic deserts of the
great Rift Valley, the Samburu moved
slowly southwards until, 100 miles north of
Mount Kenya, they found their promised
land. This was the Leroghi Plateau, a highland
belt of rolling downs set like an emerald
in the copper ring of the surrounding semidesert.
Here the foremost families of the
migration settled while the rest of the tribe
remained in the parched, thorn-studded low
country of the Rift Valley. The low country
is good for cattle - Americans have compared
it with Texas - but tough for human beings.
The mountain ranges which bisect it are full
of clear streams , but they vanish under a
scorching sun before they reach the valleys.
The struggle for water at the few isolated
oases brought the Samburu in to bitter competition
with other desert tribes. Only the
long spears of their lithe warriors maintained
tribal independence.
In forty years of British administration,
the tribe's cattle, freed from disease by
Government inoculations, had multiplied
until their numbers threatened to ruin the
entire countryside. Plains which eighty
years ago were covered with rich grass were
being re-clothed in thorn scrub and windtorn sand. The future looked grim for the
Samburu. Then a 6-ft. Irishman, the new
District Commission r , Terence John
Frederick Gavaghan, a thirty-two-year-old
product of St. Andrews University, the
Royal Ulster Rifles and the British Colonial
Service, for which he had worked since the
end of the war in other parts of Kenya,
took ove r the 10,000 square miles of turbulent
territory. Building on foundations
firmly laid by his predecessors, he has seen
the tribe grow wealthy in the short space
of five years.
He saw that the Samburu's herds were at
once their most valuable asset and their
greatest drawback and decided an efficient
marketing system would bring wealth to thee tribe and at the same time halt the
encroaching desert.
Persuading the tribesmen to sell their
livestock was not easy. Cattle to a Samburu
are man's bank balance, insurance policy,
grocer's shop and place in the social register
rolled into one. Reluctant to kill even the
most senile of steers, the tribesfolk live on
milk and fresh blood drawn from the animal
without harming it. Hides provide clothing
and homes - skins stretched over wooden
frameworks to form huts. A man's wealth
and social standing are judged by the number
of cattle he owns, not by their quality
or health. Cows are an essential part of the
bride price, and no maiden would look twice
at a warrior who had not filched at least
one cow from outside the tribe.
The District Commissioner and his right hand man, a Kenya-born livestock officer
called John Stevens, spent hours talking to
Samburu elders and months in demonstrating cattle usage. In the end a little compulsion was necessary before the tribe agreed to the idea of regular stock sales.
Under Mr. Gavaghan's guidance, the Samburu
African District Council, which has grown in
the past three years from an annual meeting
held under a tree spending a meagre 7,000 pounds
a year, to a go-ahead partnership with an
annual budget of 30,000 pounds, launched its three
big schemes for relieving weary pastures.
Monthly stock sales were introduced at the
three district centres of Maralal, on the
Leroghi Plateau, and Baragoi and Wamba,
in the Low Country, and each of the ten
sections of the tribe had to produce a quota
of cattle fixed according to the number of
taxpayers in the group. Then the Veterinary
Department, with the agreement of the
Council, set up a field abattoir at the desert
centre of Archer's Post, where the poorest
of stock are sent for conversion into dried
meat, bone- and blood- meal and hides.
Quality animals from the sales are sent on
a long road and rail trek to the Kenya Meat
Commission's factory near Nairobi. Young steers are bought at the sales for fattening
on the Samburu African District Council
ranch - one of the District Commissioner's
most successful schemes.
Stock sales, once shunned by the Samburu,
have become the district's most popular
meeting-place, and at Wamba, hundreds of
tribesmen gather from as far as 80 miles
away for the monthly disposal of some
300 animals. Stock sales now dispose of
9,000 cattle, worth 45,000 pounds every year.
Domestic consumption is about 21,000 beasts
a year, so that the District Commissioner has
achieved his first task of disposing of the
annual increase of 30,000 cattle. His second
and long-term plan is for a gradual reduction
in stock and raising of quality until
the district supports about 200,000 valuable
animals. But this, he believes, will take
years and depends entirely on tribal
co-operation.
Patience is essential and the Administration
is well satisfied with the results of
the past four years. So are the Samburu.
Some of the tribesmen are so impressed by
Mr. Gavaghan's efforts that they would go
so far as to admit that he is almost as good
a man as one of the World's Top People.
Originally Published in Sport and Country Magazine 4th of January 1956.
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