From true Dorobo to Mukogodo Maasai: Contested ethnicity in Kenya

Abstract

Between 1925 and 1936, the Mukogodo of Kenya changed from Cushitic-speaking foragers to Maa-speaking pastoralists. This rapid transition took place in the midst of competing views of Mukogodo ethnic identity. To Maa-speakers, Mukogodo were low-status il-torrobo. To British colonialists, Mukogodo were true Dorobo, victims of more powerful agricultural and pastoralist groups. Although British administrators fashioned a set of policies designed to protect Mukogodo from such groups, other British policies inadvertently contributed to the Mukogodo acquisition of Maasai subsistence patterns, language, and culture. Mukogodo themselves strategically used a Dorobo identity to manipulate the British while striving to lose the stigma of the il-torrobo label and achieve acceptance among Maa-speakers as true Maasai. (Mukogodo, Dorobo, Torrobo, Maasai, Samburu, ethnicity, Kenya) ********** Between the mid-1920s and mid-1930s, Mukogodo of Kenya underwent a rapid transition from being Cushitic-speaking hunters, gatherers, and beekeepers to being Maa-speaking pastoralists. (2) This transition is problematic in a number of ways. First, thanks to data on time allocation collected since the 1960s, it can no longer be assumed that a change from foraging to food production will improve a group's standard of living or reduce the workloads of its members (see Hames 1992 for a review). In the Mukogodo case specifically, there is no convincing evidence of an increase in standard of living since their acquisition of livestock (Cronk 1989b). Second, other hunter-gatherers in East Africa in superficially similar situations have remained hunter-gatherers despite contact with pastoralists (e.g., Hadza; see Kaare and Woodburn 1999), and Mukogodo themselves had had contact with pastoralists for centuries before the transition without themselves becoming pastoralists. Third, it cannot be taken for granted that even if a group does change its subsistence strategy it will also necessarily undergo the sort of wholesale cultural shift experienced by Mukogodo. Other groups in East Africa have made similar changes in subsistence while still keeping their own languages and other aspects of their own cultures (e.g., Okiek; Huntingford 1928, 1929, 1931, 1942, 1951, 1954, 1955; Blackburn 1976, 1982; Kratz 1981, 1994, 1999). Elsewhere (Cronk 1989a, 1989b) I have analyzed the Mukogodo transition in behavioral ecological terms, suggesting that for individual Mukogodo men the adoption of pastoralism represented a response to a rapidly changing social environment in which they either obtained livestock or failed to marry. I have also examined some of the consequences of the Mukogodo transition to pastoralism, including their low position in a regional hierarchy of wealth and ethnic status (Cronk 1989c, 1990, 1991c). This article explores the change from a different but complementary angle, focusing more on the external factors that changed their social environment. An examination of the broader historical and political context reveals that the Mukogodo transition occurred as Mukogodo attempted to manipulate the attitudes and behaviors of both British colonialists and Maasai pastoralists, two groups with competing and strikingly different views of Mukogodo ethnicity. THE EMERGENCE OF A MUKOGODO ETHNICITY Mukogodo live on the northeastern edge of the Laikipia Plateau in and around the Mukogodo Hills, which are covered with a dry forest dominated by cedar and wild olive trees (Mukogodo Division, Laikipia District, Rift Valley Province, Kenya). The origins of the Mukogodo people are obscure, but linguistic evidence suggests that they may have roots among the original Khoisan-speaking hunters and gatherers of East Africa (Ehret 1974:88). Until recent decades, however, they spoke not a Khoisan language, but rather an Eastern Cushitic one called Yaaku (Heine 1974-75; see also Brenzinger 1992 and Brenzinger, Heine, and Heine 1994). …