Overtly Muslim, Covertly Boni: Competing Calls of Religious Allegiance on the Kenyan Coast

Overtly Muslim, Covertly Boni

Studies of Religion in Africa Supplements to the Journal of Religion in Africa

Edited by

Paul Gifford School of Oriental and African Studies, London Deputy Editor

Ingrid Lawrie The Mirfield Centre, West Yorkshire

VOLUME 29

Overtly Muslim, Covertly Boni Competing Calls of Religious Allegiance on the Kenyan Coast

by

Mark R.J. Faulkner

BRILL LEIDEN • BOSTON 2006

Cover illustration: Ali Sani, a local diviner and healer, stands with his family in front of the house they are building on the outskirts of Bargoni village. This book is printed on acid-free paper. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data Faulkner, Mark R. J. Overtly Muslim, covertly Boni : competing calls of religious allegiance on the Kenyan coast / by Mark R. J. Faulkner. p. cm. — (Studies of religion in Africa, ISSN 0169-9814 ; v. 29) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN–13: 978–90–04–14753–9 ISBN–10: 90–04–14753–5 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Boni (African people)—Religion. 2. Kenya—Religion. 3. Somalia—Religion. 4. Islam—Kenya. 5. Islam—Somalia. I. Title. II. Series : Studies on religion in Africa ; 29. BL2480.B67F38 2006 297.089'935—dc22 2006043879

LC2675.N7P36 2005.82968'0747'1– dc2 ISSN 0169–9814 ISBN 13: 978 90 04 14753 9 ISBN 10: 90 04 14753 5 © Copyright 2006 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill Academic Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Brill provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change.

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CONTENTS

List of Illustrations, Maps and Tables .................................... Glossary ...................................................................................... Preface ........................................................................................

vii ix xi

Introduction ................................................................................

1

Chapter One The Academic Framework ..............................

6

Chapter Two

Bargoni ............................................................

39

Chapter Three The Coming of Islam to Bargoni ................

58

Chapter Four Religious Activity in the Bush ........................

91

Chapter Five Islam in the Public Sphere in Bargoni .......... 134 Chapter Six Religious Activity at the Homestead Level .... 188 Chapter Seven

Conclusion ...................................................... 248

Epilogue ...................................................................................... 259 Appendix One Documentation and Map Pertaining to Land Allocation in the Bargoni Area .................................. Appendix Two Trees, Shrubs and Plants Used for Religious/Medicinal Purposes ................................................ Appendix Three (a) Various Meanings Ascribed to Bao Numerology ................................................ (b) Various Meanings Attached to Bao Tetragrams ..........

261 267 278 279

Bibliography ................................................................................ 283 Index .......................................................................................... 289

ILLUSTRATIONS, MAPS AND TABLES

Photographs 1. Mzee Bobitu Kololo stands at the edge of the bush. p. 7 2. The D568 passes through Bargoni. The mosque is the white building half hidden by the mango tree. p. 45 3. A typical village scene during the El Niño rains that precipitated the horrop tree prayers. p. 92 4. The horrop tree prayers: The men assemble prior to the prayers proper. The horrop tree is to the right of the picture. p. 94 5. Home sporting a white flag to keep malevolent spirits away from the house and the baby. p. 108 6. Wedding scene: A bride’s trousseau is carried into the compound of her husband. p. 170 7. Preparing bark from the baobab (Adansonia Digitata) prior to plaiting a divining rope. p. 192 8. Blessing the hunter: Ali Sani sits on a mat in the midst of the women. p. 198 9. Circumcision Ceremony: With the child sitting on the knee of his obaa, Mzee Habole performs the cut. p. 206 10. Making an offering at the tomomi shrub (Watheria Indica) prior to extracting the root. p. 232 11 and 12. Ali Sumoi Bwana Parua ‘thief-hunting’. Open indicates innocence, closed reveals guilt. p. 244 Maps Map 1. Bargoni in Relation to the Lamu Archipelago and the coast of East Africa. p. xiv Map 2. From Map, Dated 1992, Emanating from Lamu District, Detailing Proposed Demarcation of Land in the Area Around Bargoni. p. 266

viii

list of illustrations, maps and tables

Tables Table 1. Comparison of Rainfall Figures (in millimetres)—Long Term Monthly Mean for Lamu (over an 81 year period) v. Rainfall for the period June 1997 ’till May 1998. p. 41 Table 2. Bao Tetragrams. p. 218

GLOSSARY

Included in this list are words appearing more than once in the text or judged to be essential for the understanding of what is taking place. The names of trees and shrubs are not listed, as they appear separately in appendix 2. the black, all enveloping wrap worn by Muslim women medicine a (Boni) malevolent spirit a shop, especially of the small, village variety a weather phenomenon that caused a long and heavy rainy season on the Kenyan coast fundi an expert in a particular field haramu polluted according to Muslim dietary laws ithai Boni spirits of the bush kafir a pagan, a non-Muslim kanzu a white cassock worn by Muslim men Kimbo a brand of cooking fat kitenge a brightly coloured wrap worn by women kofia a hat, in the Bargoni context an embroidered variety originating in Lamu liwali formerly a headman appointed by the government to deal with the affairs of the Islamic community mabati corrugated iron sheeting used especially as a roofing material madrasa an Islamic school where Arabic and Qur’anic instruction is dispensed makuti palm thatch used for roofing mandazi a deep fried doughnut mwalimu a teacher, both a school teacher and an Islamic teacher Mzee term of respect used to address a male elder panga a bush knife, a machete sadaka an offering safari a journey shamba a field shifta a Somali bandit sufuria an aluminium cooking pot uchawi sorcery or witchcraft buibui dawa dereto duka El Niño

PREFACE

The Boni are an ethnic community, belonging to the Cushitic language family, who live in the coastal forest on the mainland north of the Lamu archipelago, near Kenya’s border with Somalia. Although they are traditionally described as hunter-gatherers, subsistence agriculture today constitutes their primary mode of production, but their self-perception is consistently informed by their association with the bush. Academic literature universally contends that the Boni are Muslims who converted en masse around the middle of the twentieth century. This work identifies the historical forces that precipitated this conversion, but argues that the assertion of earlier scholars that previous religious practices have died out or exist as only peripheral elements is erroneous. Adopting a phenomenological approach and a methodology based on participant observation, I identify three spheres of religious activity: the bush, the village centre (dominated by the mosque), and the individual homesteads. In each of these domains religious beliefs and activities are being utilised to bolster the economic, political and cultural interests of groups and individuals within the wider village community. The bush is being renegotiated continually to reflect an evolving Boni self-identity in a multi-ethnic setting and to allow the fermentation of resistance in the face of attempts at cultural hegemony advanced by external forces. The mosque has come to epitomise, in the eyes of some, the efforts at resocialisation under the guise of Islam so that, by usurping control over pivotal elements in Boni social and religious life, this community is rendered more malleable to the political and economic designs of others. Finally, at the homestead level, women assert control over the perpetuation of the Boni community while other religious activities are appropriated from neighbouring communities to meet contemporary needs. While some rites are employed for their divinatory or medicinal efficacy, others are reworked in the Boni setting to express the sense of emasculation and impotency experienced by that community in the face of external control.

xii

preface

Thus, far from merely submitting to the process of Swahili-isation/Islamisation, the Boni are renewing elements of their pre-Islamic religion, or incorporating those of neighbouring groups, as a means of self-empowerment and self-expression. The opening pages of this work afford me the opportunity to express my sincere thanks to those who have been part of the journey behind the production of this book, which is based on my Ph.D. thesis, presented to the University of London in 2001. My mind instinctively turns to the people of Bargoni who made me so very welcome from the day I first arrived in their village. It is, perhaps, only with hindsight that I am able to appreciate fully their care and concern for my welfare, especially when the El Niño floods isolated the village, or when armed shifta swept through the area. While I always felt accepted and welcomed in Bargoni, I must single out one individual for particular thanks and recognition. Mzee Bobitu Kololo first invited me to Bargoni when we met outside Lamu Museum shortly after my plans to settle in another village were undermined by a bandit attack. When I accepted his kind invitation, he offered me accommodation on his compound and extended his warm friendship to me. I have enormous respect for this wise man. On Lamu island, I thank Jan van Dijk for his hospitality and Bert Buijs for his friendship and his sense of humour, so necessary on occasions. I readily acknowledge the helpful comments and suggestions offered in Nairobi by Drs Pat Ryan, Aylward Shorter and Eugene Hillman, who all made available to me their particular areas of expertise. I also happily call to mind Mr Simon Muthenge of the Department of Botany at the University of Nairobi whose knowledge of the flora of Kenya is prodigious and who greatly assisted me in the identification of the various plants and trees used in religious rites in Bargoni. Going further back, I am indebted to Nyagwansa Magembe for first inviting me to open my eyes to the ‘worlds in the background’ that inform religious activity in Africa. I record my gratitude to Rebecca Janacek for her friendship and the home she opened to me in the beautiful hill country of Pokot where I could sit on the veranda, enjoy a ‘White Cap’ and talk through the ideas that were starting to form in my head. I am deeply grateful to my friends and colleagues at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. I single out

preface

xiii

Louis Brenner, Emeritus Professor of the History of Religion in Africa, who was my mentor and a tremendous source of challenging observations, constructive criticisms and immense inspiration during the gestation of my Ph.D. thesis. I express my appreciation to Professor Paul Gifford for suggesting publication, for reading through the original draft and suggesting numerous improvements of style and content. I also record my thanks to so many other individuals at SOAS in general, and the Department for the Study of Religions in particular, who have accompanied me over the years. Outside academia, I recognise with deep gratitude the General Council of the Mill Hill Missionaries who gave me the time and opportunity to explore my long-standing interest in the religious expression of men and women on the African continent. To Maurice McGill, Fons Eppink, John McCluskey, John Taylor, Bill Tollan, Jac Hetsen, Bernard Phelan, Jos Boerkamp, Jakob Kirchler and the late Liam Ganley, I am sincerely grateful. I thank the rectors of St. Joseph’s College, London—Tony Chantry and, more recently, Mark Connolly—for a wonderful environment in which to live and work (albeit with rather too many distractions). Last, but not least, I thank my parents and my brother, Richard, and sister, Lisa, for their support and encouragement over the years. And a special word of appreciation to Barbara Moli for her affirmation and inspiration during the process of writing.

Map 1. Bargoni in Relation to the Lamu Archipelago and the Coast of East Africa.

INTRODUCTION “When you get back to England, remember us, remember what you see going on here!”1 These words of Mzee Bobitu Kololo not only served as a significant element in the eye-opening process that constitutes the essence of fieldwork but continue to serve as an underlying theme in this work. Indeed, as well as seeking to fulfil its academic purpose, this book might also be understood as representing a cri de coeur on behalf of the Boni people. One is reminded of the comment of Lord Byron on Mitford, “Having named his sins, it is but fair to state his virtues—learning, labour, research, wrath and partiality—I call the latter virtues in a writer, because they make him write in earnest.”2 There is a part of me that is filled with wrath as I reflect on the injustices visited upon the Boni population of Bargoni, the exploitation they experience and efforts by external forces to control and dominate their lives. Prins described the demise of the Boni in terms of genocide3 long before that word became associated in the minds of many with the atrocities perpetrated in Rwanda in 1994. While he viewed this as a haemorrhaging process, marked by a net outflow of women of child-bearing age who were being taken as marriage partners by outside communities, accompanied by high infant mortality amongst the small community that remained, the genocide that he talks of appears, with hindsight, to have been occasioned by the influx of members of other ethnic communities into the forests that had formerly been the Boni’s preserve, who brought with them cultural and, particularly religious, notions that undermined the indigenous varieties. These events are being played out along the fringes of the socalled Swahili-coast, that ribbon of land containing a population of “about half a million people living in a string of settlements along the East African coast and its islands from Mogadishu in the north to

1

Mzee Bobitu Kololo, Bargoni, 31 December 1997. William Mitford, The History of Greece (London: Luke Hansard and Sons for T. Cadell and W. Davies, 1814). 3 A.H.J. Prins ‘The Didemic Diarchic Boni’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 96, 1963, 177. 2

2

introduction

Mozambique in the south.”4 Swahili culture has a history dating back over a thousand years, but the winds of change that blew across the African continent in the twentieth century saw this sliver of land, with a people boasting of their urbanity and civilisation, and with a rich tradition of trade along its length and across the Indian Ocean, marginalised by events over which it had little control. The partitioning of Africa amongst European powers, and the confirmation of sovereign nation states as each of the countries of East Africa attained independence, witnessed the erosion of Swahili trade and influence as national economies replaced and curtailed the entrepreneurial engagement of the formerly autonomous towns along the coast. The road that passes through Bargoni was formerly part of a network of trade arteries—in this case linking Lamu with Mogadishu—but newly established borders interfered with these old trade routes and now the track terminates at the border town of Kiunga, a cul-de-sac that reflects the Swahili turn of fortunes in general. Such events necessitated a reappraisal of the Swahili’s trading interests, with lateral engagement along the East African littoral constrained by international restrictions and Indian Ocean interests reoriented as a result of the emergence of a global economy. Politically and economically, for the Swahili of Kenya, their world-view has revolved around 180 degrees and it is now the area inland from the coast that holds promise and opportunity. Thus, in what had been something of an economic backwater, in the bush country on the Kenyan mainland north of the Lamu archipelago, a subtle but long-term war is being waged for the soul of the Boni people. On the one hand there are the ‘outsiders’, particularly the physical presence of the Somali and the cultural and religious influence of the Swahili, amongst whom are many who genuinely and deeply believe in the importance of sharing their Islamic faith with the Boni people. However, for others in their ranks, religion has been used as a means of control and a gambit for economic, political and territorial expansion. The Boni, on the other hand, have welcomed the perceived advantages that Islamic affiliation brings, but their resilience is manifested in their adherence to traditional religious ideas and practices that serve as a way of maintaining their identity and resisting submergence under a tide of ethnic and religious domination from neighbouring communities. 4 John Middleton, The World of the Swahili: An African Mercantile Civilization (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992), viii.

introduction

3

The village of Bargoni—because of its location on the border of Boniland, its proximity to the Islamic centre represented on the island of Lamu, its diverse ethnic mix represented in the community, the emergence of various strong and influential figures—exemplifies the process happening in this corner of Kenya. Indeed, the processes at work are probably more highly developed here than in the more remote Boni communities situated further north along the road to Kiunga and hence understood to be more isolated and ‘in the bush’. However, it might be expected that they will inevitably follow a similar route in future years as the forces operative in Bargoni penetrate deeper into the forest. Previous writers on the Boni (and the body of available literature is meagre in the extreme) suggest that the process of conversion followed a fairly swift and simple course and that the community appeared willing to give up its cultural identity in the face of Islamisation.5 It is suggested that while elements of previous religious practice exist, these constitute quaint, isolated pockets that will be eradicated shortly as the Islamic consolidation process continues.6 However, just as Allen finds the traditional accounts of the Swahili encounter with foreign forces and influences ‘unsavoury’,7 so too is this image of Boni conversion inaccurate. This work will demonstrate that, beneath the veneer of Islamic respectability, the Boni are using traditional practices, or renegotiating recently introduced religious activity, as a means of fostering and securing their identity as a people. In the face of perceived oppression and efforts at domination from outside, the Boni are delving into their collective memory and reworking this as a means of resistance. This work is divided into seven chapters. The first situates this study within the body of literature, encompassing a number of disciplines, that relate to religious practice and identity on the Kenyan coast. It highlights the dearth of literature on the Boni people while

5

Prins, Didemic, 177. Steven Harvey, Hunting and Gathering as a Strategic Adaptation: The Case of the Boni of Lamu District, Kenya (Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Boston University, 1978), 192–201. 7 ‘There is an unsavoury image of coastal Africans kowtowing to newly-landed Asian settlers, yielding up their control of commerce without a murmur, meekly assisting them to construct great stone walls and houses, happily handing over their daughters in marriage, and supinely abdicating political power . . . It is now totally outmoded.’ James de Vere Allen, Swahili Origins: Swahili Culture and the Shungwaya Phenomenon (London: James Currey, 1993), 10. 6

introduction

4

examining briefly the nature of research among the neighbouring communities with particular reference to the Swahili who are exerting such a powerful religious and cultural presence at this time. The chapter concludes by explaining the methodological approach and an important element within this that goes some way towards reducing observer prejudices and biases. Chapter 2 locates Bargoni village within its physical setting and briefly examines the population of the community from the point of view of its diverse ethnic strands. It introduces a number of the significant dramatis personae who appear in leading roles as the account of religious practice in the village unfolds. Chapter 3 places the greatest event in the recent religious history of the village within context. Some fifty years ago the inhabitants of Bargoni converted, en masse, to Islam and the chapter seeks to identify the internal and external forces that precipitated this change. Mzee Bobitu Kololo identified three spheres of religious activity— the village, the homestead, and the bush8—each of which is covered in the subsequent three chapters, although I choose to change his order and begin with an examination of the bush, as it is my contention that this informs religious activity in the other arenas identified. Thus, chapter 4 opens with a description of a rite that was ostensibly conducted to reduce rainfall but was also a strong statement of Boni identity. The implication of the Boni’s perception of themselves as hunters and gatherers, as people of the bush, is examined, as are the other spiritual entities that occupy the bush and constitute pivotal elements in the structure of Boni society. While the Boni lifestyle has changed radically within the last few decades, the collective memory of the Boni people is still rooted away from the village and in the bush and this has ramifications for religious expression as well. It constitutes a study in opposites: village/bush, Islam/indigenous religions, outsiders/Boni. It is also demonstrated that religious activity has a strong political dimension offering a channel of resistance to perceived destructive forces from outside. Chapter 5 focuses on events centring on the mosque and the religious activity radiating from it. The perception of the landscape of Boniland in the eyes and minds of the more recent residents—the Somali and Swahili in particular—is seen to have a direct bearing

8

Conversation with Mzee Bobitu Kololo, Bargoni, 2 November 1997.

introduction

5

on religious perception. Islam is shown being used to co-opt and ultimately emasculate important religious practices that formerly had a vital role in the self-expression and self-identity of the Boni population. It is seen how Islam figuratively keeps the bush at bay, robbing it of its regenerative power in the lives of the forest dwellers. Chapter 6 moves away from the public forum of village life to examine religious activity at the homestead level and here are witnessed religious activities covering the whole spectrum from ‘orthodox’ Islam to deeply rooted traditional practices. The chapter looks at the tensions between the forces from the bush and those that have come into the village on the back of outside ethnic communities. The final chapter draws together, again, the strands of religious activity that previous chapters have isolated for the sake of clarity. It demonstrates that, while the emphasis of this work is on religious practice and perceptions amongst the Boni population of the village under study, they now rightly belong—in Bargoni at least—within a network of other traditions that are engaged in an ongoing dialogue.

CHAPTER ONE

THE ACADEMIC FRAMEWORK Introduction At the end of my period of fieldwork in Bargoni, one of the last acts I performed was to comply with a request from Mzee Bobitu Kololo, my erstwhile landlord, informant and much respected friend. I was not surprised that he asked to have a photograph taken of himself but what was deeply revealing was that the request was expanded to include two contrasting images. In one Bobitu, dressed in a kanzu, sober jacket and Islamic kofia, stands erect and dignified at the door of the mosque, the epitome of Muslim propriety and respectability. The second shot (photo 1) sees Bobitu staring into the camera lens from the edge of his shamba. He is wearing a kitenge and bush-shirt, unshod and bare-headed, holding a bow and arrow in his hands, with the quiver tucked under his arm, while a gourd for collecting honey is draped around his shoulders. These two images are evocative of the ebb and flow of cultural and religious identities—alternately assumed, reworked and cast aside—that run like a shuttle through the disparate threads that make up the fabric of Bargoni society. The Boni component of this heterogeneous population moves across the religious landscape under a variety of guises as its members seek to make sense of the worlds in which they live. Religion in Bargoni Van Beek and Blakely1 readily admit to the inherent difficulty in coining a definition of religion that adequately captures the multifarious angles covered by this phenomenon, but this does not deter those intent on isolating what they consider to be essential features. So Bourdillon, for example, asserts that ‘religion’ necessarily involves 1 Thomas D. Blakely, Walter E.A. van Beek & Dennis L. Thomson (eds.), Religion in Africa: Experience and Expression (London: James Currey, 1994), 1.

the academic framework

7

Photo 1. Mzee Bobitu Kololo stands at the edge of the bush.

(i) belief, and (ii) symbols, particularly symbolic action.2 Others adopt a definition that, rooted in the work of Rudolf Otto, limits religion and religious activity to the vertical dimension—an interaction between the human world and spiritual entities—that has little space for the horizontal plane encompassing all other areas of human intercourse.3 However, this present work requires an understanding that takes into account, as van Beek and Blakely contend, that “religion is hardly a phenomenon totally unto itself: it is inextricably bound to other aspects of culture and society”; they proceed to establish the “interrelatedness of religion with politics, economics, social processes, illness and healing, art, music, dance, and speech”.4

2

M.F.C. Bourdillon, Religion and Society: A Text for Africa (Gweru: Mambo Press, 1990), 6. 3 See Evan M. Zuesse, Ritual Cosmos: The Sanctification of Life in African Religion (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1985), 3–4. 4 Blakely, van Beek & Thomson, Religion, 1.

8

chapter one

The following view propounded by Jonathan Smith encapsulates an understanding that is broad enough to contain the scope of religion lying behind this examination of religious activity in the village of Bargoni: What we study when we study religion is one mode of constructing worlds of meaning, worlds within which men find themselves and in which they choose to dwell. What we study is the passion and drama of man discovering the truth of what it is to be human. History is the framework within whose perimeter those human expressions, activities and intentionalities that we call ‘religious’ occur. Religion is the quest, within the bounds of the human, historical condition, for the power to manipulate and negotiate one’s ‘situation’ so as to have ‘space’ in which to meaningfully dwell. It is the power to relate one’s domain to the plurality of environmental and social spheres in such a way as to guarantee the conviction that one’s existence ‘matters’. Religion is a distinctive mode of human creativity, a creativity which both discovers limits and creates limits for humane existence. What we study when we study religion is the variety of attempts to map, construct and inhabit such positions of power through the use of myths, rituals, and experiences of transformation.5

Smith’s ‘definition’ of religion, augmented by the insights of van Beek and Blakely who seek to situate religion within a network of interrelated fields, serves to expand the very limited field of study that existed in the past. However, other dimensions of this present work seek to break out of the existing paradigm as it endeavours to embrace a situation that, in the not too distant past, would have been considered inimical to fruitful research. Limits of Previous Research One aspect that has been a hallmark of much ethnographic research and the study of religion in Africa has been the adoption of what Lambek calls the ‘Lost Island’ perspective where “each society [is] viewed as reasonably discretely bounded and internally consistent.”6

5 Jonathan Z. Smith as quoted in Sam Gill, ‘No Place to Stand: Jonathan Z. Smith as Homo Ludens, The Academic Study of Religion Sub Specie Ludi ’. Journal of the American Academy of Religion 66.2 (Summer 1998), 285. 6 Michael Lambek, Knowledge and Practice in Mayotte: Local Discourses of Islam, Sorcery, and Spirit Possession (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993), 33.

the academic framework

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Such an approach can be traced back to Malinowski and his work on the ‘lost islands’ of the Trobriand islanders.7 This mentality might, in East Africa at least, also claim to have another source in the attitude of the colonial administration, which sought to establish clearly demarcated boundaries between various ethnic communities even if the situation on the ground did not warrant such a concise definition or was more fluid than the line on a map would suggest. As Allen has pointed out, the British administrators “liked their Africans to be racially ‘pure’ ”.8 However, as Stiles makes clear, . . . there is no such thing as a ‘pure’ tribe. Except for the most recent immigrants, it is safe to say that all tribes in Kenya contain a mixture of Bantu, Kalenjin, Eastern Nilotic and Eastern Cushitic elements, with a small amount of Southern Cushitic and Hadzan thrown in. Linguistics and comparative ethnography bear this out, as historical evidence of language and cultural borrowings from one group to another is unmistakable. This process is still going on today, and it is a normal one that happens everywhere in the world.9

Nevertheless, the old idea of fixed and clearly defined ethnic entities moving and migrating throughout East Africa is highly pervasive but inherently flawed. East African school children are taught, with the aid of colourful maps and accompanying arrows, that “the Maasai arrived from the north, and the Gikuyu from the coast.” However, Kesby uncovers this myth for what it is, arguing that “neither the Maasai nor the Gikuyu seem to have arrived from anywhere, but rather to have come into being in the areas where they now live.”10 He goes on to conclude, “much of what is currently taught as history, or prehistory, in East African schools is ethnic myth. Myth may be true or false, and much of this is, I suggest, false.”11 Anthropological studies in the past have noticeably failed to take this criticism and its repercussions on board. Schlee can ask:

7 Bronislaw Malinowski, The Sexual Life of Savages in North Western Melanesia (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1982). 8 James de Vere Allen, Swahili Origins: Swahili Culture and the Shungwaya Phenomenon (London: James Currey, 1993) 4. 9 Daniel Stiles, ‘The Past and Present of Hunter-Gatherers in Kenya,’ Kenya Past and Present 25 (1993), 39–45. 10 John D. Kesby, The Cultural Regions of East Africa (London: Academic Press, 1977), v. 11 Ibid., v.

10

chapter one . . . Why then are anthropological studies of poly-ethnic districts, international networks, trans-ethnic links, etc. so comparatively rare, while studies of ethnically and linguistically homogeneous and spatially contiguous groups still form the subject matter of the typical monograph? Apart from pragmatic reasons (such studies might involve learning more than one non-European language and necessitate much travelling), some of the established patterns of social anthropology seem to generate ‘units’ and ‘subunits’ which reinforce the tradition of the mono-ethnic monograph.12

It is hoped that this present work goes some way towards acknowledging the essential veracity of Schlee’s assertion and, while the focus is intentionally on the Boni people, it seeks to avoid being a ‘monoethnic monograph’. Indeed, it is the contention of this work that the complexity of contemporary religious activity amongst the ethnic Boni component of Bargoni can only be understood against the backdrop of a network of influences that originate from both inside and outside the community as it now stands. However, Schlee’s impassioned call to break out of the ‘monoethnic’ paradigm has fallen on apparently deaf ears as far as all but the most recent studies of East African coastal life are concerned. It is noticeable that the major works on the Swahili written prior to the last decade have all been carried out on islands: Middleton and El-Zein on Lamu, Bujra on Faza Island, Swartz and Strobel on the island of Mombasa and Pat Caplan on Mafia Island in Tanzania.13 Lambek’s work on the religion of the people of Mayotte (who are closely related to the Swahili, if not actually considered as constituting the southern limit to their expansion) is, again, an island study. Other mainland Swahili communities, certainly along the Kenyan coast, thus totally escaped attention. It is almost as if the waters of the Indian Ocean around the shores of these islands engendered in 12 Gunter Schlee, Identities on the Move: Clanship and Pastoralism in Northern Kenya (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1989), 1. 13 John Middleton, The World of the Swahili: An African Mercantile Civilization (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1992); A.H.M. El-Zein, The Sacred Meadows: A Structural Analysis of Religious Symbolism in an East African Town (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1974); Janet M. Bujra, An Anthropological Study of Political Action in a Bajuni Village in Kenya (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of London, 1968); Marc J. Swartz, The Way the World Is: Cultural Processes and Social Relations among the Mombasa Swahili (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991); M. Strobel, Muslim Women in Mombasa, 1890–1975 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1979); A. Caplan, Choice and Constraint in a Swahili Community: Property, Hierarchy, and Cognatic Descent on the East African Coast (London: Oxford University Press, 1975).

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the mind of the researcher a sense of isolation and enclosure where the community could be considered ‘pure’ and uncontaminated by outside influences. Such a way of thinking permeated the attitude towards neighbouring ethnic communities on the mainland until very recently, such that Salvadori can write in 1988 that the Orma constitute an attractive object of study since they “are distinct from their neighbours and isolated from other groups of Galla-speakers.”14 Yet boundaries constitute a fascinating area of study, the permeable interface between ethnic communities who are rarely, if ever, as distinct as the interpretations of the past would like us believe. As Spencer15 has demonstrated in his study of the Samburu, members of this community have no problem, in certain situations, ‘crossing over’ and becoming Rendille. They adopt not only the language but also the mannerisms and characteristics, they are accepted as members of a clan in one community which might be considered an extension of the clan to which they belong in Samburu society. Similarly, Schlee16 has sought to demonstrate, convincingly so, the importance of inter-ethnic clan relationships amongst a number of communities in northern Kenya. In this connection, an important feature of religious activity in Africa which has been noted of late is the manner in which religious practices are able to transcend ethnic boundaries. Janzen attests to the pervasive presence of activities associated with human/spirit interaction across the continent, seeking to “identify some of the common features in spiritual constellations across the ngoma region and to grasp the meaning of some of the variations.”17 He demonstrates the veracity of his thesis by drawing on the ethnographic evidence of others as well as a vast body of data from diverse corners of Africa which he himself has amassed, in so doing expunging the myth of intransigent cultural boundaries. Brenner agrees when he writes “ ‘religious’ ideas, practices and institutions moved through various regions of the African continent, traversing political and ethnic boundaries. . . . ethnicity was not at issue, and new religious ideas and practices were

14 Andrew Fedders and Cynthia Salvadori, Peoples and Cultures of Kenya (Nairobi: Transafrica; London: Rex Collings, 1981), 35. 15 Paul Spencer, Nomads in Alliance (London: Oxford University Press, 1973). 16 Schlee, Identities. 17 John M. Janzen, Ngoma: Discourses of Healing in Central and Southern Africa (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992), 95.

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borrowed and incorporated with apparent ease among different groups.”18 It is clear that efficacy is more important than doctrinal articulation in the movement of such practices.19 This has important consequences for this work since the Boni appear particularly adept at borrowing and absorbing all manner of cultural and religious traits from the various communities surrounding them. As will be demonstrated, religious activity in Bargoni is replete with foreign practices that are now deemed to be beneficial to the people who live there. Likewise, there is little evidence that the population is ‘racially pure’ since Prins, writing in the late 1950s, reported that “any visiting Somali has right of access to the wives of the Boni . . . a fact which no doubt from time to time results in Somali men being genitores of Boni children, although Boni patres claim the fatherhood.”20 Boni women still enjoy something of a promiscuous reputation amongst the non-Boni who live in Bargoni and certainly the soldiers in the nearby army camp never complained of the lack of female companionship. Likewise, Bargoni itself contains peoples from many different communities who interact not only in the more mundane dimensions of life, but also within the religious sphere. Individuals have no qualms about seeking the assistance of ‘experts’ from other ethnic communities if they feel that a particular person’s knowledge can have a positive impact on the issue they are confronting at that time.21 Thus this study is intended to serve as a counterpoint to the ‘Lost Island’ perspective of the past and, while paying particular attention to religious activity amongst the Boni, to embrace the messy ethnic mix that makes up Bargoni. 18 Louis Brenner, ‘“Religious” Discourses in and about Africa’, in Karin Barber and P.F. de Moraes Farias (eds.), Discourse and its Disguises: The Interpretation of African Oral Texts (Birmingham: Centre of West African Studies, 1989), 92. 19 In this connection, Ali Sani, an mganga who will feature prominently in this work, willingly concedes that much of his knowledge comes from the Gosha community of Somalia since “the knowledge and skill of the Gosha is much greater than that of the Boni community to which I belong.” (Conversation with Ali Sani, Muswakini, 18 September 1997). 20 Prins, Didemic, 177. 21 Such a feature is highlighted by Parkin in his analysis of Giriama society where he notes the use made of diviners and the obligation to ‘become Muslim’ that is a characteristic of some sectors of that community. Here a “measure of ritually sanctioned distinctiveness” works to the advantage of the entrepreneurial class within Giriama society. He asserts that this represents a “general process of conversion to an ‘outside’ religion as a means of legitimating non-customary activities and expectations.” David J. Parkin, Palms, Wine, and Witnesses: Public Spirit and Private Gain in an African Farming Community (London: Intertext Books, 1972), 3.

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Another feature of much research along the Swahili coast has been a certain ‘timeless’ quality that implies that “peoples . . . supposedly still live today as they have done for centuries or millennia.”22 The use of such a technique as the ‘ethnographic present’ gives the lie to any possible claim that a study represents a view of a community at a fixed time. Lambek struggles with this issue but acknowledges his failure totally to expunge “the ahistorical, visualistic present”23 from his writing. Thus, because of “an anthropological bias against history and . . . a lack of information,”24 one was frequently presented with a static, immutable view of religious activity which failed to take into account its essential dynamic, responding to social pressures and tensions. Literature from the area is far more accommodating in this respect. However, as Bourdillon points out, “To understand who a people are, we have to look at their past, the history from which they arose.”25 This work must clearly be understood as a glimpse of a people ‘on the move’ that requires a fairly detailed overview of historical changes as that contained in Chapter 3. The religious, cultural and political cogencies that acted upon the Boni in the past still have significant ramifications in the present and cognisance of present activity depends on recognising the forces that have been instrumental in development to this point. The basis of this present work is essentially conditioned by the time at which the research was carried out. So, for example, the description of the horrop tree prayers in chapter 4, which constitutes such a pivotal moment in establishing a bipolar opposition to the activities of the mosque, could not have taken place without the El Niño rains of 1997/8.26 Likewise, as I will illustrate, the Boni are very much engaged in a process of seeking to establish their cultural and religious identity, in the wake of concrete circumstances. I am 22 Jan Vansina, Paths in the Rainforests: Toward a History of Political Tradition in Equatorial Africa (London: James Currey, 1990), 3. 23 Lambek, Knowledge, xvii. 24 Benjamin C. Ray, African Religions: Symbol, Ritual and Community (Englewood Cliff, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1976), 11. 25 M.F.C. Bourdillon, The Shona Peoples: An Ethnography of the Contemporary Shona, with Special Reference to their Religion (Gwelo: Mambo Press, 1976), 15. 26 El Niño is an irregularly occurring series of climatic changes that originate in the equatorial Pacific where sea temperatures rise and ultimately impact upon meteorological conditions across the globe. Along the coast of Kenya, El Niño was manifested in an extraordinarily long and heavy rainy season which resulted in flooding, the destruction of roads and property and an increase in sicknesses associated with such conditions: water-borne diseases, incidences of malaria and typhoid.

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therefore seeking to reveal the dynamics at play at a very particular time in the history of this people. Related to this quality of ‘timelessness’ found in some writing is the absence in other monographs of any sense of spatial restraint. Middleton, writing from Lamu at the northern fringe of the Swahili coast, apparently feels no constraint to limit the relevance of his findings to that particular island and its environs but presumes to make statements about Swahili culture in general, along the whole 1,000-mile stretch of coast, based on this research. In so doing, he is vulnerable to the criticism levelled by Vansina, who writes disparagingly of the underlying assumption: “Within a tribe everyone held the same beliefs and practices, and observations made in any part of the tribal territory were valid for any other part. Moreover, by definition, every tribe differed from its neighbours.” Vansina concludes this caricature by asserting that “such notions, no doubt derived from European ideas of nationhood, were mistaken.”27 This study wishes to avoid such criticism and does not claim that the data reported applies to all the mixed communities that live in the forests of Lamu District. Bargoni is unique and not all the forces at play in that community necessarily exist in the neighbouring villages and hamlets. However, it is held that there are certain common features and that, for reasons of geography and history, Bargoni might be further down the road that the others will inevitably have to tread. Should the security situation improve and research not be hampered by the effects of adverse climatic conditions such as El Niño, then it would be fascinating to move further north along the track in the direction of Kiunga, exploring religious activity as it is expressed in communities more removed from the influence of Lamu. A further feature of the studies of religious activity on the north coast of Kenya is that much of what has been written to date collectively displays a strong urban bias, with emphasis on the Swahili, and, while it can be said that the towns dotting the coast are a unique and distinctive feature of this ethnic community, they certainly do not encompass its totality. This impacts upon religious practice with those occupying the upper echelons of society, the urban elite, generally having been identified with the practice of what might be considered more orthodox religious activity (dini ), while those on the lower rungs are said to be more given to spirit possession and 27

Vansina, Paths, 19.

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other activities that a majority of the population might consider mila (customs). As Middleton notes, “the wealthy of a stone-town tend to be strict Muslims in their observance of the shari’a; a few miles away among country-town fishermen, ‘indigenous’ cults and rules are regarded as of equal value and legitimacy.”28 In this arrangement there are hints of an Arab/African, or else a man/woman, divide which Middleton subsequently concludes constitutes a doubtful hypothesis,29 claiming that it is rather “a matter of rank and more importantly of uncertainty in the placement of persons and groups within the overall schema of superiority and inferiority.”30 However, he goes on to suggest that such a divide is being slowly eroded in Swahili society and the mila component is gaining in recognition if not respectability. In a different form, such a hierarchical structure rears its head in Bargoni, and Caplan suggests that this stratification also manifests itself in the sphere of spirit-possession with a contrast being drawn between land spirits and sea spirits. The former are malevolent and pagan while the sea spirits ( jini) are considered more ‘Qur’anic’.31 Janet Bujra’s account of factionalism in the village of Tundwa32 stands alone as a study with a rural bent but, again, the Swahili are the focus and she says almost nothing about religious practice at the time (1965). This is understandable, since her interest is in the political rather than the religious sphere, but it would have been of interest to this work if the latter had received some attention since the shifta troubles33 precipitating the exodus of Bajunis from the mainland to the islands at her time of writing are similar to the Somali-banditinduced insecurity of the present time in Bargoni.

28

Middleton, World, 162. Mark Horton and John Middleton, The Swahili: The Social Landscape of a Mercantile Society (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2000), 180. 30 Ibid., 187. 31 Caplan, African, 101. 32 Bujra, Anthropological. 33 The original shifta movement was an armed struggle that accompanied Somali and Kenyan independence in the early 1960s and saw efforts to redraw the colonial map such that the Northern Frontier district of Kenya, with a predominantly Somali population, would secede to Somalia. As Hartley recalls, referring to the Somali flag, “each of the five points on the white star in the centre of a sea of blue represented one of the divided Somali territories: the former British and Italian Somalilands, Djibouti, Kenya’s Northern Frontier District and Ethiopia’s Ogaden.” Aidan Hartley, The Zanzibar Chest: A Memoir of Love and War (London: HarperCollins, 2003), 188–9. More recently shifta has been applied to armed groups of Somali with no political agenda who cross into Kenya with the sole intent to steal and cause mayhem. 29

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Bujra is one step removed from the urban environment that has traditionally been the locus of study in Lamu District and has clearly demonstrated a lessening of the social constraints associated with the highly stratified and hierarchical stone-town (to borrow Middleton’s terminology) as one moves out into the rural areas. This study goes one step further by entering into a non-Swahili community to examine how Islam is understood and lived out among a people who have only recently been subsumed under a variety of Islam that is deeply rooted in Swahili culture. A final feature is that there is a dearth of material available detailing the process of conversion to Islam in the hinterland of the north Kenya coast. R.L. Bunger34 is one of the few scholars who addresses the question of the development and spread of Islam in the area during the colonial period while David Sperling35 also examines the role Islam, and Islamic education, played in the history of the Digo further down the coast. He notes how the Mijikenda people adopted Islam from the Swahili towns and were influenced by their traditions but then distinguishes between ‘town Islam’ and Islam as manifested in the rural areas. While this present work is not intended to be an attempt to reconstruct the recent history of the Boni, nevertheless it will be necessary to analyse some of the factors that led to their conversion in the not too distant past so as to comprehend more fully the religious dynamics operative in the present. Literature Review It is now necessary to situate this study within the context of the existing literature. It has to be admitted, however, that there is a dearth of material on the religious activity of the Boni people. Steven Harvey has written a Ph.D. thesis36 of a more general, anthropological nature while A.H.J. Prins37 and Daniel Stiles38 have both writ34 Robert Louis Bunger Jr., Islamization Among the Upper Pokomo (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University, 1979). 35 David Sperling ‘Rural Madrasas of the Southern Kenya Coast, 1971–92’, in Louis Brenner (ed.), Muslim Identity and Social Change in Sub-Saharan Africa (London: Hurst & Co., 1993). 36 Steven Harvey, Hunting and Gathering as a Strategic Adaptation: The Case of the Boni of Lamu District, Kenya (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Boston University Graduate School, 1978). 37 Prins, Didemic. 38 Daniel Stiles, ‘Hunters of the Northern East African Coast: Origins and Historical Processes’, Africa 51 (1981), 848–861; Stiles, ‘Historical Interrelationships of the Boni with Pastoral Peoples of Somalia and Kenya’, Kenya Past and Present 20 (1988).

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ten articles although none has much substantive to say about religious practice. Harvey’s research in Pandanguo was based on only a few months’ fieldwork39 prior to his expulsion from Kenya for engaging in ‘political activity’—advocating Boni rights.40 His work was further undermined when it came to studying the range of religious practice since his “assistant was a strong Muslim and was prejudiced against ‘pagan’ activities”.41 While on some occasions he refers to taboos around the hunting of certain animals, attaching no religious significance to this,42 on others he invokes Islam as prohibiting the eating of elephant meat (the former staple) although a local Islamic scholar knew of no grounds for such a stricture and put it down to ill-informed teaching on the part of Islamic missionaries sent to Pandanguo.43 He was surely correct, however, in asserting that ‘orthodox’ Islamic practice among the Boni manifests a high degree of variation with widespread nominal adherence44 and suggesting that it has an inconsistent impact on Boni life generally. Thus, Harvey claims, those Islamic laws, “when they conflict with traditional hunting patterns, are either ignored or re-interpreted.”45 Frequently, Harvey suggests, Islam is a convenience: Boni women liked to marry devout Muslim townsmen “because they could put on the buibui and not have to work”46 while the men were able to coerce non-Boni Muslims into building an Islamic (madrasa) school in the village.47 When describing religious practice, Harvey is terse48 and his understanding of pre-Islamic religion49 is contained in one paragraph: 39

Harvey, Hunting, viii. Ibid., xi. 41 Ibid., 200. 42 Ibid., 141. 43 Ibid., 197. 44 Ibid., 194. 45 Ibid., 196. 46 Ibid., 178–9. 47 Ibid., 194. 48 For example, his description of Boni burial practices is contained in one brief paragraph and includes such detail as: “A special cloth purchased by the family of the deceased is wrapped around the body by the first group. The second group digs a hole and cuts some sticks to make a platform on which to carry the body. The two groups merge and carry the body to the hole where special prayers are said over it. The body is then laid on its side facing east. A sort of door is placed over it and the dirt is then put in.” Ibid., 195. 49 Harvey was informed that Islam was introduced into the Boni area during the Witu Sultanate in the late nineteenth century (ibid., 192–3) and that further influence would have come through members of the Boni community who worked on the farms of non-Boni Muslims (193). However, Prins ascribes a much later date, in the 1950s, for Islamisation in the Boni village he studied (Prins, Didemic, 177). This 40

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chapter one There was belief in one high God as seems consistent with other peoples in the area. A sacred spot would be chosen a short distance from the village as the spot to pray. They would get a log of a tree called orumuthu, which they would cover with a gummy sap. The result when burned would be coils of smoke which were seen as a vehicle for prayers to rise to heaven. Then feasting would take place. These prayers would be offered either at times of hardship such as drought, or disease, or to rejoice at good times such as hunting or rainfall, or to accompany celebrations like weddings or circumcision. A complete picture of traditional Boni religion may be difficult to obtain now as even the oldest men are involved with Islam.50

Stiles and Prins have little to add. Prins seeks to paint an anthropological sketch of life in a Boni village replete with the statistics and array of kinship terminology that was a feature of ethnography of that period.51 Stiles’s articles seek either to trace the historical background of the Boni or to identify the communities in Kenya that might fall under the label of ‘hunter-gatherers.’ Cultural Influences While research on the Boni per se is limited, one is able to glean important details of neighbouring communities that have influenced, to a greater or lesser degree, the development of this hunter-gatherer group. The Boni have long enjoyed a close economic relationship with the Bajuni inhabitants of the islands of the Lamu archipelago, exchanging ivory and other game products for grain, cloth and iron52 can be understood if a number of factors are taken into consideration. Firstly, as Heine points out, “Boni society is divided into a number of sections which until 1965 formed territorial units” (‘Language and History of the Boni’, in Bernd Heine (ed.), Recent German Research on Africa: Language and Culture (Bonn: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, 1982), 106). Pandanguo, within the orbit of Witu’s cultural influence at the height of the latter’s power, could have been affected by the religious beliefs and activities of this dominant presence. More distant, semi-autonomous groups of hunter-gatherers would not have been so touched. Secondly, a distinction needs to be drawn between the first introduction of Islam into Boniland and the process of Islamisation. As is seen in Chapter 3, the Boni have long been in contact with adherents of Islam in neighbouring communities and the colonial era saw Muslims involved in the local administration. However, certainly among the Boni population of Bargoni, the process of Islamisation is more recent and concurs with Prins’s observations in Bothei. 50 Harvey, Hunting, 200. 51 Prins, Didemic. 52 Stiles, Hunters, 858; Stiles, Historical, 42; R.E. Salkeld, ‘Notes on the Boni Hunters of Jubaland’, Man. 93–94 (1905), 168–170.

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and they share an oral tradition that traces both communities back to the town, mythical or not, of Shungwaya.53 However, all commentators agree that the pre-eminent external cultural influence came from the Orma (formerly referred to as the Galla or the Barraretta or Kofira Galla). Indeed, so great is this influence perceived to have been in shaping the culture and religion of this hunter-gatherer people54 that Harvey can suggest that “Galla religion, which has one high God and a pantheon of spirits, may provide a good model [for traditional Boni religion] considering all the other cultural borrowings from them.”55 As far as knowledge of the Orma is concerned, it was only a few years ago that Cynthia Salvadori lamented: That so little information is available and that so few definitive facts are known about the Orma is truly astonishing. They are a physically attractive people, pursue an interesting—pastoral—lifestyle, are relatively accessible—from the coast road to Garsen and Witu, and from the inland road between Garsen and Garissa, are distinct from their neighbours and isolated from other groups of Galla-speakers, and thus increasingly susceptible to pressure to change, are a mere remnant of their former numbers—yet most of what is known about them comes from studies done some sixty years ago!56

The earlier work to which she refers is presumably that of Alice Werner57 who wrote in the years immediately preceding the First World War. What is particularly interesting here is that Werner is recording Orma religious practice before their almost total conversion to Islam in the period between 1920 and 1940. Werner notes that the Orma “believe in a ‘High God’ called Wak, who seems to be more or less definitely identified with the sky”58 and prayers, often with a ‘fixed, quasi-metrical form’59 are addressed directly to this deity since Werner identifies little (other than a few rites surrounding funerals) that would support evidence of ancestor worship. Werner also asserts that the

53

Stiles, Historical, 42. Harvey, Hunting, 167; Stiles, Hunters, 858; Stiles, Historical, 44. 55 Harvey, Hunting, 200. 56 Fedders and Salvadori, Peoples, 35. 57 Alice Werner, ‘The Galla of the East African Protectorate’, Journal of the African Society, xiii.L ( January 1914), 121–142, 262–287. 58 Ibid., 284. 59 Ibid., 285. 54

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Orma at the time she was observing them attached great religious significance to certain trees, such as the baobab and the wild fig tree, and that sacrifices and other religious practices were associated with them. She reports the belief that ‘a spirit of a high order’ is immanent in the tree itself.60 Since Salvadori’s concern over the lack of material on the Orma, two substantial studies have appeared. Hilarie Kelly61 has completed a Ph.D. thesis that sheds light on the complicated Orma gada system of social ordering as well as offering insights into the process of conversion to Islam earlier this century. However, her work has been criticised for failing to distinguish clearly between those social structures that existed in the past, and are now confined to history, and those that are pertinent to the present, the suggestion being that much of what she writes could safely be said to be a feature of the past rather than having any contemporary significance. The other work on the Orma is Jean Ensminger’s account of economic development amongst this people.62 Since the focus of her research is to seek an understanding of the commercial activity of the Orma through an analysis of their trading patterns, Ensminger does not address religious beliefs and practices other than to say that the adoption of Islam facilitated economic involvement with other Muslim communities in the region63—Islam is seen as providing a strong institutional framework within which trading links could flourish. Religious piety enhanced a reputation for trustworthiness in the business sphere. Further, Islam “is also associated with basic education in literacy and arithmetic”64 which had beneficial repercussions in terms of trade. While the material on the Orma includes Warner’s report of their life prior to their conversion to Islam, and Ensminger and Kelly address the situation in the wake of this change, nothing exists that records the process and experiences of this shift and the reasons and explanations associated with it. For such information and analysis it

60

Ibid., 286. Hilarie Kelly, From Gada to Islam: The Moral Authority of Gender Relations among the Pastoral Orma of Kenya (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of California, Los Angeles, 1992). 62 Jean Ensminger, Making a Market: The Institutional Transformation of an African Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992). 63 Ibid., 59 ff. 64 Ibid., 62. 61

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is necessary to look at studies conducted amongst Bantu peoples not too distant geographically from the Boni who, in many respects, incorporate elements that also play a significant role in the Boni conversion pattern. Firstly Bunger65 examines the conversion to Islam amongst the Upper Pokomo who live along the Tana River and elicits various factors that facilitated this transition. Then David Parkin66 turns the spotlight on the Giriama community, who live further south along the Kenya coast, and illuminates the significance enjoyed by the Kaya, the traditional ritual settlements, that constitute a background against which conversion to Christianity or Islam is enacted. His examination of this space-in-the-background has important ramifications in this study of the Boni since this forest-dwelling community of the Lamu hinterland live out their lives against the backdrop of the bush, which they perceive as being of fundamental significance to their identity as a people. Thus, when we examine literature relevant to the study of religious activity along this stretch of the north Kenya coast, we are largely confined to the results of studies done amongst the Swahilispeaking peoples, particularly those living on Lamu Island, but, more generally, there is a substantial body of work that covers communities extending down the coast of East Africa. Since the population of Bargoni profess that they are Muslims and that the impetus and thrust for their conversion came from the coastal communities, it is pertinent to this study to briefly review the manner in which research into religious activity along the Swahili coast has been conducted. Early Studies of Religious Activity on the North Kenya Coast Early studies started from the, now discredited, premise that Swahili life was essentially ‘Arab’ and that in matters of religion, too, what was to be found was basically an import—the peoples of the Swahili coast were Muslims and Islam came from outside, from Arabia. Such a stance rested on the assumption that there existed a nebulous body of ‘orthodox’ Islam that had been cast up on the shores of East Africa and had perpetuated itself with little accommodation to the

65

Bunger, Islamization. David Parkin, Sacred Void: Spatial Images of Work and Ritual Among the Giriama of Kenya (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991). 66

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milieu in which it found itself; indeed, the assumption was that any change had been on the part of the pre-Islamic culture as it adapted to this new religion. This in turn reflects the mode of thinking, current at that time, which sought to define religion in terms of belief, what Brenner calls “ ‘religious’ knowledge”, which he understands as deriving “from the Western and Christian concept that ‘religion’ is synonymous with, or at least firmly allied with, a system of ‘belief.’ ”67 It was taken that coastal Islam was homogeneous and coextensive with the Swahili littoral. Suffice it to say that such a position has no credible underpinning. Pouwels68 has admirably demonstrated the diversity of ‘Islamic’ religious practice along the coast during the last century and before, when Islam was still largely an urban phenomenon. Traits of such an ancestry are still carried to this day. It has to be said that a number of other factors precluded a more profound study of Swahili religious practice during the first half of this century. First, the perceived mixing of peoples and cultures on the Swahili coast rendered anthropological research (encompassing an examination of the religious dimension of life) unattractive— indeed, the question of who actually constitute the waSwahili was a matter of some debate.69 Allen points out that the Swahili represented everything that was anathema to the British colonial administrators who “liked their Africans to be racially ‘pure’, to be rural-dwelling and ‘tribally-minded’ with, where possible, a Native Reserve to which they could be notionally if not physically relegated.”70 These urbandwelling peoples, who valued culture over and above a sense of ‘tribal’ identity and who had long espoused Islam, had far less appeal than the romanticised pagan and savage communities of the interior. Thus, Nurse and Spear are correct when they contend that “there have been no detailed ethnographies of Swahili societies written until fairly recently”71 while those that have since been produced “reveal a far more complex picture of indigenous development with reinterpretation and assimilation of foreign cultural features to fundamental Swahili ideas and values.” 67

Brenner, ‘ “Religious” Discourses’, 87. Randall L. Pouwels, Horn and Crescent: Cultural Change and Traditional Islam on the East African Coast, 800–1900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987). 69 See Carol M. Eastman, ‘Who Are the Waswahili?’, Africa 41 (1971), 228–236. 70 Allen, Swahili, 4. 71 Derek Nurse and Thomas Spear, The Swahili: Reconstructing the History and Language of an African Society, 800–1500 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1985), 22. 68

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Another criticism levelled by Africanist scholars at accounts of religion in Africa in the pre-independence period relates to the manner in which religion came to be isolated from its cultural context and merely studied as one component among many. Okot p’Bitek argues strongly that traditional religion permeates all levels of life and thus the western dichotomy between the secular and the profane, the material and the spiritual, is meaningless in the African context. Quoting John Mbiti, he claims “Wherever the African is, there is his religion.”72 He goes on to note, in support of this thesis, that, since it is such an all-encompassing experience, many African languages have no word for religion, in the narrow compartmentalized understanding of the word, a position Brenner endorses.73 Such a stance would appear to run into problems in the specific context of Swahili life since both Islam and Christianity clearly perceive themselves as religions and thus Pouwels adopts a less expansive notion, which sees ‘religion’ as referring only to Islam, with other practices, such as appeals to ancestral spirits, lying outside the narrow parameters imposed by his definition.74 However, what we are witnessing here is the distinction (which the Swahili themselves make)75 between dini (generally understood to mean orthodox Islamic belief as defined by Muslim scholars) and mila (traditional practices and customs) manifesting itself and seeking to establish the limits of any religious paradigm. Once again, we can observe the tendency mentioned earlier of identifying religion with belief, knowledge, and of failing to take the lived experience and articulated expression of religious practices into consideration. However, more recently there have been efforts to redress this imbalance, with scholars arguing that in Africa knowledge, particularly of an esoteric religious nature, is the preserve of a few specialists while the majority participate in ritual activity with only a limited intellectual comprehension of what is going on. It has been noted that there is less concern on the part of local people with the construction and maintenance of theories and elaborate cosmologies (so loved by past scholars, indeed, sometimes constructed by them,

72 Okot p’Bitek, African Religions in Western Scholarship (Nairobi: East African Literature Bureau, 1970), 98. 73 Brenner, ‘ “Religious” Discourses’, 87. 74 Pouwels, Horn, 66. 75 Middleton, World, 162.

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since they offered the possibility of neatly fitting into Western religious concepts) than with the efficacy of rites and rituals. It is, as Brenner notes, a contrast in focus between head and heart and the shift of emphasis from the former to the latter must, he argues, “be intensified if we are to deepen our understanding of ‘religion’ in Africa.”76 Contemporary Studies of Religious Activity on the Kenya Coast While ethnographic studies carried out during the colonial years were lacking in information on religious activity on the Kenya coast, the last thirty years or so have seen the production and dissemination of a number of substantive works that have sought to redress the balance. The richness, depth and complexity of life on the East African coast has now captured the attention of scholars such that Naipaul can state, in reference to Lamu: “It is impossible to be in Lamu for any length of time without encountering the professional researcher: Lamu has more researchers per head of population than doctors.”77 As far as religious practice on the East African coast is concerned (and, as I have said, this is largely confined to studies carried out amongst the Swahili), all writers concede that it is ‘Islamic’. Distinctions have been made between dini and mila (a division existent in Swahili thought) although the latter is not considered as entirely external to Islam. In this context, Lambek can write of the people of Mayotte: It will do little good as an outsider to attempt to distinguish or adjudicate which local ideas and practices are or are not Islamic . . . The villagers, or at least the popular view, take for granted that all local practice is to one degree or another Islamic. Distinctions are made . . . but they are made from the perspective of insiders viewing their way of life holistically and labelling that way of life, in contrast to that of Europeans, as Islamic.78

However, such divisions are more apparent in Swahili thought where emphasis is placed on the rationalisation of mila with “many anomalies, blurrings, and exceptions [such that] . . . any group in any town may define dini and mila differently from others in the same town, and

76

Brenner, ‘ “Religious” Discourses’, 102. Shiva Naipaul, North of South: An African Journey (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1980), 132. 78 Lambek, Knowledge, 54. 77

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indeed most groups take care to define their own beliefs and practices as dini and those of their social inferiors as mila.”79 While most writers acknowledge these two strands, mila and dini, Lambek writing from the Comoros Islands and, although the peoples there are closely related to the Swahili peoples, somewhat removed from the field of this study, distinguishes three elements in Mayotte society when he identifies: • 'ilim fakihi: concerned with the study, transmission and interpretation of sacred Islamic texts and commentaries upon them, • 'ilim dunia: concerned with cosmological and related medical texts and their implications for individuals and collective affairs, • 'ilim ny lulu: concerned both with treating people troubled by spirits and with utilising the knowledge and power that spirits provide.80 Pouwels would concur with Lambek when it comes to distinguishing 'ilim dunia from the other strands and, indeed, stresses the role falak (or falaki in kiSwahili—astrology) plays in Swahili life, historically, perhaps, more than at present.81 Much has been made of the suggestion that mila represents the remnants of the African, pre-Islamic religion of the coast and Nurse and Spear illustrate support for this understanding on the grounds of linguistic analysis: Linguistically, Swahili maintains a distinction today between indigenous religious concepts and Muslim ones. The words koma, mizimu, and pepo for ancestral, natural, and malevolent spirits, for example, all derive from proto-Swahili and proto-Sabaki words, as do most words associated with village, farming and fishing activities. Words denoting Muslim religious, legal, and commercial concepts and institutions, however, are largely of Arabic provenance. Urban spirits are thus termed jinn, from the Arabic, while rural ones are mizimu [Bantu].82

Topan83 suggests that mila fills the gaps in the religious appetite of the Swahili people, noting that Islam was theologically mature when it reached the East African coast and thus lacked the flexibility of

79

Middleton, World, 162. Ibid., 32. 81 Pouwels, Horn, 120 ff. 82 Nurse and Spear, Swahili, 95. 83 Farouk Topan, ‘Pepo: A Fluid Dimension of Swahili Religious Culture’ (seminar paper, Department of Africa, School of Oriental and African Studies, 30 January 1997). 80

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youth that would have allowed for greater adaptability to the new culture. However, such an understanding of the historical processes associated with the arrival of Islam in East Africa is not without its critics, who argue that Islam was spread not as some autonomous amorphous mass but by individuals who established themselves along this length of coast and who adapted to this new physical, social, economic and, indeed, religious environment. Topan does not refute such an assertion, distinguishing between the ritual core of Islam and those elements that are more open to adaptation and local expression (for example, prayer represents an element of the ritual core, the mosque in which this prayer is said is more open to local influences). He posits that “spirit possession provides a need—a cultural, cosmological need—not fulfilled by orthodox Islam”84 and goes on to propose that spirit cults demonstrate a modification of the “belief, prevalent among other neighbouring African peoples, in the spirit of ancestors.”85 To believe that pepo are the spirits of ancestors is against Islamic teaching and yet Topan found “in Mombasa and also in Zanzibar . . . a residual belief in the spirits of the ancestors. They are not mentioned by name explicitly, but only referentially as a category that exists.”86 As Lambek writes, echoing these sentiments regarding the strength of the mila component, “Islam has the power to limit the boundaries of spirit possession but not to quell its sources . . . Possession is not a past that can be easily discarded, but a continuous working through of the past and recontextualizing it into the present.”87 However, the same can also be said of the dini component: if this is to be alive and relevant to the people of today, it must be continually drawing on the riches of the past as it seeks to confront the issues of the present. What is at issue is not merely the intellectualising and dogmatising of what is and is not Islamic, but rather the activities of those who view themselves as Muslims and the religious practices that they comfortably allow to fall within this domain. This represents not so much a conflict as a creative tension which sees the intellectual and emotional aspects of Islamic thought and practice being reflected upon and renegotiated in the light of the contemporary situation. 84 85 86 87

Ibid., 4. Ibid., 6. Ibid., 6–7. Lambek, Knowledge, 62.

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A Phenomenological Approach The methodological stance that I have chosen to adopt in this study is essentially a phenomenological one. My aim is to view the rich variety of religious practice as it is to be seen amongst the Boni population of Bargoni, to endeavour to enter respectfully into the religious world of the people that live there so as to be able evocatively to describe it in a manner that would match their perception as ‘insiders.’ I aim to avoid any attempt to have the phenomena conform to some foreign structure or process of categorisation. Indeed, what phenomenology “stands against is the fetishization of the products of intellectual reflection. . . . Attempting to cover or contain the flux of experience with finite, all-encompassing, and bounded terms is seen to be absurd.”88 Mudimbe notes that “any analysis would sort out the fact that Africa is represented in Western scholarship by ‘fantasies’ and ‘constructs’ made up by scholars and writers since Greek times”89 and it is true to say that academic studies are replete with examples of attempts to ‘put a round peg into a square hole.’ Thus we have seen cultural elements that did not fit into the neat schemas constructed by the various authors being dismissed as peripheral and unimportant. Evans-Pritchard, for example, is accused of marginalising the significance of age-sets among the Nuer precisely because their existence did not concur with the elaborate social construct that he had devised to explain how all the features of Nuer culture fit together. The almost obsessive fascination . . . with order and structure may be seen as a form of wishful thinking, a consoling illusion passing itself off as a privileged glimpse into the hidden workings of the world. According to this view, the systematic and objective order which the ethnographer ‘uncovers’ in the course of fieldwork may not mirror any external reality but function as a magical defense against the unsystematic, disorienting reality he or she encounters.90

More recently, writers have displayed a greater sensitivity to such a temptation so much so that Lambek is able to say: “I have tried to be a good listener and to present what I have heard with a minimum 88 Michael Jackson (ed.), Things As They Are: New Directions in Phenomenological Anthropology (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1996), 1–3. 89 V.Y. Mudimbe, The Idea of Africa (London: James Currey, 1994), xv. 90 Jackson, Things, 5.

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of distortion. This means that I have not tried to distil an essence or reduce the speakers and their arguments to some kind of external explanatory system.”91 Even if one chooses not to embrace all the tenets of the postmodernist position, there is no denying that it has subverted a number of earlier approaches to the study of culture and religion as well as, one might contend, enhancing the viability and validity of a modified phenomenological approach. One figure in the field of Swahili studies who has witnessed the ascendancy of postmodernism and experienced at first hand the upheavals it engendered in her own research, and the consequences it gave rise to, is Pat Caplan. She notes that there . . . have been changes in the discipline of anthropology from the time of my first foray in the 1960s as a postgraduate student, when it was still firmly embedded in structural functionalism, to its fragmentation into numerous strands in the late 1960s and early 1970s with the influence of structuralism, feminism and Marxism. More recently, even those who would not wish to be labelled as postmodernists have found themselves influenced by some of its currents, and obliged to think more carefully not only about how and what they do and why, but also what difference who they are makes to what they see and experience.92

What makes a deep impression when comparing her most recent work with her earlier published accounts of life on Mafia Island is the abundant use she now makes of the voices of the people whose way of life she is seeking to describe. The bulk of ‘African Voices, African Lives’ consists of the edited diary of one of her informants, with whom a relationship had been nurtured for more than thirty years, supplemented by a small number of other, clearly identified, Swahili voices, augmented by observations and reflections by Caplan herself. Lambek also incorporates a strong phenomenological element into his account of religious practice in Mayotte and acknowledges the futility of attempting to weave a seamless whole from the disparate strands that were presented to him. He appears fully aware that if his work is to be a ‘true’ reflection of (religious) life then it will necessarily be messy and cannot be reduced to a set of rules that will rationally account for all that goes on.

91 92

Lambek, Knowledge, 28. Caplan, African, 7.

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In any culture or personal repertoire there will be concepts and paradigms that cannot be related logically to one another, hence organic and mechanical metaphors—knowledge as a fully integrated body or system—are inappropriate. This is not to say that knowledge need contain outright contradiction, only that the components do not always precisely match up.93

He is content to allow the voices from the two villages to tell their story of religious life and practice in that area. Lambek’s words can justifiably be applied to the situation in Bargoni where, I contend, any effort to construct some form of cosmological underpinning for all that passes as religious activity would be futile. Just as individuals can switch codes of behaviour and thinking depending on the situation in which they find themselves and the social mores to which they are expected to conform,94 so too in the religious sphere individuals and groups can comfortably switch between, for example, the mosque and traditional practices with ease. Membership of the ritual congregations in Bargoni village is fluid and perimeters highly permeable, so that membership is frequently dependent on pragmatic principles and the perceived benefits on offer rather than clear and conscious assent to a grand metaphysical schema. Thus this work will largely eschew any attempt at constructing an overarching cosmology, which would certainly be artificial and not find a resonance amongst the Boni population, in favour of a phenomenological stance. However, the strict objectivity that some earlier writers of the phenomenological school seemed to advocate as being necessary and a consequence of the practice of epoche (bracketing out) is impossible to achieve. Indeed, anthropological studies attest to the fact that researchers inevitably refract their observations through the prism of their own experiences. Thus Evans-Pritchard is quoted by p’Bitek as noting: “One can only interpret what one sees in terms of one’s own experience, and of what one is . . . The personality of the anthropologist cannot be eliminated from his [sic] work . . . Fundamentally, in his account of a primitive people the anthropologist is not only describing their social life as accurately as he can, but is expressing himself also.”95 93

Lambek, Knowledge, 9. See section ‘The Projection of Boni Identity to the Outside World’ in chapter 5 of this work. Spencer’s work, cited earlier (Spencer, Nomads), also demonstrates an example of this ability to switch—in his case Samburu can ‘become’ Rendille. 95 p’Bitek, African, 66. 94

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A more recent echo is found in Paul Riesman’s introduction to his analysis of the Fulani when he suggests that his work constitutes “the encounter of a man belonging to Western civilization, and haunted by questions that life there raises for him, with a radically different civilization which he investigates with those questions constantly in mind.”96 Self-Awareness Given such a caveat, it is necessary to explain the background and experience that informed the gathering and interpretation of the material analysed in this work. Indeed, my research was conducted against a backdrop of beliefs and questions that had been slowly evolving and dissolving, deconstructing and reconstructing, over the previous fifteen years of my living and working in East Africa (my personal safari having seen me in Uganda, Tanzania, Southern Sudan as well as Kenya). As a Catholic priest and member of the Mill Hill Missionary Society, which has a history of over a hundred years of involvement in eastern Uganda/western Kenya, I arrived in East Africa at a time when missionary thinking was still developing in the aftermath of the Second Vatican Council but where, on the ground, the church-planting paradigm still held sway. However, my initial youthful enthusiasm for the conversion process was soon challenged by my encounter with the unwitting objects of my ministrations and disquiet began to build relating to the modus operandi of missionary activity in the corner of Africa that was my stamping ground. Knitter,97 Hick,98 Cupitt99 and others articulated the ideas that I was but intuiting, postmodernism infused theological thinking with questions surrounding the place of metanarratives and consequently challenged the prevailing practice of proselytism. Perceiving ‘inculturation’,100

96 Paul Riesman, Freedom in Fulani Social Life: An Introspective Ethnography (trans. Martha Fuller), (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977), 1–2. 97 Paul F. Knitter, No Other Name? A Critical Survey of Christian Attitudes Toward the World Religions (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1990). 98 John Hick, The Metaphor of God Incarnate (London: SCM Press, 1993), also John Hick and Paul F. Knitter (eds.), The Myth of Christian Uniqueness: Toward a Pluralistic Theology of Religions (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1992). 99 Don Cupitt, The Sea of Faith: Christianity in Change (London: SCM Press, 1984). 100 The expressing of Christianity through the thought, symbolism, art, language, etc. of the host culture.

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the buzzword of the Church in Kenya, as but another tool of ecclesiastical expansionism, my heart and mind were drawn more to ‘dialogue’, the respectful listening to and sharing in the religious experiences and expressions of the peoples I lived amongst. In this schema, my arrival in Bargoni was another stage in the process of divestment, letting go of many of the assumptions I had brought to Kenya years before. My personal journey—critical of processes that rode roughshod over a religious world that had evolved over countless generations, over religious traditions that allowed the people to make sense of the world in which they lived and replacing these with values, assumptions and structures that failed to find a resonance in their lives—made me particularly sensitive to what was happening in Bargoni, although the fact that Islam, not Christianity, was the perceived interloper afforded me a degree of distance and less emotional involvement than if the latter had been the case. Similarly, on my part, the passionate wish to understand and tentatively enter into the world of religious expression and experience of my East African friends and neighbours, which stems not from mere intellectual curiosity but from my encounter with the same in the course of my missionary work, the conviction that they constitute an authentic response to a spiritual reality (however understood), cannot be suppressed. This is what led me back into academia in the first place and more than anything else it is what my life is about and what inspired me live in the Spartan conditions in Bargoni, to accept with equanimity the flooding that cut the village off from the outside world, the bouts of malaria and typhoid that temporarily laid me low, and the fear engendered by shifta raids on the community. It is this quest to catch a glimpse of the ‘spiritual entities’ that are known to the people of that continent that inextricably draws me back to Africa. Who I am necessarily influenced the data I collected. My discreet fidelity to my own religious observances—loath to offend Muslim sensibilities yet not wishing to be something other than what I am— appeared to elicit a favourable response from those who were more used to the hedonistic activities of European tourists on Lamu and their flouting of local norms of decency and their perceived corrupting influence on the youth. I would like to think that some of the people in Bargoni recognised in me a similar religious disposition to their own and that that engendered a greater degree of trust when they dared to reveal to me elements of their religious tradition.

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Similarly, my own experiences facilitated my appreciation of the religious activities of my hosts and I can empathise with Eric de Rosny who attests to the importance that his own religious convictions played in his study of nganga practitioners in Cameroon: “I fail to see how one who has had no experience of worlds-in-the-background, continuously present and sometimes sensible, nor any practical idea of transcendent powers and absolute imperatives, could be on an equal footing with human beings who bathe in such certitudes, and whose lives are permeated with them.”101 I strongly believe that this background does not invalidate the contribution I seek to make— mine is not the Mbiti-esque attempt to have African religious practice concur with the Christian overlay he seeks to impose—any more than Boddy’s feminism undermines the force of her argument. My study is, in Boddy’s words, “one opening among several onto an alien world of meaning.”102 However, who I am inevitably precluded the gathering of some data. As an unmarried man, I had only limited access the religious world of Bargoni women, and was perceived by my hosts as belonging to the group of unattached men looking for ‘honey’. The women hold their own prayer meetings and it would be of great interest to have a female researcher investigate them. It has to be said, however, that women were far from excluded from the activities that this work will examine and there is much less of the separation of the sexes among the Boni than in other, predominantly Muslim, societies. Women play important and public roles in divination and the conferring of blessings, for example, and it is only the prayer meetings confined to women (and, it needs to be added, these were infrequent occurrences) that were closed to me. Methodology The fieldwork that constitutes the basis of this work was conducted between August 1997 and June 1998. The initial arrangement envisaged my settling in the village of Kiangwe, a Boni/Bajun community on the shores of Dodori Creek, opposite Pate Island, but a bloody

101

Eric de Rosny, Healers in the Night (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 1985), 30. Janice Boddy, Wombs and Alien Spirits: Women, Men, and the Zar Cult in Northern Sudan (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1989), 10. 102

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shifta attack on the eve of my arrival prevented this. Then a chance encounter with Mzee Bobitu Kololo outside Lamu Museum saw an invitation being extended to me to take up residence in Bargoni and so it was to be. In this village I sought, so far as possible, to identify with the local community through simplicity of lifestyle and my good intentions were augmented by circumstances that facilitated this immersion and the concomitant acceptance. The insecurity that was, and still is, a feature of life in Bargoni served to create a strong bond amongst us as we shared the fear engendered by the threat of robbery, rape and murder. Likewise, the misery of the El Niño flooding that saw chest-high water covering the track out of Bargoni witnessed an explosion in the mosquito population and cases of malaria, saw houses collapse and the earth floors of those still standing assume the nature of a trampoline—all these hardships, endured together, fostered an esprit de corps that greatly helped my being accepted. Knowing that I could have retreated to the relative comfort and security of Lamu but chose to remain and share their lot helped to create an identity which suggested that I was ‘one of them’. The primary means by which I sought to gain access to the drama of religious practice and expression came through participant observation. By seeking, over the course of the months, to immerse myself more and more into the daily life of the community I attempted to transcend the state whereby my presence was considered a novelty and, by respectfully engaging in the various dimensions of village life, I sought to narrow the distance that separated me from the people of Bargoni. I enjoyed a sense of success when, in the last few weeks of my stay, the District Commissioner from Lamu visited the area and one of the elders of Bargoni introduced me to this eminent presence as ‘Our Mzungu’ (European). Like Devisch in his description of his ‘internal approach’,103 I consider ‘respect’ to be the operative word in my research. My own years spent living and working in different parts of East Africa have given rise to a sense of wonder, fascination and gratitude as I have come to know individuals and communities in ever deeper and more intimate ways. I feel that this is an important element that I brought to my research, and I sympathise with the view that “our social

103

Rene Devisch, ‘The Cosmology of Life Transmission’, in Jackson, Things, 94 f.

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gumption and social skills, as much as our scientific methodology, become measures of the limits and value of our understanding.”104 My experience of mutual trust, the development of warm friendships, the generous invitation to share in the lives of others, has increased my aversion to writings that devalue the dignity of those who are the focus of research, whether by the paternalism that manifests itself in references to ‘my people’ or by the stance that appears to view others as the building blocks of an academic reputation. If the people did not feel comfortable about sharing one or other dimension of their religious experience with me, then I refrained from persistent and intrusive questioning. This present study, in fact, might be considered a preliminary report, to be augmented in the years ahead as further research is conducted amongst this hunter-gatherer community of Lamu District. It was gratifying when, in my last few days in Bargoni, I sat with a few of my neighbours and we reflected on the experiences we had shared over the time I had been with them and they contrasted their experience of Europeans from the (colonial) past and their perception of my presence in the locality. “We were afraid of the others and treated them with respect,” said Bobitu, “but you are just like one of us!”105 An important and innovative feature of my research was the use I made of ‘supervision’ while in Kenya. My own experience in the sphere of counselling has made me very aware of the temptation of allowing my own biases to have a bearing on the collection and analysis of data, the danger of projecting my own unconscious agenda onto events and people of Bargoni. I have referred to the concept of epoche in the phenomenological approach, how this is understood to involve the ‘bracketing out’ of all preconceived notions to allow the phenomena to speak for themselves, although I question the ability and desirability of adopting such a totally objective position. However, I was greatly assisted in understanding the stance I was taking by borrowing techniques from the fields of psychotherapy and counselling, which served to bring to conscious awareness those elements of one’s mental makeup that might have a detrimental impact on the value of one’s research, and, by bringing such considerations

104 105

Jackson, Things, 8. Conversation with Mzee Bobitu Kololo and other elders, Bargoni, 27 May 1998.

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to the fore, to lessen their impact. By giving voice to one’s joys and frustrations in a confidential, supportive environment one can come to recognise the manner in which one is projecting one’s biases onto the religious practices of people, how one is all too often unaware of the personal colouring one adds to the observations being made and how this affects the results. The Code of Ethics and Practice of the British Association for Counselling has two pertinent guidelines that have a bearing on this issue: B.3.1. It is a breach of the ethical requirement for counsellors to practise without regular counselling supervision/consultative support. B.3.2. Counselling supervision/consultative support refers to a formal arrangement which enables counsellors to discuss their counselling regularly with one or more people who have an understanding of counselling and counselling supervision/consultative support. Its purpose is to ensure the efficacy of the counsellor-client relationship. It is a confidential relationship.106

It is my passionate contention that such a supportive relationship as described above is of enormous benefit in the conducting of fieldwork. When seeking to enter into the cognitive process of another person or people, in deep inter-personal relationships with others, one should avail oneself of the skills and techniques necessary to understand the dynamics of such an exchange and to comprehend the responses that such encounters generate in the different parties. Sadly, all too often no such provision is made and frequently the researcher enters the field with scant knowledge of the unconscious forces operative in his or her own life, and without the tools available to recognise and identify the processes in the life of the other. Fortunately, in my work as a pastoral minister I have received training in this field and have acted as a supervisor to others as well as seeking out consultative support for myself. It was a familiar environment, whose dynamics I understand and appreciate, and I was grateful that such a support network already existed for me in Kenya. Another methodological feature borrowed from the sphere of counselling was a non-directive approach in my conversations with the people of Bargoni. Again, this was intended to limit the impact of my own agenda on the insights proffered, since I was very conscious of the danger that the phrasing of questions could elicit a reply that 106

British Association for Counselling, Code of Ethics and Practice (London, May 1996).

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conformed to my mind-set rather than reflect the way of thinking that ordered the view of the world of my hosts. As Keith Richburg observes of his journalistic endeavours in Africa, informants “are pretty good at saying what they think their audiences want to hear.”107 So my interviews could never be termed formal and I would prefer to allow conversations to take their course and give an individual or group the opportunity to say what they wanted to say, to explain what they felt it was necessary to elaborate upon, to make connections that they regarded as relevant. I was seeking, as far as possible, to record the unsolicited words of my friends rather then to concoct a version of events composed of their answers to my questions. This passive approach can have the effect of limiting access to some information which, to our mind, is highly important, and does not fit well with our western culture, with its emphasis on action and taking the initiative. It is a reaction against the attitude “that knowledge may be won by a progressive interrogation of the object— the notion that the object can be captured, held, and possessed.”108 In the parlance of contemporary popular psychology, one might see this as a more ‘feminine’ attitude, a passive, receptive stance over and against the ‘masculine’ position marked by a more active and aggressive going out to others. Echoing what I said above, it might be understood as a more contemplative approach. Nevertheless, I believe that it can produce a view of religious activity that is more commensurate with the version being put forward by the people, their disclosures became a gift to me as a friend as opposed to the responses called forth by a intrusive outsider. In so doing, I am seeking to make the religious dimensions of life in Bargoni village accessible within the framework of its own arrangements, “within the terms of its own epistemological focus.”109 In the context of listening to the subtle revelations of my hosts, it is necessary to say a little about the language and manner of verbal data collection. I arrived in Bargoni with a competent grasp of kiSwahili but my knowledge of kiBoni was limited and, although I attempted to develop my competence, I did not become fluent. While it would certainly have been helpful to converse with a degree of 107 Keith B. Richburg, Out of America: A Black Man Confronts Africa (New York: Basic Books, 1997), 139. 108 Jackson, Things, 43. 109 Devisch, Cosmology, 95.

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fluency in this Cushitic tongue, its absence from my repertoire was far from being as deleterious as appearances might at first suggest. Given the composition of the village, with approximately half the community belonging to other, non-Boni, ethnic groups, kiSwahili was the lingua franca and served as the medium of conversation not only between Boni and non-Boni but, often, between the Boni themselves. As Heine has pointed out, the Boni have a ‘high rate of multilingual competence’110 and, for the inhabitants of Bargoni in particular, this would have been fostered during their internment near Mokowe during the Shifta Wars of the 1960s and augmented during their daily contact with non-Boni neighbours within the village. So my use of kiSwahili was certainly not alien to the ears of my neighbours, be they Boni, Somali, Swahili or whoever. Even when kiBoni was the dominant voice (for example, in the case of some of the prayers around the horrop tree111 although, even there, in an all but exclusive Boni gathering, the speeches and much of the casual conversation was delivered or carried on in kiSwahili) there was an ethos of inclusivity that ensured I was always afforded a kiSwahili translation. Again, on those occasions when I and those with whom I was involved felt comfortable and I tape-recorded what was being said (in kiBoni), there was always a willing circle of friends and neighbours to help me with the translation. I was conscious at the outset of how the sophisticated technology of audio-recording and photography might open a gulf between my neighbours and me, because I was aware that such equipment can engender a sense of distance between the observer and the observed, a feeling of ‘objectifying’ and ‘impersonalising’ the other. Thus I was loath to adopt such tools at the outset of my fieldwork and only gradually and sparingly introduced them, despite my appreciation of their benefits. Photographs frequently resulted in posed images while foisting a ‘tourist’ persona upon me. Likewise, tape-recording offers a temptation to speak for the sake of speaking rather than for the information disclosed. Thus conversations were recorded normally on a one-to-one basis with those who had become accustomed to my way of working and who no longer considered the machine an intrusion or an object for their oratorial pretensions. For example, the

110 111

Heine, Language, 110. Described and analysed in Chapter 4 of this work.

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long conversation with Mwalimu Hussein Bin Omar Fatar in chapter 3 was taped, as were a number of conversations with Mzee Bobitu Kololo and Ali Sani. The religious activity around the horrop tree in chapter 4 was similarly recorded but, for the rest, conversations were noted in writing as and when they took place. Such then was the baggage, intellectual, emotional and material, that I carried with me into a quietly amused Bargoni. As in an African drama, all three of these elements appeared on stage simultaneously but each came to the fore at different times. Sometimes it was the need to ‘know’ and understand, accompanied by the frustration that resulted from not being able to control through adequate analysis (“Existentially, an unanalysed world does not lend itself to control”),112 at other times it was the joy of friendship or the crushing loneliness that occupied me, while at other stages my relative material well-being and security led to demands and requests that created a sense that I was viewed as a veritable Santa Claus.

112

Jackson, Things, 5.

CHAPTER TWO

BARGONI There is nothing to keep you from visiting the far northeastern coastal region by land if you’re determined—nothing, that is, apart from roaming Somali guerrillas, armed to the teeth. Make careful enquiries before you set off: at the time of writing ( July 1996), firm advice to the contrary was being proffered.1

Introduction The passenger ferry leaving the jetty at Lamu swathes the vista of this ancient East African town in a haze of blue diesel fumes as it moves through the inshore waters of the Lamu archipelago. Behind is left a town that has existed for more than one thousand years, prides itself on its religious credentials, has experienced vacillating economic fortunes and is now seeking to come to terms with the vicissitudes of the late twentieth century where ‘beach-boys’ jostle with the sharifs in the narrow lanes of the old town and where satellite dishes compete with minarets for dominance of the skyline. Disembarkation at Mokowe on the mainland constitutes entry into an environment perceived by the island inhabitants as more hostile and potentially dangerous than the town across the waters. ‘Waislamu ni Ndugu’ (kiSwahili—‘Muslims are Brothers’) proclaims the message on the mihrab of the mosque close to the pier, but for many this is a wry assertion bearing in mind the insecurity that Lamu’s co-religionists have engendered and the violence they inflict on the area. Buses travel in convoy on the route between Lamu and Malindi and carry armed military personnel in an effort to reassure the passengers who are acutely aware of the robbery and murder that shifta have visited upon previous travellers. While the mosque echoes the religious buildings of Lamu, serving as a tentative outpost of the urbanity for which the island-dwellers pride themselves, it is the African bush that now begins to dominate the minds of the travellers—a bush that harbours malevolent 1

Richard Trillo, Kenya: The Rough Guide (London: Rough Guide Ltd., 1997), 446.

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spirits, a bush where every shadow can hide a bandit lying in wait with a gun. The buses roar away from Mokowe, revving their engines and blasting their horns, perhaps in order to stiffen the resolve of those on board, and by the time they career through the village of Hindi, some eight kilometres away, the clouds of dust obscure the view of a track that snakes away to the right. It is signposted ‘Kiunga’, a township whose only claim to fame is that it offered solace to George and Joy Adamson of ‘Born Free’ fame when they were marooned there by flooding.2 Things have not changed much in the intervening years: throughout the period of fieldwork covered by this work, Kiunga remained inaccessible by road, and the sea offered the only way in. A further twenty-five kilometres from the junction up this track, fraught also with the threat of ambush by bands of shifta, lies the settlement of Bargoni (see photo 2). Bargoni With a coastal location less than 2 degrees south of the equator, Bargoni experiences high temperatures (around 30°C.) and humidity all year round. It is arguable whether the rainfall pattern is bimodal 3 or unimodal 4 but such academic niceties paled into insignificance during the time that I was resident in the district since the El Niño phenomenon gave rise to precipitation figures that differed markedly from the established pattern (see Table 1). The undulating land is composed of rich, sandy soil with pockets of the black cotton variety. Not only does one notice a decline in precipitation as one moves further north—a feature all along the coast of East Africa—but there is a clear transition between the forests near the coast, where heavier rainfall is enjoyed, and the drier scrub of the interior. “The amount of rain in the long rains decreases from a strip of about 10km wide from the coastline into the hinterland at the rate of about 100mm per 5km. The short rains increase

2

George Adamson Bwana Game (London: Collins and Harvill Press, 1968). Lamu District Development Plan 1994–1996 (Nairobi: Office of the Vice-President and Ministry of Planning and National Development, 1994), 2. 4 Jan Hoorweg, Dick Foeken and Wijnand Klaver, Seasons and Nutrition at the Kenya Coast (Leiden: Africa Studies Centre, 1995), suggest the latter model or, at best, only weakly bimodal. 3

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600

500

400 Long Term Monthly Mean 300

June 1997– May 1998

200

100

April

Feb.

Dec.

Oct.

August

June

0

Table 1. Comparison of Rainfall Figures (in millimetres)—Long Term Monthly Mean for Lamu (over an 81 year period) v. Rainfall for period June 1997 ’til May 1998.

from the coastline for the first 10km and then decrease again.”5 Because of the relatively low rainfall on this stretch of coast, and the decline as one moves inland, one passes through a rapid succession of vegetation types as one progresses away from the ocean. Around Bargoni, there are open patches of grassland dotted with thickets of trees and shrubs but all this can change within a few kilometres in any direction.

5

Development Plan, 3.

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Formerly this rather remote corner of the Kenya coast supported the second highest elephant population in the country but the herds were decimated in the late 1970s and early 1980s when Somali poachers armed with Kalashnikov AK 47s slaughtered indiscriminately for ivory.6 I saw no evidence of elephants in the year that I was in Bargoni although warthogs and various antelope species were to be seen. Likewise, the area was formerly renowned for its various hardwoods but logging by outsiders has destroyed the stands and only the more inaccessible areas of Boniland still sport such valuable timber. When looking at a large-scale map of Lamu district (and a settlement of this size only appears on the most detailed maps, see p. xiv) one might assume that Bargoni is one entity but this is not the case. Rather, the conglomeration that falls under the name Bargoni consists of three sub-villages strung out along the left-hand side of the track that snakes its way from Lamu to Kiunga (the right-hand, eastward, side of the road has been gazetted as reserved for any future municipal/governmental land use). To further confuse matters, the first of these sub-villages is also called Bargoni and represents the oldest settlement of the three and the elders are able to recall the succession of temporary settlements along the pilgrim path that brought the original Boni hunter-gathering band to this location and from where, for various reasons, they declined to move on. A most attractive feature is the presence of a seasonal river, or lugga, which constitutes a year-round source of water even if, during the dry season, one has to dig ‘scrape-wells’ in the caked and crusted riverbed in order to obtain the brackish liquid beneath. Across the bridge that spans the lugga (Mkondo Farjala or, locally, Mkudo wa Bargoni) lies the village of Muswakini, populated by Boni who originated in the area around Kiangwe, on the coast, and Kororo and Mongai. They moved to the area some forty years ago in anticipation of being able to enjoy a better life in the Bargoni region. The last to arrive were the inhabitants of the sub-village that goes under the name Berabothei. These people originally occupied the village of Bothei (still featured on maps, which are based on carto-

6 Coast ASAL Development Project, Socio Economic Survey of Boni Forest Lamu District (Nairobi: Ministry of Reclamation and Development of Arid, Semi-Arid Areas and Wastelands, July 1991) reports a decline in elephant figures from ‘some 80,000 in the 1960s to approximately 2,000 today [1991] due to poaching by bandits from the north’.

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graphy conducted during the colonial period), further up the road to Kiunga at a point where a branch leads north to Garissa. However, the breakdown in security in the mid-1960s, during the Shifta War, led to the people of Bothei abandoning their homes to seek greater protection in Bargoni where the presence of a contingent of the Kenyan Army served to afford a degree of peace of mind. Into this wider community can be added members of other ethnic groups that have chosen to settle in the area—Somali, Pokomo, Malakoti, Orma, Bajun, Giriama, Luo (far away from their home area near Kisumu, on the shores of Lake Victoria) are all represented in Bargoni—and who have contributed their own unique flavour to the pattern of human existence in this settlement. Altogether, the combined population of Bargoni and a few outlying homesteads and hamlets comes to just over 1,000 adults,7 of which the Boni component (according to my estimation based on an initial survey of the area) makes up approximately 60 per cent of the whole, with the Somali presence making up the majority of the remaining 40 per cent. The distribution of the various ethnic components of the total population of the village is far from even, with the majority of the non-Boni clustered in the sub-village of Bargoni. This is due, primarily, to the accommodation afforded by the excellent housing on offer in the now abandoned Livestock Compound, all of which, without exception, is occupied by people of Somali extraction, or their dependants, whether government employees or not. Adjacent to this compound is that of the Somali rancher, Abdi Maalim, with his workers (also Somali) residing in accommodation he supplies. Along the main road running through Bargoni sub-village are other houses belonging to more recent residents from outside the immediate area: the Imam and his family, extended members of the Somali

7 Published district records do not give an accurate population count for Bargoni and the figure I use was provided by the sub-chief. However, figures in the government paper Socio Economic Survey of Boni Forest Lamu District put forward a figure of 800 for 1991 which, given the birth rate and natural population increase, plus immigration, would support the sub-chief ’s claims. An article in the Daily Nation of 22 June 2000 puts the total Boni population at 3,000 only, a decrease of 2,000 from the figure of 5,000 extant ten years ago. Others would proffer an even lower figure—Daniel Stiles, in an article published in 1993, puts the Boni population in Kenya at 2,000 with a further 1–2,000 in Somalia. See Daniel Stiles, ‘Aweer of Kenya and Somalia’, in Marc S. Miller (ed.), State of the Peoples: A Global Human Rights Report on Societies in Danger (Boston: Beacon Press, 1993), 164.

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families on the Livestock Compound or those of Abdi Maalim’s workers, Orma and Giriama families who are engaged in more intense agriculture, with just one Boni representative, Mzee Bobitu Kololo and his kin. Behind the ‘main street’ (see photo 2) are the plots of other settlers as well as the houses of the Boni. In the other sub-villages—Muswakini and Berabothei—the settler community is less apparent and the Boni presence is more visible. A corollary of the ethnic distribution is the style of architecture. Aside from the mosques in the three sub-villages which are built of cement blocks with corrugated iron sheet (mabati) roofs, such materials are only to be seen in the construction of the houses on the Livestock Compound and the ranch house of Abdi Maalim. Most settlers, and Boni who ascribe more enthusiastically to the proffered Islamic identity that arrived from Lamu, occupy ‘Swahili-style’ houses— square or rectangular structures with wattle-and-daub walls and a thatched (makuti ) roof. The Boni who choose to display a lesser degree of assimilation live further away from the village centre, nearer to the bush, and continue to construct their dwellings in the traditional ‘beehive-style’—a framework of bent branches covered with grass. Given the breakdown of the tradition territorial distribution of the Boni sections that Heine8 describes as existing prior to 1960, and the movement towards the establishment of settlements that incorporate Boni families from different parts of Boniland, it comes as no surprise that many community structures have recently ceased to exist. The didemic structure of Boni settlements that Prins9 describes as existing in the late 1950s when he visited Boniland is nowhere apparent in Bargoni, where settlers from inside Boniland as well as interlopers from other ethnic communities have served to disrupt the former order, apparently irretrievably. Related to the demise of the didemic structure is the absence of what Prins calls the diarchic element in the political sphere. He notes the existence of two headmen (hayus— this might be another example of the Orma influence on Boni social structure since that community uses a similar term, hayuu, to address its chiefs)10 but this no long applies, as the sub-chief is the sole political figure of the community recognised by outside authorities.

8 9 10

Heine, Language. Prins, Didemic, 174, 178 ff. Kelly, Gada, 306.

Photo 2. The D568 passes through Bargoni. The mosque is the white building half hidden by the mango tree.

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chapter two History

The more recent juxtaposing of the various Boni communities, and the infusion of interlopers from neighbouring areas, is but the latest development in the long history of human habitation on the Kenyan coastal mainland in general, and the peopling of the area under consideration in this study in particular. While it might not be practicable to attempt to trace the detailed histories of the individual ethnic communities that live on the mainland of the north Kenya coast, it is impossible to understand the present manifestations of religious practice without situating it against the backdrop of the unfolding of history. In the area that constitutes the focus of this study one is able to discern three basic families that, after all manner of splintering, absorption and amalgamation, have given rise to the present kaleidoscope of human activity. These three roots might be conveniently distinguished on the basis of what is, or was considered until recently to be, their ‘normal’ way of living: the original hunter-gatherers, the Cushitic pastoralists and the Bantu agriculturalists. Stiles, however, points out that the emphasis is on what is to be considered ‘normal’, “what a group over time does as a subsistence economy”,11 since immediate, short term responses to particular situations might result in the temporary abandonment of a customary life-style. However, it will be suggested that changes over the last few decades might have irreversibly altered the Boni’s ‘normal way of living’ if not their perception of it. It is generally considered that the groups that have lived along the East African coast for the longest time are those that have traditionally relied on hunter-gathering as a means of livelihood. Although some scholars have sought to posit a sixteenth-century origin for such groups,12 a wider consensus is that their origins lie much further back. Five thousand years ago all of East Africa was populated by hunter-gatherer bands who probably spoke languages related to those of the Sandawe and Hadza peoples in Tanzania today—elements of

11

Stiles, Past, 41. This theory, propounded by the likes of Turton and Morton, is reviewed and found wanting by Daniel Stiles, ‘Hunters of the Northern East African Coast: Origins and Historical Processes,’ Africa 51 (1981), 852 f. 12

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which are also found in the language of the Dahalo of the Tana estuary13—which, in turn, are considered by most linguists to be distantly related to the Khoisan languages of Southern Africa, characterised by their dental clicks.14 However, because they mingled with later arrivals, the assimilation of cultural traits from their neighbours has served to erase any characteristics that would render them distinct from other ethnic communities. Physical anthropology and the analysis of blood and tissue types—sickle-cell and ABO and MN— have failed to demonstrate conclusively that the present hunter-gatherers constitute a separate entity from the other coastal peoples.15 Pastoral Southern Cushitic-speakers migrated into East Africa some 4,000 years ago (although some suggest a date one thousand years earlier than this)16 and encountered the original hunter-gatherers in the central highlands of Kenya. They intermingled to create the lines that gave rise to the present Dahalo who retain elements of a language that predates this Cushitic influence, as well as the Degere who live further down the East African coast. However, the arrival of the Dahalo and Degere in their present location is a more recent phenomenon and is due to their displacement from central Kenya by the arriving Bantu—one branch moving down the Tana River Valley to take up position on the northern Kenya coast, the other migrating towards the Taita Hills on the present Kenya-Tanzania border.17 The next major incursion of population into the ‘Swahili Coast’ area occurred some 2,000 years ago when the so-called proto-Sam (Eastern Cushitic) speaking peoples moved into the region from the area north of present-day Marsabit. Leaving behind a population in that area that developed into the Rendille of today, the rest moved through the Lorian Swamp and down the Tana River, giving rise to the proto-Boni before swinging north to differentiate into the various branches of the Somali.18 The Boni emerged as a distinct group, although owing a high degree of debt to the Dahaloan hunter-gatherers they encountered in their immediate vicinity19 whose example 13 A.N. Tucker ‘Sanye and Boni’ in H.-J. Greschat and H. Jungraithmayr (eds.), Wort und Religion, Kalima na Dini—Ernst Dammann zum 65 Geburtstag (Stuttgart: Evangelischer Missionsverlag GMBH, 1969), 66–81. 14 Stiles, Past, 41. 15 Stiles, Hunters, 852 f. 16 Ibid., 853. 17 Stiles, Past, 43. 18 Stiles, Hunters, 853. 19 Ibid., 858.

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led them to abandon pastoralism in favour of foraging, some 1,500 years ago. However, some scholars suggest that their pastoral roots are still to be discerned in elements of their material culture. Prins, writing at the end of the 1950s, noticed neck rests used by adult males, one example of which “is beautifully carved in a geometric pattern, the overall form clearly suggesting the front of a cow’s head with slightly curved long horns.”20 A headrest I acquired is similar in form and is certainly distinct from those used by neighbouring communities. The physical isolation of the Boni in the forests curtailed further intensive interaction with pastoralists on the plains inland from the coastal strip and this served to preserve their language, although local exchange relations certainly evolved. The next dynamic that contributed to the present population of Lamu District was the thrust into the region of peoples of the Bantu linguistic family. Scholars, for example Nurse and Spear, have employed linguistic analysis in an effort to understand the migratory route that brought members of these ethnic communities to the Kenyan coast21 and that saw, at some time around the fifth century CE, a branch extending up along the coast to settle the area between the Tana River and the Webi Shebelle in southern Somalia. Sperling argues that this branch contained the forerunners of the Swahili whose language only began to emerge during the ninth century CE. Since that time, the Boni’s way of life in the forests near the coast has been influenced by the vacillating fortunes of their more powerful neighbours with whom they established economic relations, although they always managed to maintain their distinct identity as manifest in their tenacious holding on to their language and religion. This may be in part because the tsetse-fly-ridden bush curtailed the expansionist policies of the pastoralist Orma even at the height of their dominance from the sixteenth to the mid-nineteenth centuries, before rinderpest devastated their herds and concerted military action by the Maasai to the south and the Somali to the north rendered them ineffectual.22 Similarly, the primary focus of the entrepreneurial efforts of the populations of Pate and Lamu traditionally lay across the sea and the short-lived but extensive plantations that they established on the mainland in the middle of the last century could only 20 21 22

Prins, Didemic, 175. Nurse and Spear, Swahili. Kelly, From, 39–40.

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be maintained by a vast army of slaves,23 a short lived interlude once Pax Britannica came to hold sway along the coast of East Africa. While a majority of modern authors have sought to ascribe the pre-eminent cultural influence on the Boni to the Orma,24 at the turn of the century R.E. Salkeld could write that the Boni were “very shy, and much afraid of their Somali masters”,25 and Prins corroborated this status with regard to the Somali when he wrote in the early 1960s.26 My own impression is that the Boni do have a propensity towards eclecticism, borrowing and absorbing elements from outside their highly permeable ethnic boundary and that this characteristic probably served them well in the past. In Bargoni itself one can say that Orma influence is negligible today but that Somali and Swahili forces are in the ascendant. The majority of the Somali presence was initially drawn by employment opportunities in the Ministry of Livestock Development holding area, established in Bargoni shortly before independence, and they chose to stay on after the demise of this branch of the parastatal (nationalised monopoly). As for the Swahili ingredient, the internment of many Boni in camps around Mokowe during the Shifta troubles of the mid to late 1960s exposed them to Lamu culture in a very influential manner. It was at the end of these historical processes that I came to Bargoni, seeking to study the religious activity and expression amongst the Boni community in the village. Boni Religious activity and the dramatis personae Margaret Thatcher’s infamous comment that the notion of ‘society’ is an artificial construct27 continues to reverberate, but for the sake of this study it can be fairly said that any attempt to paint a picture of Boni religious practice as some homogeneous whole will miss an essential feature of religious activity amongst this people. Boni 23

Marguerite Helen Ylvisaker, The Political and Economic Relationship of the Lamu Archipelago to the Adjacent Kenya Coast in the Nineteenth Century (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Boston University, 1975). 24 Prins, Didemic, 173–186; Stiles, Historical, 38–45. 25 R.E. Salkeld, ‘Notes on the Boni Hunters of Jubaland’ Man 94 (1905), 168–170. 26 Prins, Didemic, 177. 27 ‘There is no such thing as society, there are individual men and women, and there are families.’ Margaret Thatcher, Woman’s Own (31 October 1987).

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religious activity does not exist. Instead, what one witnesses is members of the Boni community engaged in a plethora of rites that run the whole gamut of ritual activity observable within this relatively small community. So, on the one hand, there is religious activity around the mosque which all concerned parties would agree represents ‘orthodox’ Islam and, on the other, rites performed in the bush which hark back to pre-Islamic days (although the practitioners would consider themselves Muslim and the rites not incompatible with this religious status). Neither is it possible to assert that any individual can be assigned a fixed place in the spectrum of religious activity, but each person negotiates his/her place within the various ritual congregations that exist within the wider religious community. Furthermore, in the ethnically heterogeneous community that is present Bargoni, these ritual congregations display varying degrees of ethnic boundedness, which serve to further blur any effort to distinguish essentially ‘Boni’ religious practice. Rather than attempting to create an anonymous and amorphous account of religious activity amongst the Boni, much of what follows constitute the views, practices and expressions of a number of individuals. These figures cannot be described as representative of the vast body of people since each is outstanding in his/her own right, each represents an intense manifestation of a particular current of religious expression. Similarly, it is acknowledged that once an ‘insider’ seeks to explain religious activity to an ‘outsider’ in terms that might be intelligible to the latter, then an ever greater distance is created between him and his fellow insiders. Hence the decision in the conducting of fieldwork to allow for the eruption of spontaneous comments and insights proffered by the ‘informant’ as opposed to having him/her respond to questions that arise out of the agenda of the researcher. As Bourdillon writes: The anthropologist needs to avoid the power relations implicit in observation. A relationship of dialogue between equals is advocated, in which the anthropologist does not try to control what is talked about or the way in which it is talked about. The interests and perceptions of the members of the society should dominate the resulting description. This concern against imposing external interests and categories on others is relevant to any scholar interested in studying people.28 28 M.F.C. Bourdillon, ‘Anthropological Approaches to the Study of African Religion’, in Jan Platvoet, James Cox and Jacob Olupona (eds.), The Study of Religions in Africa: Past, Present and Prospects (Cambridge: Roots and Branches, 1996), 143.

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This decision to allow these voices to dominate stems from the awareness that, in a work constituting the primary text on religious expression amongst the Boni, it is necessary to paint in broad strokes in the hope that in the years ahead more attention might be paid to the subtle details. It is now necessary to introduce a number of the dramatis personae who will figure large in the account of religious activity within the community. In so doing, an effort has been made to ensure that they are representative of the rich diversity in Bargoni—ethnic, economic, educational, religious and political. Some of these figures clearly presented themselves as looming large in the fabric of Bargoni society: the Imam-cum-businessman of Bargoni sub-village, for example, or the rich and astute Abdi Maalim with his extensive ranch and political and economic aspirations. Others commend themselves in a more understated fashion: Mama Habole’s divinatory technique or the work of the mganga, Ali Sani, surviving on the fringes of the village, living in poverty in his grass-thatched home. It is often to the latter representatives that the poor and the marginalised members of the Boni community turn. There follow brief sketches of the more significant movers in the shaping and development of religious activity in Bargoni. Mzee Bobitu Kololo Bobitu Kololo is the archetypical grandee of Bargoni. Despite being in his 70s at the time fieldwork was undertaken (he claims 1922 as his year of birth), he still possesses a vivaciousness that belies his years but which is cloaked in a calm dignity. In his younger days, Bobitu manifested an entrepreneurial spirit that saw him going into an agricultural trading partnership with an ‘Arab’ from Lamu. Various business enterprises followed, including the opening of the first shop in this part of Boniland and expansion into the ivory trade. It is reported of Bobitu that at one stage he possessed two Land Rovers and regularly flew from Lamu to Malindi and beyond in pursuit of his commercial interests. He moved into the political arena as a local councillor, representing Boni interests, holding such a position for more than twenty-five years. However, Bobitu also had an enormous impact on the religious complexion of the area. He was one of the first of the hunter-gatherer community in the region around Bargoni to embrace Islam (for reasons explored in Chapter 3) and accompanied the Swahili Islamic missionary, Mwalimu Hussein, on many of his journeys into Boniland.

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In Bargoni, Bobitu presents himself as a most orthodox Muslim. The mosque was deliberately sited next to his home and a resident Imam is said to have first come to Bargoni at the insistence of Bobitu. However, his relationship with Swahili-style Islam is not without difficulties in the present and, after the Imam was accused of making one of Bobitu’s daughters pregnant, he no longer prays in the mosque that he was so instrumental in starting; rather, he walks to the mosque at Muswakini to perform his religious duties. Those who know Bobitu suggest that a degree of disillusionment has set in recently as he has become aware of the subtle political agenda that is riding on the back of Islamic incursions and is used by some outsiders to promote their own economic and political interests.29 Nevertheless, he is at pains to distinguish the Islam he has embraced from the bearers of the message. Despite his very public and private piety (his night prayers could regularly be heard from behind the closed door of his home), Bobitu cannot be said to have limited himself to the ‘orthodox’ sphere. He attended Boni rituals that pre-dated the arrival of Islam in the area (see Chapter 4) and often sought to use the occasion as a pedagogical exercise and provide them with an Islamic gloss. Prior to a spirit possession séance he informed me with glee, “Now we shall see a video tonight!”30 Similarly he was a discreet visitor to the diviner, Ali Sani, particularly with regard to amorous attention given to a widow in Muswakini, and also engaged in ritual sacrifice in an effort to cure his sick wife. So Bobitu Kololo, as the vignette that opened Chapter 1 demonstrates, is a man with one foot planted firmly and unequivocally in the world of Islamic orthopraxis but he does not see this as precluding involvement in other ritual congregations, although he might feel it necessary to imbue them with such significance and meaning as conforms to his self-perceived religious status.

29 Reported by Eddie Mungai during a conversation in his office in Lamu on 4 February 1998. Eddie is a linguist, working for the Bible Translation and Literacy programme, which sees him studying the Boni language with a view to making Christian tracts available in kiBoni. Although his evangelical beliefs preclude his being considered an impartial observer, he has been a witness to the Lamu religious scene over a number of years and his views are to be respected. He asserts that, of late, Bobitu and other senior Boni have come to see that ‘they have been cheated, taken advantage of ’. 30 Mzee Bobitu Kololo, Bargoni, 26 September 1997.

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Ali Sani In his late 40s, Ali Sani epitomises, if not the anti-Islamic strain of Boni religious practice, then certainly a vein that draws deeply on ‘traditional’ elements, whether these be Boni of long standing or more recently introduced elements. Originally from Kiangwe, a village on the coast of Boniland, he settled in Bargoni after travelling to various parts of Kenya as a member of the National Youth Service and, more recently, employment in the Kenya Wildlife Service in the Dodori National Reserve, a game area within Boniland near the border with Somalia. It was while he was at the latter posting that he acquired the knowledge of divination and healing practices that now form a central feature of his daily life. A paradoxical figure, Ali Sani is rarely seen without his embroidered Islamic kofia and yet never once was he witnessed entering the mosque or actively engaging in Islamic prayers or ritual. A leading member of the pre-eminent Beretima moiety (to be examined in chapters 3 and 4) within Boni society, he enjoys the status of a ritual expert and assumed a pivotal role in the prayers at the horrop tree, described in Chapter 4. Living in a grass-thatched ‘beehive’ style house and frequently undertaking long and strenuous trips into the bush in search of honey, Ali proudly asserts his quintessential ‘Boniness’, disparaging those he perceives to have abandoned their roots. Mzee Bobitu Kololo is a frequent butt of Ali’s barbed comments. The Imams When identifying the figures that play influential roles in the religious life of Bargoni village, the Imams are not to be ignored. The mosques in Bargoni and Muswakini both have an Imam attached but the differences between these two individuals is significant, as will become clear. Mohamed Ali, Imam of the mosque in Bargoni proper, hails from Pate Island in the Lamu archipelago and a member of the Bajun ethnic community, lives in Bargoni with his two wives, one a fellow Bajuni and the other a Somali woman. Not only does he come from a family originating in an area with deep Islamic roots but his own training as a mwalimu saw him supplementing his two years of instruction under Mwalimu Hussein in Mokowe with an additional period of higher study in the Islamic college in Ngomeni, near Malindi. Now he augments his duties at the mosque with various business ventures

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in and around Bargoni, which afford him an economic prestige and standard of living somewhat above the average for the community. Ali Sumoi Bwana Parua serves as Imam in Muswakini and is of mixed parentage—his father being a Bajun and his mother Boni— and he was born in the village of Rasini on the rural mainland opposite Faza Island. His schooling was limited and after studying under Mwalimu Hussein in Mokowe he set himself up as an itinerant preacher travelling around the mainland north of Lamu and developing an apostolate to young people who he felt were in ‘danger of being lost’.31 After he acted as a mwalimu in Milimani for two years, the deteriorating security situation forced him to transfer to Muswakini in 1998 where he now lives in very humble circumstances with his Boni wife (who originates from Milimani) and child. The particular mode of operation of these two walimu within Bargoni reflects the background, temperament and education of these principal Imams as well as the hopes and needs of the community. Indeed, while the former can be considered to represent a predetermined, pre-packaged version of Islam that emanates from the Riyadh mosque on Lamu Island and that outsiders are seeking to impose upon the Boni population—a version that also takes into account the economic and political interests of the alien forces—the latter represents something akin to a ‘tradition of renewal’32 within Boni society and religion. Mohamed Ali can be characterised as more cerebral and literate, with little obvious respect being acknowledged to previous indigenous religious practice, no discernible effort being made to incorporate or build upon what preceded the arrival of Islam. Indeed, given the use that outside promoters are making of Islam as a means of subjugation, it might be said that it is in their best interests to foster an imposition of Islam that is as disconcerting as acceptability allows, so as to create an environment conducive to their manifold interests. In the case of Ali Sumoi, less effort is expended to create a tabula rasa on which to build an Islamic edifice, less of a propensity to ignore or ride roughshod over former religious practices, less of a distinction being made between ‘orthodox’ and ‘non-orthodox’ elements. Indeed, Islamic beliefs are assumed as

31

Conversation with Mwalimu Ali Sumoi Bwana Parua, Muswakini, 4 May 1998. John M. Janzen, ‘The Tradition of Renewal in Kongo Religion’, in Newell S. Booth (ed.), African Religions: A Symposium (New York: NOK Publishers, 1977), 69–115. 32

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another stratum of the varied bedrock of Boni religious activity and expression and are accepted with less marked discordant discontinuity. The Maalim Family This study is interested in three influential family members. Abdi Maalim is the Somali patriarch who owns a cattle ranch covering some 5,000 hectares just outside Bargoni. First drawn to the area as an employee of the Livestock Marketing Board, which had a stock-holding area in the village, Abdi Maalim retired from his position as driver and set himself up with his herd of cattle, becoming a most influential figure, not least in the religious sphere. Well-placed contacts in regional and national politics ensured a title-deed to the land he now manages and his ongoing services to the political elite, who perceive him as being in a position to influence Boni affiliation, ensure a steady supply of favours whether in money or in kind. As part of this income is distributed as largesse and as he is able to offer some of the few salaried employment opportunities in the area, Abdi Maalim has created something akin to a cult of dependency whereby his wishes are inevitably met with acquiescence. In his efforts to control opinion in Bargoni, he is not averse to using Islam to foster his interests. As the only haji in the area, his voice often carries the insinuation that adherence to Islam is commensurate with the wishes of Abdi Maalim and his charitable actions within the context of Islamic rituals and feasts belie his economic and political aspirations. Abdi Nassir, the son of Abdi Maalim, represents his father’s right hand in the village, something of an ‘enforcer’. As will be seen in Chapter 5, Abdi Nassir was responsible for ensuring that the population of Bargoni supported his father’s chosen candidate in the national elections. Frequently dismissive of the Boni component of the village in general, and their Islamic commitment in particular, Abdi is vociferous in championing Islamic ‘orthodoxy’ and attends the mosque conscientiously. Outside such religious observances, Abdi has his own business interests, particularly the extraction of hardwoods from the Boni forest, but he lacks the business acumen of his father and relies on his wife to support the household. Hadija Nassir, Abdi Nassir’s wife, hails originally from Taita-Taveta district but abandoned her Christian faith upon marriage. She is the headmistress of the government primary school where she enjoys a unique position in imparting Islamic teaching within the school

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setting, thus representing another conduit for the thinking of Abdi Maalim to influence the community. Mama Habole Mama Habole is the matriarch of a lineage that includes Ali Sani within its ranks (Ali is married to a daughter of the Habole family). The notion that women are the culture carriers in a society is true of this remarkable woman who continues to divine using a preIslamic technique and who is accorded great respect rather than the fear that frequently accompanies the more Islamic varieties of divination, which are understood to be more open to abuse and manipulation. As will be argued in Chapter 6, the home is very much the domain of women—not for them the public forum associated with the mosque or the usurpation of the man’s place in the bush—and represents the place where issues surrounding female fecundity and the perpetuation of the community are addressed. It is within this sphere that Mama Habole operates with quiet dignity, exerting great influence over her fellow Boni women where, again, she ensures that traditional rites and practices are respected. She was pivotal in the rites surrounding the blessing of the hunter and also the circumcision ritual both of which are examined in Chapter 6. Abdi Doza The final figure in this list is the ritual expert who leads rohan possession séances. At the start of the period of fieldwork covered by this study, Abdi Doza (the fundi ) was resident in Milimani, a small village some 20km north of Bargoni on the way to Kiunga, but circumstances encouraged him to take up residence in the Berabothei quarter of greater Bargoni. The conditions that precipitated the move included the hardships imposed by the El Niño flooding and the deterioration in the security situation in the area north of Bargoni, but perhaps most important of all was the demand for his services in the area around Bargoni. Even prior to his settling in Berabothei, he had a small home built here which he used on the occasions when he visited the region and hence his moving in was but another step in the process. Abdi Doza claims to have been a practitioner of rohan séances for more than twenty years, having learnt the art in Kiunga, a village near the Somali border, where his teacher was an Ethiopian. Thus there is a clear pattern of southern migration

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to be seen from the time when Abdi Doza acquired his knowledge in Kiunga, his movement and activity in Milimani and, most recently, his taking up of residence in Bargoni. Conclusion This chapter has sought to situate the village of Bargoni geographically, environmentally and historically before moving on to identify a number of individuals who have a significant bearing on the understanding of religious activity within the village community. However, to comprehend what is going on in the present, it is essential that consideration be given to the most significant impact on religious life in Bargoni in the more recent past—the conversion of the Boni population, en masse, to Islam. The next chapter will examine the forces, from inside and outside the community, that precipitated and facilitated this change.

CHAPTER THREE

THE COMING OF ISLAM TO BARGONI Introduction Dusk was falling as the madrasa student who was the acting mwadhini of that day proclaimed the invitation to prayer, the adhan: “Allah akbar, ashhadu an la ilah illa ‘llah . . .”1 A woman up the road stood still and erect throughout the announcement before proceeding on her way as the last notes of the chant were swallowed up by the encroaching darkness. It was reminiscent of a scene that is played out at approximately the same time every evening on Lamu Island, and in towns and villages throughout the Republic of Kenya, when, at the blast of a whistle, the people are called to attention as the national flag is lowered. The coalescing of orthodox Islamic practice with elements of quasireligious ritual, fostered by the state in an effort to promote the notion of a national identity amongst the disparate ethnic communities that make up modern Kenya, should not give rise to wonder since these are very much related strands in the unfolding of the recent history of the Boni. When Salkeld encountered the Boni at the turn of the century he described them as living in “no settled habitations, but [they] follow game . . . From a government point of view they are the only elephant killers, and if they could be communicated with and their confidence gained they would form the best scouts in the country.”2 In little more than two generations, the manner of life that Salkeld describes had experienced radical changes. Early reports by travellers and explorers were unanimous in describing the hunting lifestyle of the Boni and, in particular, their predilection for elephant meat,3 and thus one of the most significant changes was effected by the imposition, by the colonial administration, of a 1 For the transliteration of the adhan I rely on H.A.R. Gibb and J.H. Kramers, Shorter Encyclopaedia of Islam (Leiden: E.J. Brill, and London: Luzac, 1961). 2 Salkeld, Notes, 168. 3 See, for example, the account of C.W. Haywood, To the Mysterious Lorian Swamp (Philadelphia: J. Lippincott, 1927), 222–3.

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ban on what was perceived by the authorities to be poaching. As early as 1928, Clifford reported that although the Boni “live by hunting . . . the Kenyan government is pursuing a policy of settling them in villages and making them take to agriculture. This is most unpopular.”4 Later, the poacher-turned-game-warden, George Adamson, detailed an excursion into this part of Lamu District during which he arrested those suspected of illegally killing wild animals and reiterated the policy of villagisation with the clear intention on the part of the powers-that-be to wean the Boni off hunting by encouraging the formation of an agricultural base to their economy.5 This transition to cultivation curtailed the nomadic life of the Boni as well as stimulating the establishment of larger settlements of a more permanent nature than the populace was used to in the case of small family-based hunting bands, since farming required a long term commitment to a particular tract of land as well as personnel to guard the fields against the encroachment of wildlife. Thus within a few years, two central elements in Boni life—a semi-nomadic bush existence given over to the hunting of elephant (predominantly) which occurred in “embarrassingly [ high] numbers”6— were undermined by forces imposed from outside. The move was afoot to transform these semi-nomadic hunter-gatherers into settled cultivators and the ramifications constituted an enormous and irreversible impact on the cultural and social life of the Boni. This experience of upheaval coincided with a missionary thrust by Islam into the region, on a number of fronts, from its base in Lamu and the crisis in the Boni’s mode of living was surely conducive to their initial acceptance of this new religion. As Stamer points out, “in all the difficulties of life for the African uprooted or disillusioned with his traditional socio-religious universe, Islam offers a new framework, as all-embracing, as secure and as reassuring as the old one.”7 Indeed, the traditional ways of the people of this forested area were now under threat as never before and the bush no longer afforded a refuge as it had done in the face of Orma or, 4

E.H. Clifford, ‘Notes on Jubaland’ in Geographical Journal LXXII.5, 1928, 439. Adamson, Bwana, 142. 6 I.M. Grimwood (1963) ‘The Flora and Fauna of East Africa’ in Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources in Modern African States, Morges, Switzerland: IUCN, 185 quoted in Harvey, Hunting, 115. 7 Josef Stamer, Islam in Sub-Saharan Africa (Estella: Editorial Verbo Divino, 1996), 123. 5

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more recently, Somali expansionism. The new imperial power was no respecter of the sanctuary the Boni people had hitherto enjoyed but demanded acquiescence with its decrees even in this far-flung corner of the country. Inevitably, drastic lifestyle changes also invoked new religious answers that were required to make sense of the changing circumstances. Into this breach, by a twist of history, stepped Islam. This religion had thrived on Lamu and the islands of the archipelago for some 1,000 years8 but no effort had been made in that time to convert the African communities on the mainland. The leading families of Lamu, the guardians of Islam in that area, saw themselves as the possessors of ustaarabu, civilisation, and usafi, purity, and they could not countenance this being sullied through the inclusion of slaves and wakafiri, infidels, into their ranks.9 The main focus of the entrepreneurial spirit of the inhabitants of Lamu had, traditionally, been across the ocean and the little contact they had with the Boni was through the minimum commercial activity necessary to obtain ivory, rhinoceros horn and skins of various kinds. So, as Trimingham points out, while Muslims “penetrated deep into the interior . . . trading dominated their lives and religious propaganda began only with the arrival of Europeans.”10 There were, however, a number of factors on the side of external Islam and the internal dynamics of Boni society that converged to precipitate the conversion en masse of the Boni population in the late 1940s and 1950s. External Factors When one begins to consider the external forces that came to bear on the Boni population in the area around Bargoni, one can detect three powerful influences, though this is not to deny that others were also at work. First, and as already illustrated, the period from the late 1920s onwards reveals inroads being forged by the European presence into 8 Allen, Swahili, 178, sets a date for the arrival of Islam on these islands as between AD 1050 and 1150. Pouwels, Horn, 23, on the other hand, would posit a date in the twelfth or thirteenth century. 9 Middleton, World, 168. 10 J. Spencer Trimingham, Islam in East Africa, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964), 56.

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the Boni heartland, initially by explorers but subsequently by extensions of the colonial administration. However, the district headquarters was on Lamu and while Europeans did establish a small number of strategic outposts on the mainland, a majority of the officials that the Boni would have encountered would have been underlings recruited from the population of Lamu. Thus, as Trimingham explains, “all the auxiliaries of the European penetration, pacification and government—guides, interpreters, soldiers and servants—were Muslims. Each place where a European installed himself, military camp, government centre, or plantation, was a centre for Muslim influence. The askaris, engaged in opening districts, building and garrisoning bomas, and policing the interior, were Muslims and were identified with the new administration.”11 Bargoni represented a particularly attractive setting in this regard since it constituted something of a threshold to Boniland proper as one travelled north from Lamu. It also commanded access to a relatively reliable supply of water, which was conducive to the efforts to settle the Boni as well as to establish the required manifestations of the local administration. One particular establishment that had a profound bearing was the setting up of a stock-holding area on the edge of the village. This witnessed the influx of a number of Somalis who were employed to herd cattle from their pastures in the north and west to this location before they were transported to the meatprocessing factories in Mombasa and elsewhere. Veterinary assistants, clerks and drivers of Somali extraction took up residence and stayed on to settle after endemic corruption and mismanagement led to the demise of this government monopoly in more recent years. Abdi Maalim, the cattle rancher and ostensibly the richest and most politically influential figure in Bargoni, arrived in the area while enjoying the status of ‘driver’ in the Livestock Marketing Board. Thus Islamic influence came from two directions—from Lamu and via the Somali interlopers. In pre-Independence days the influence of the Somali was in the ascendancy and Prins was able to assert that not only does kiBoni “[belong] linguistically to Somali” but that the people themselves have a “very definite relationship of subservience to the Somali . . . I [Prins] have been assured by more than one informant, that any visiting Somali has right of access to the

11

Ibid., 7.

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wives of the Boni.”12 However, this situation changed during the 1960s and early 1970s as a result of the dislocations and upheavals engendered by the Shifta War, when elements of the Somali population in north-eastern Kenya, aided and abetted surreptitiously by the Mogadishu regime, took up arms in an effort to have the part of the country that they occupied secede to neighbouring Somalia. The Boni found themselves in a very difficult situation since accusations were made that they were in league with the Somali, acting as guides and informants. Harvey, in his longer treatment of this chapter in recent Boni history, reports that the District Commissioner in Lamu received telegrams from the field claiming, for example, “Some Shifta were seen being led by a Bone [sic] near Mangai” or “information just received Dodori attacked by about 68 well armed Shifta gang led by five Waboni on Tuesday, 25th August [1964].” Meanwhile the Kenya Weekly News asserted “no such help (information, assistance) is provided by the Waboni . . . [who] tacitly, if not actively support the bandits.”13 Such accusations could be made despite the fact that Boni villages were frequently the target of attacks by shifta and the inference on the part of the Somali that the Boni were spying for the government and reporting shifta activities to the relevant authorities. Eventually, and ostensibly for their own protection and well-being— although one can also detect a desire to remove a group, marked by suspicions of complicity, from the scene—the authorities interned many Boni in a camp near Mokowe, on the mainland opposite Lamu. Harvey records a District Commissioner in Lamu reporting to the Coast Provincial Commissioner on 22 August 1966 that the Boni of Bargoni had been moved to Mokowe by the GSU (the General Service Unit, a para-military unit of the Kenyan Police).14 Here, more efforts were made to curtail their hunting lifestyle and encourage an agriculturally based existence, as well as their being further exposed to Islamic influence. The negative aspect of this incarceration is not as evident in the memories of the people of Bargoni as Harvey claims to be the case amongst those who were evicted from Pandanguo.15 Rather, the government is remembered as benevolent 12 13 14 15

Prins, Didemic, 176–7. Harvey, Hunting, 39. Ibid., 41. Ibid., 48.

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in as far as it sought to introduce secular education amongst the populace, as well as offering preferential treatment to the Boni when it came to employment opportunities. The interned Boni, meanwhile, developed a taste for the material benefits and cultural sophistication on Lamu and report that they received kind treatment at the hands of the local people. This rendered them more receptive to Islamic teaching and many of their religious practices took on a distinctly Lamu-esque flavour. Evidence of this shift in association away from their Somali neighbours towards the Swahili-speaking co-religionists on the coast can be seen also in a change in their preferred second language. Whereas in preIndependence days Somali was more frequently adopted16—and given the linguistic affinity of the two languages, Boni and Somali, this is not surprising—now, as Heine asserts,17 Swahili is exerting a greater pull especially in those areas more adjacent to the coastal/Swahili littoral. A second important element in the development of a concerted missionary impetus on the part of Islam found its focus and inspiration in the Riyadh mosque in Lamu. Founded by the charismatic Seyyid Saleh ibn Alwy ibn Abdullah Jamal al-Layl (known locally as Habib Swaleh), an immigrant from Comoro, in 1901 this mosque broke with the long established pattern on the island that saw Islamic practice as the preserve of the patricians to the neglect of those lower down the social ladder who were largely excluded from its ministrations and activities. As Middleton puts it: “The poor were Muslims but condemned to inferior Islamic instruction and marginal participation in Islamic ritual; the patricians wanted to keep ‘their’ Islam pure and unsullied, as their own elite position depended largely on their reputation for Islamic purity and their near monopoly of Islamic learning and literacy.”18 As an immigrant and a sharif, Habib Swaleh was not confined by these rigid norms of religious decorum but instead sought to reach out to the marginalised of the society—the former slaves, impoverished Bajuni fishermen who had arrived from

16 Prins, Didemic, 177 reports that the local Swahili assessment of the Boni language amounts to ‘they speak Somali.’ 17 Bernd Heine, ‘Language and History of the Boni’ in Bernd Heine (ed.), Recent German Research on Africa: Language and Culture (Bonn: Institute for Scientific Co-operation, 1982), 106–114. 18 Middleton, World, 168.

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the neighbouring islands, simple labourers—and share with them the message of Islam. In so doing he employed methods and techniques that might today be termed ‘inculturation’, imbuing dance and oral literature, which more rightly belonged to these lower classes, with Islamic teaching which bore a particular emphasis on orthopraxis over and against the prevailing orthodoxy or ancestral lineage. Despite early antipathy, the leading families of Lamu came, in time, to support this reformist movement and missionary fervour of the Riyadh mosque which, after initially concentrating on inculcating a deeper knowledge of Islamic teaching among the nominal Muslims of the archipelago, then proceeded to reach out to the ‘pagan tribes’ on the mainland. The great apostle of the Riyadh mosque to the Boni was Mwalimu Hussein Bin Omar Fatar who still lives in Mokowe, on the mainland opposite Lamu, and, despite his age, continues to undertake safaris to visit his friends, instruct neophytes, encourage the faithful and adjudicate in matters pertaining to Islam amongst the communities scattered across Boniland. He was a graduate of the Riyadh mosque: “I learnt in Riyadh mosque in Lamu. My teachers have mostly died by now. Said Hamed Badawii, Idarus, Sheik Swaleh. He was the big teacher in Riyadh mosque—Sheik Swaleh. I was his student at Riyadh,” he recalls.19 After graduating he was appointed to the madrasa school in Mokowe and it was from there that he undertook the conversion of the Boni. I volunteered myself on the side of God’s work. I had no money, no payment of salary. I was God’s volunteer. Because I saw that the people there had no religion. They didn’t know what religion is, the meaning of religion. And when I helped them to understand then they understood everything. They all agreed. They called their children, all of them, in good faith, to Islam.20

Rather than seeking the conversion of individuals he sought to reach out to . . . the whole community. I preached to all the people, I did not just look for individuals. All of them agreed, they all agreed to send their children to the madrasa and place them under the mwalimu. And the

19 Conversation with Mwalimu Hussein Bin Omar Fatar, Mokowe, 10 February 1998. 20 Ibid.

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way I know these people, they do not have permanent work. They do not have wealth, so we assisted each other. Also me, I had no salary, I did this work out of faith in God and love of my religion. I had no salary and I didn’t demand one from the people. I was not looking for a reward. I volunteered [for this work]. I was an Islamic leader. I was the leader of the madrasa here in Mokowe. I also had a relationship with the Islamic College in Lamu. We used to share the work. I would do one side and they the other. And in their teachings [leadings?], during the mfunguo sita [sixth month after Ramadan], all the people came together and started preaching. Me, together with those of Lamu, went preaching and sharing religion among the Boni.21

Speaking in 1998, he describes those first forays into the area of the mainland where the Boni live: Since I started preaching among the Boni, it is about 50 years ago or a bit more. In the olden days they were without religion. They stayed in the bush, they had no religion. They were not Christian or Muslim— they had no religion at all. But in the olden days, before, they were not in any religion, neither this nor that, because they were people who were staying in the bush. So they were called Wabuni, because of their shifting—today they are here, tomorrow they are there. That is their place in this history—now all the Boni are Muslims. At this moment. For nearly 50 years or more they have been Muslims. All of them. Also to get them, in the 50 years, they got madrasa, then they read the Qur’an, they were educated into their religion, they got education, the Qur’an etc. They are educated now and all are hajis now. They are not Wakafiri any more. They were being taught the Qur’an in the madrasa, the religion, for more than 45 years. Now they used the culture of Islam, they used the laws of Islam. In the same process they called it Shaafi. It is not only the Bonis but all the Muslims. They use the ‘shaafi’. We call it al’husuna, al’husuna ya jumaa—the tradition of the community. That is what the shaafi community studies and does. Because to say the shahada, fasting during Ramadan, praying five times a day (in its right time), to engage before marriage, the Law of the Sunna of the Prophet Mohammed. And the leading religious teacher on the side of the Boni is Mwalimu Hussein [the speaker]. And those madrasas, who built them and established them—Mwalimu Hussein. Bargoni, Muswakini, Milimani, Mangai, Basuba, Mararani, Ndemuni—all these are organised and led by Mwalimu Hussein.22

21 22

Ibid. Ibid.

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The memory of Mwalimu Hussein recalls the neglect of any serious outreach to the Boni before he undertook the task: Before me there were some people but they were not preaching to educate the Boni on the side of religion. They were not telling them what was right or wrong. They went there with their business and did not bother with explaining their religion. They went to the Boni selling tobacco, clothes etc. but they didn’t make any religious conversation or build a madrasa. They did not say what Islam is and what a Muslim is supposed to do. They did not explain the rules of Islam, what Islam’s concerns are, the right of Muslim is like this. These people just passed through. They might tell a few small religious stories but they were not serious and did not convert the Boni.23

His methods were simple: First of all I went walking around and my right hand man was Mzee Bobitu Kololo, we used to walk together. We used to travel around in the bush. Then we saw that people understood nothing concerning religion. Thus when they had an interest, we were preaching in words first. After that we decided to establish madrasa schools. This was before building any mosques. We started building madrasas and taking walimu there. They themselves, the communities, agreed. We used to visit every village to preach and every village agreed, after the preaching, to send their children to the madrasa school. They themselves agreed to fasting, prayers. Until we completed the conversion of all the villages. We travelled around, establishing madrasa everywhere. We took walimu there to teach the children. After that we returned again and started the programme of building mosques. . . . Me, I decided to go on the side of the Boni when preaching. Then I decided that every place should have a madrasa and a mosque, a teacher. In the past there were a lot of people who used not to go to the bush [when preaching]. I tried my best and went into the bush looking for people. And my number two was Mzee Bobitu. He also knows a lot. Bobitu and myself worked hard and did our best to succeed.24

A third, and more veiled, factor involved in the efforts to convert the Boni to Islam might be understood as a means for the influential elite of Lamu to exert control over this part of their hinterland and the population living there. “They are trying to subdue everyone around Lamu” was how Eddie Mungai encapsulated his reading of Islamic expansion over the last number of years.25 Indeed, such a 23

Ibid. Ibid. 25 Conversation with Eddie Mungai, Lamu, 4 February 1998 (see footnote 29 of chapter 2). 24

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feature is not unique to the experience of the Boni but, as Hitchcock says of hunter-gatherers in Africa in general, “Concern about their [hunters and gatherers] survival has expanded as a result of the rising numbers of reports of violations of their civil, political and socioeconomic rights.”26 In her masterly study of the economic and political relationship between the Lamu archipelago and the mainland in the nineteenth century,27 Marguerite Ylvisaker admirably demonstrates the increasing importance farms, or bara, in the hinterland played in the financial prosperity of the leading families on Lamu. Although there was an understanding that the ‘Arabs’ of Lamu would not draw on their neighbouring communities on the mainland as a source for the army of slaves that they relied upon to farm their plantations there was, nevertheless, a gradual but insidious encroachment into the forest margins of Boniland. This was especially true when Orma power and influence subsided in the latter half of that century, coinciding with the greater interest being shown by the Omani Arabs28 who sought to establish hegemony over the scattered islands as well as their spheres of interest on the mainland where the lack of any agricultural peoples competing for cultivatable land afforded immense opportunities for the development of slave-run farms and plantations.29 Ylvisaker cites the example of Sud bin Hamed, the liwali of Lamu, who “controlled an immense tract of land called Mwanzamwarabu on Hidio Creek, during the latter part of the nineteenth century. Mwanzamwarabu had its own large village, hundreds or perhaps thousands of slaves, cattle and its own access to Lamu via the creek.”30 Older inhabitants of Bargoni report slave-run plantations as existing not far from the present village, in the direction of Magumba, east of Bargoni on Mongoni Creek, operated by wealthy families living on Pate Island. The name of the plantation owner in the Bargoni vicinity was given as Mkondo Virjala, described as an ‘Arab’. Ylvisaker contends that “on the mainland, it was not the land which was owned but rather the right to use the land”31 and that 26 Robert K. Hitchcock, ‘Introduction: Africa’, in Richard B. Lee and Richard Daly (eds.), The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Hunters and Gatherers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 175. 27 Ylvisaker, Political. 28 Ibid., 109. 29 Ibid., 300. 30 Ibid., 86. 31 Ibid., 107.

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allowing land to lie fallow for years on end would not be considered abandonment. Rather, “under Islamic law, abandonment of land was entirely a question of the intention of the user.” Somali raids at the turn of the century led to many cultivators on the mainland fleeing to the islands for refuge. Simultaneously, the waxing of British influence in the area in the last years of the nineteenth century witnessed the implementation of policies that initially sought to limit, and ultimately eradicate, the scourge of slavery in the last decade of that period. However, these events that appeared to sound the death knell for the expansive Arab plantations on the mainland, and the concomitant influence that could be exerted, should not, in the light of what has been said above, be construed as abandonment. Instead, it would seem that the memory of the mainland estates continued to exert a powerful pull over the imagination of the Lamu ‘Arabs’ and that they made use of Islam as a means of re-asserting their control. “Land itself on the mainland opposite Lamu was not valuable unless manpower were available to make it productive. And, in turn, with manpower a proprietor could easily alienate land and make clear his intention to use it.”32 The religious fervour that thus inspired Mwalimu Hussein to carry the message of Islam to the Boni was harnessed by the ‘Arab’ authorities on Lamu who, in a carefully concealed display of self-interest, saw this as a means of underpinning their influence and claim over the area that they had been forced to relinquish some fifty years before. Through the establishment of madrasas and the posting of Lamu-trained walimu from the islands of the archipelago, the ‘Arabs’ were able to gradually exert control over the Boni who, Prins writes, placed themselves under the liwali of Lamu “representing Swahili culture per se.”33 One policy that appears to have been adopted by the Lamu overlords, in an effort to ensure that the Boni stayed firmly in their pockets, was to curtail any efforts by the secular authorities to make secular primary education available to the local populace. Some of the senior men in Bargoni recall the insistence with which the religious leaders, whose entry into Boniland had been encouraged by the relevant religious authorities in Lamu and sponsored by mem-

32 33

Ibid., 108. Prins, Didemic, 177.

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bers of the mercantile classes who entertained commercial interests in the area, stressed the sufficiency of madrasa education.34 ‘Secular’ education, it was preached, was infused with Christian propaganda and thus constituted a grave threat to the religious health and wellbeing of the community. Avoidance of such establishments was a mark of the devout Muslim, since exposure could result in “their sons and daughters being turned into kafirs.”35 “Rather, these children should be sent to the madrasa school where they could learn Arabic and the tenets of their Islamic faith.”36 Consequently, Boniland was devoid of a primary school until after the population of Bargoni returned from their enforced sojourn in Mokowe in the early 1970s and even then the impetus came from the side of the government rather than it being a response to any local initiative. The primary school in Bargoni only opened in January 1974 and this came as a result of pressure from the predominantly non-Boni staff of the Livestock Marketing Board compound who sought education for their children. Even today, the only secondary school serving these people is the ‘Arid Zone School’ in Mokowe, which was established for the expressed benefit of Boni youth. However, such philanthropic sentiments can justifiably be called into doubt when one considers that this venerable institution was sited outside Boniland proper, as it was established on the mainland opposite Lamu. For any Boni youth to reach it requires, at the minimum, a one-day walk and three or four in the case of youngsters from more distant communities such as Mangai or Mararani. Given the antipathy of the Boni to such education, the positioning could hardly inspire hopes for success. Fortunately, the school is not standing empty but its subsidised education is being enjoyed by the local Swahili children. An awareness of what is perceived to be a concerted ploy on the part of their Lamu co-religionists is now beginning to dawn on the Boni. The elders realise that their community has been starved of the educational opportunities that represent the only passport to

34

Conversation with elders, Bargoni, 15 October 1997. Similarly, Ali Sani reported, ‘The Arabs came and started to teach the Boni religion. [They] started to encourage the Boni to come close to them saying that the white man was going to spoil them and that the Boni shouldn’t follow them. The Arabs started to shave the hair of the Boni and read the Qur’an over the people. They were told, “You are Muslims now!” and told how to pray.’ Ali Sani, Muswakini, 3 December 1997. 35 Conversation with Bobitu Kololo, Bargoni, 15 October 1997. 36 Ibid.

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salaried employment but there is a naïve optimism that this trend has now been reversed and that it will not be long before Boni youth, now in the educational system, albeit at primary level, will return to safeguard and administer the assets of the Boni people.37 The ongoing perception is that while Lamu ‘Arabs’ were sternly admonishing the Boni to avoid the contamination inherent in westernstyle education, they were sending their own young people away from Lamu to the most prestigious schools in Mombasa, Nairobi and Dar-es-Salaam, to equip them with the prerequisite foundation for a prosperous life in the late twentieth century. Such an assertion appears to be corroborated by Minou Fuglesang when she notes: For many years the Masharifu campaigned fiercely against sending children to the secular schools. However, in reality they were sending their own sons to such schools in Mombasa and Zanzibar. This has created bitterness. As educational development has always been more advanced in Mombasa and Zanzibar, Lamu families with aspirations for their children’s future have always sent their sons and daughters to schools there.38

It is clear that, even within Lamu society, Islamic leaders were preaching one message while surreptitiously seeking to give their offspring the advantage of secular education by circumventing their own prohibitions. There is little reason then to doubt the voices of the Boni elders when they make the assertion recorded above since the efforts of the Lamu elite to deny educational opportunities to the Boni is but an extension of their efforts in Lamu to protect and enhance their privileged position through limiting access to secular education. The Boni are slowly but surely having their eyes opened but there is a prevailing sense that they have plenty of time to redress the balance—that their children are now receiving education and will eventually acquire employment and assume positions of responsibility in the governance of their homeland. However, such confidence in the future might well be misplaced as time not on their side. It is clear that a concerted policy of land appropriation is already well established in the area. A map dated 1992 (see appendix 1) and emanating from the district headquarters on Lamu Island clearly details 37

Conversation with elders, Bargoni, 15 October 1997. Minou Fuglesang, Veils and Videos: Female Youth Culture on the Kenyan Coast (Stockholm: Department of Social Anthropology, University of Stockholm, 1994), endnote 1 to Chapter 6, ‘Eyes Outside’, 303. 38

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the extent, and proposed demarcation, of the bush in the environs around Bargoni with but a token pocket remaining for the indigenous inhabitants. These proposals were drawn up and passed despite the presence of Bobitu Kololo on the district council—“It was done behind my back,” he claims.39 The circumstances surrounding the acquisition by Abdi Maalim of his present 5,000 hectare ranch serves as a case in point. It is held by the local Boni population that Abdi Maalim was able to secure ownership on the strength of his relationship with high ranking Somali figures in the government and local administration and that he used the services of a survey team to demarcate the plot despite the fact that such activity was previously unknown in the area. Indeed, the land he usurped was the site of plots being farmed by Bobitu Kololo, Mzee Mocho and others and the former took up arms, vowing that no tractor (to establish the cut lines that act as demarcation) would pass his land. Abdi Maalim used the police to arrest Bobitu and a number of other elders who languished in prison for three days while the work was being completed.40 Land is also an issue in the dispute between Bobitu Kololo and Mohamed Ali, the Imam of Bargoni mosque. These two argued when the former accused the Imam of defiling his daughter and now the two can hardly bear the sight of each other. Mohamed Ali wants to settle in Bargoni but Bobitu resists this, with Mohamed Ali retorting that he can build a house wherever he wants without permission from Bobitu or authorisation from anyone in the village.41 Other valuable areas some distance from Bargoni have also been lost to the Boni. The Boni and Dodori National Reserves42 occupy lands that formerly constituted part of the Boni range and were important

39

Conversation with Bobitu Kololo, Bargoni, 31 December 1997. This account was first reported by Abdi Khalif, Bargoni, 21 September 1997, and confirmed by other informants. 41 Reported by Ali Sani, Muswakini, 17 December 1997. Ali explained that the Imam had contacts outside the community, in local and national government, who would ensure that he was allocated whatever land he desired. 42 Interestingly, the Kenya Wildlife Service officer in Lamu (conversation in Lamu, 4 June 1998) was at pains to emphasise that these two areas are ‘National Reserves’ as opposed to ‘National Parks’. The former appellation means that the administration of this tract of land falls under the local authority rather than central government and it is the local authority that collects the revenue from entry fees, etc. So one is tempted to see another example of influential individuals and groups on Lamu benefiting financially from Boniland, while the hunter-gatherer community sees nothing for the loss of their traditional range. 40

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in as much as the former contained the only site of permanent surface water in the area—an asset to the human population as well as attracting game during prolonged dry spells. It is further asserted that the German development agency, GTZ, in association with the government of Kenya, is set to establish a settlement scheme around the village of Mangai, along the lines of the Mpeketoni and Hindi schemes.43 If the previous ventures are anything to go by, this proposal will witness the influx and settlement of families from outside the district with the hoe and machete of such interlopers further robbing the Boni of ‘their’ bush. Should such efforts come to pass, the Boni will find themselves reduced to squatting on land they formerly considered their own, engaged in menial labour by their new landlords.44 This is not an entirely new phenomenon and it is apparent that the reason Steven Harvey was expelled from Kenya before he completed his fieldwork in the mid-1970s45 was because he was concerned by the implications for the Boni of local—and at that time comparatively isolated and tentative—instances of land-grabbing by outsiders. He was aware that a vast tract of land around Pandanguo had been earmarked for a ranch but the fact that his adversary in this case was a son of the president of the Republic left the outcome of the confrontation in little doubt. 43 According to Eddie Mungai who formerly had offices in the same building as GTZ officials in Lamu; conversation in Lamu, 4 February 1998. GTZ officials declined to comment when contacted. 44 In mitigation, it is necessary to temper the image, that one could acquire from a short-sighted study of the situation on the ground in Bargoni, of the Swahili as incorrigible land-grabbers. This is to miss the point that the Swahili community itself has frequently been the victim in the sphere of dispossession. Mazrui & Shariff (Alamin M. Mazrui & Ibrahim Noor Shariff, The Swahili: Idiom and Identity of an African People [Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 1994], 131–149) detail the scurrilous stereotype of the lazy Swahili that has been developed to justify the usurpation of vast tracts of land on the coast by up-country peoples. Both Mazrui & Shariff and Naipaul (Naipaul, North, 190–191) identify the influx of thousands of members of the Kikuyu community into the settlement scheme in Mpeketoni, along the road between Lamu and Garsen, as a case in point. An account of this ‘invasion’ given by a Kikuyu farmer on the Lake Kenyatta Harambee Settlement Scheme gives a faintly humorous slant to this episode: “President Kenyatta came one day to the coast and addressed the Swahili. He told them that they had plenty of land and that they should not let it lie fallow or remain wilderness but that they should use it to plant crops. The Swahili appealed for tractors and the President said that he would return to Nairobi to consider their request. Two weeks later he sent his Kikuyu tractors.” (Conversation with John Kariuki, Mpeketoni, 5 August 1997.) 45 Referred to in the Preface to his thesis, cf. Harvey, Hunting, viii–xii.

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Efforts to allow the intellectual, economic and political development of the Boni is still being hampered by the shackles these outsiders seek to impose upon them, “The ‘Arabs’ are tricking us to keep us down so that we are in the same position today as we were in the past.”46 In 1991 Pastor Habat Kasiwa of the AIC (African Inland Church) sought to establish a church and proclaim the Pentecostal variety of the Christian message in Bargoni—an abandoned building that formerly served the Livestock Marketing Board still bears the legend ‘Welcome to Church—Welcome to you’. However, his enthusiasm to lift the standard of living of the villagers, his wish to start a tailoring school and his own evangelical fervour were thwarted by the local leadership in Bargoni who, they freely admit, were responding to pressure brought to bear by the religious authorities in Lamu who stressed the danger that his presence represented to the good Muslims of the area. It was suggested that he was “seeking to snatch the hearts of the people” and he was consequently denounced in a most vituperative fashion to the District Commissioner in Lamu and forced to flee as a result of assertions that his life would be in danger should he choose to stay on in Bargoni. Bobitu Kololo was said to have been instrumental in the removal of Habat Kasiwa47—an assertion Bobitu readily accepts, citing the threat that the pastor posed to Islamic homogeneity.48 After a number of years spent interacting with the Boni, Eddie Mungai is able to detect elements of fear and concern, on the part of the Lamu oligarchy, of the implications his programmes of conscientisation would have on the minds of the Boni and the possibility that he would open their eyes to the predicament they were in and empower them to throw off the fetters of subservience.49 The influence of the religious authorities on Lamu, either acting explicitly to safeguard the Islamic purity of the Boni or in league with entrepreneurs from the island and helping to create a body of submissive subjects, can be discerned in the manner in which they formed and manipulated opinion amongst the Boni. Their influence in deciding what is or is not appropriate to the religious well-being of the community can be corroborated by my own experience. The 46 47 48 49

Comment by some elders, Bargoni, 15 October 1997. Reported by Eddie Mungai, Lamu, 4 February 1998. Conversation with Mzee Bobitu Kololo, Bargoni, 8 February 1998. Conversation with Eddie Mungai, Lamu, 4 February 1998.

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encounter took place while I was travelling on the ferry from Lamu in the company of Mzee Bobitu Kololo. As we made our way through the channel that separates the mainland from the island, we were approached by a well built man in a white kanzu to whom Bobitu displayed great deference. He engaged me in conversation, impressed me with his urbanity and informed me that he had actually visited my hometown in connection with one of his many safaris abroad. I shared with him a little of my work, in a most circumspect fashion that could not be construed as in any way threatening. Subsequently, he took Bobitu aside and strongly castigated him for having anything to do with me and that I should be spurned henceforth by the community in Bargoni. He was the deputy to the Riyadh mosque. On another occasion, Mwalimu Hussein of Mokowe (whose interview I noted earlier in this chapter) was visited by religious officials after I talked to him and harangued until made to understand his blatant impropriety in daring to share with me reflections on his life and work. Another individual who was said to be involved in having the pastor evicted (albeit for reasons more economic and political than overtly religious), and who harbours an interest in maintaining the status quo, is Mzee Abdi Maalim (the rancher): “The Old Man [Abdi Maalim] is trying to step on the neck of the people so that they don’t become advanced, they don’t get a source of income. They might turn against him. They would have no respect towards the Old Man if they became financially independent . . . He is trying to put them in a dark room!”50 was how one informant put it. It was said that Christianity might serve to free the local population from his influence whereas he seeks to keep them within his firm grasp by making them dependent on him: “Assistance should pass through him only, nothing can be done without his knowledge.”51 A final assessment of the influence of the Lamu ‘Arabs’ over the Boni can best be left to the Deputy District Education Officer on Lamu who, reflecting on the frustrations inherent in the venture of trying to bring education to the Boni, exclaimed: “The Muslims of Lamu have looked on the Boni as less than human. They have brains that cannot cope.” He concurred that Lamu leaders Islamised

50 51

Conversation with Abdi Khalif, Bargoni, 21 September 1997. Ibid.

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the Boni as a means to control and create dependency. “It amounts to slavery,” he admitted.52 Thus it can be seen that adherence to the tenets of Islam was, and continues to be, invoked to ensure compliance, and that this dependency amongst the people of Bargoni was brought about by largesse. Objections and concerns, therefore, could not be voiced out of fear of cutting off the benefits that might accrue through further displays of acquiescence. Thus Islam was and is being used by some as an ideology best suited to fostering their own interests at the expense of the Boni. Within such a mindset, the madrasa school system not only served to impart Islamic education, the motivating force behind the activities of Mwalimu Hussein and his fellow preachers amongst the Boni, but had the side effect of limiting the exposure of the community to western influence. By equipping Boni youth with the rudiments of Arabic necessary to read the Qur’an but with no development of literacy skills in English or Swahili, they severely curtailed the possibility of advancement on any front. In the meantime, they exploited the land (particularly the hardwood stands) and planned the demarcation of the area with impunity. Internal Factors In describing the external factors that coalesced to produce a situation conducive to the spread of Islam amongst the Boni, it should not be assumed that the people themselves were merely passive victims in the plans and intrigues of others. Rather than kow-towing to these external forces, some of the people understood that the embracing of Islam would have positive benefits for the community or for individuals. This work has already alluded to the stresses and strains in the Boni community, engendered by the policies of the colonial administration that sought to prohibit the ‘poaching’ of wild animals as well as to instigate efforts to bring about the settling of the nomadic hunter-gatherers into village-centred communities. It has been suggested that this turn of events would have been highly disruptive to their

52 Conversation with Cornel Tuva, Deputy District Education Officer, Lamu, 5 June 1998.

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traditional way of existence and this would have required far-reaching changes in all dimensions of their life, not least the religious, to make sense of their new situation. This can, in part, account for their openness to Islam as it penetrated their area in its various guises. However, it is held that these changes cannot be ascribed to the absorption en masse, by some amorphous community, of the new religion but that individuals within the community exercised a pivotal role in the metamorphosis of the whole. In her study of the economic development of the Orma,53 Jean Ensminger employs New Institutional Economics (NIC) as a means of analysing and understanding the profound changes that have shaped the evolution of market-orientated structures of this ethnic community. She notes that this approach “shows how individuals, acting in the shadow of society, forge the institutions that ultimately determine economic performance and distribution.”54 This insight from the realm of economic anthropology, while properly applied to the examination of a market, can also be extended to encompass the religious and social structures of a given community. It is quite clear that an individual, in the person of Bobitu Kololo, played a fundamental role in the transformation of the religious identity of the Boni people. Bobitu Kololo’s claim always to have been a Muslim (an assertion extended to all Boni presently alive) is better understood as a statement of faith rather than history since the evidence propounded by anthropologists such as Prins and the oral account of Mwalimu Hussein would place the date for conversion during Bobitu’s lifetime. Indeed, the fact that he, in common with other members of his generation, retains a non-Islamic name, while those in the community under 50 years of age are addressed as Ali, Mohammed and so on, would seem to corroborate the suggestion that conversion occurred in Bargoni around 1950. Bargoni was probably one of the first villages to be Islamised, given geographical factors such as its relative proximity to Lamu and the role played by Bobitu himself. Four factors played a part in impelling Bobitu and others like him towards the embrace of Islam. First, throughout recent history, the Boni have always been assigned the lowest rung of the social ladder by their pastoralist or agricul53 54

Ensminger, Making. Ibid., 4.

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turalist neighbours. “They occupy a social position similar to that of untouchables in India and, like the Hindu untouchables, there is no opportunity for upward social mobility through marriage or occupational change within the traditional system.”55 In the mid-nineteenth century, according to Ylvisaker, it was the Bajun that sought to lord it over the Boni and she notes that later “some Boni voluntarily allied themselves to the Somali to avoid servitude to the Bajun.”56 However, by the early years of the twentieth century, the liberty they sought by aligning themselves with the Somali had, in its turn, resulted in another experience of domination such that Salkeld could write that the Boni are “very shy, and much afraid of their Somali masters”57 and the affront to Boni sensibilities that this engendered (Prins, as recorded above, notes that Somali men had right of access to the wives of Boni men)58 must surely have crushed any sense of dignity and self-esteem. The Boni were considered to be of low status, belonging to a ‘polluting’ class, and Stiles suggests that this has its origin far back in a “mechanism of casting out when an individual seriously contravenes a social norm.”59 He cites various scenarios that might give rise to an individual being expelled from his or her pastoral group only to seek refuge among these marginal people. He goes on, . . . Eastern Cushitic people are particularly strict about their marriage rules. The most important rule, never contravened, is a prohibition on marrying someone from one’s own clan. Since the clan origins of wata60 are suspect, due to their known proclivity of adopting any convenient [clan] to suit local circumstances, a true pastoralist could never be certain of which clan he/she was marrying into if a wata was accepted as a marriage partner. I think that this clan ‘impurity’ of wata might partially explain the strong taboo against a pastoralist marrying a wata, and it could also explain the maintenance of low caste groups and their inability, until recently, of integrating themselves into pastoralist society through marriage.61

55

Stiles, Hunters, 855 Ylvisaker, Political, 115. 57 Salkeld, Notes, 168. 58 Prins, Didemic, 177. 59 Stiles, Historical, 39. 60 A term used to cover such marginal peoples as the Boni and related huntergatherer communities. 61 Stiles, Historical, 41. 56

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The perception of the Boni as being of a lower class continues amongst the Somali residents of Bargoni who look down with disdain on their Cushitic hosts. One myth of origin, propounded by the Somali, was prefixed by the explanation that, in the past, if an Orma girl was found to be pregnant before she married then the punishment was death. Well, one such girl was found to be with child and the elders met and decided that she was to be killed the next day. The girl heard of this decision and, that night, ran away into the bush where she lived like an animal, eating fruits and berries. The child was born, a boy, and when it grew up it took the mother as his wife! The woman had a child by her son, a daughter, and the boy later took this girl as his wife so that he now had two wives—his mother and his sister. The family grew and when it numbered more than twenty persons the woman led them out of the bush to a Somali encampment where they asked to be accepted and taken in. The Somalis agreed, one family took a boy, another a girl, another the woman etc. etc. and they were then subjected to near slave-like conditions by the Abdullah clan of the Somali that adopted them. The woman then reacted against this, and, with the boys taking up bows and arrows, she led her band back into the bush where they became the Boni. This was very recent and can be illustrated by the fact that the Boni community is numerically very small—if they had existed for longer then their numbers would be greater—as well as the fact that the Boni cannot trace their ancestry back very far. They just say, “We are Somalis.”62

It was further explained that the pregnant girl belonged, indeed, to the Orma community and the incident took place at the time when the Orma were moving from the direction of Somalia en route to taking up their present position, south of the Tana River. The oft-stated opinion amongst the non-Boni is that the huntergathering people were cursed and the basis for this is the perceived economic reality that, unlike any other tribe, the Boni can boast of no one who is either educated or rich: “The Boni are cursed. There is no one in the whole tribe who is rich. If they have anything then they use it up immediately. They have no thought of tomorrow.”63 This curse is also a threat and I was told that anyone who marries a Boni woman, or has sexual relations (“she touches you with her

62 63

Myth narrated by Abdi Khalif, Bargoni, 20 September 1997. Conversation with Abdi Nassir, Bargoni, 15 September 1997.

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thigh”)64 with such a woman, is likely to lose all his cattle, goats and wealth: “You become like them.” The Somali claim that, in this slave condition, the Boni have merely accepted what they were told by their masters—they took on board the beliefs and culture of their Somali overlords. They had no cattle, no permanent (or even semi-permanent) houses in which to live, and so in this transition from an animal-like existence to a more human way of living they accepted what their model of humanity (the Somali) believed so as to be accepted into this human condition. Thus, if they were promised assistance if they prayed five times a day, then they prayed five times a day to get the assistance that they wanted. Against this backdrop of contempt, the perceived egalitarianism offered by Islam (as lived by Lamu Muslims) afforded the apparent opportunity to break out of this circle of oppression and marginalisation; it constituted the chance to be recognised as human. Just as Zene notes in his work on the Rishi of Bangladesh, “in their long struggle to be recognised as ‘human’, they make use of the language and signs of those from whom they seek to extract this recognition,”65 so in the case of the Boni the language they adopted was the language of Islam, and this constituted their gateway into the world of their powerful neighbours from whom they sought recognition as opposed to the servile status to which they had been assigned.66 By becoming Muslims, they asserted their being on a par with the people of Lamu and the coastal littoral, sharing a common religion that served to establish a basis upon which economic and social bonds could be erected. A second factor that arose out of the Boni community and predisposed them to the absorption of Islam was the opportunity for wealth creation in the evolving economic circumstances that epitomise Boni history in the twentieth century. 64

Conversation with Madobe Khalif, Bargoni, 1 December 1997. Cosimo Zene, Mission-Conversion-Dialogue: The Christianisation Process of the Rishi in South-West Bangladesh, (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of London, 1994), 25. Mudimbe interprets the process of conversion to Christianity in other parts of Africa in a similar manner when he writes: ‘African conversion, rather than being a positive outcome of a dialogue—unthinkable per se—came to be the sole position the African could take in order to survive as a human being.’ V.Y. Mudimbe, The Invention of Africa (London: James Currey, 1988), 48. 66 Cf. comments by Cornel Tuva (see note 52). 65

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The history of the Boni, as we have it, has never seen them conforming to the notion, described by Vansina as characteristic of much ethnographic thought in the past,67 of constituting a ‘tribe’ by which is meant a self-contained unit with clear and distinct boundaries, largely impervious to influences from outside. Rather, the Boni are best described as somewhat akin to Huntingford’s ‘symbiotic hunters’68 in the sense that they appear to have always entered into trading relations with their neighbours. Stiles suggests that the “early Boni may have been participants in the earliest recorded ivory trade along the eastern African coast,”69 and posits that the Boni “may have established more substantial economic ties with coastal agriculturalists and the emerging urban centres after the ninth century. Preliminary linguistic evidence suggests an important Bajuni-Boni relationship . . . which is supported by Boni oral traditions.”70 The later Galla (Orma) incursions into the area led to a period of intense interaction with this pastoral people and he suggests that this might well have been initiated by the Boni providing food for the Orma, particularly if the latter’s migration was precipitated by drought.71 The upheavals in the fortunes of their neighbouring communities during the last century did not bypass the Boni. Instead, they aligned themselves with runaway slaves who had set up villages in the forest and, with them, created a trading block from which to conduct business with the coastal peoples. “Important too among the forest dwellers were the Boni hunters, who with the runaways engaged in the ivory trade and gathered rubber for sale on the coast. Above Simba the Boni recognised as their head, Avatula b. Bahero, of the Katwa clan of the Bajuni. Avatula provided the forest dwellers with an important trading connection with the coast further north, where the watoro acquired guns and found a market for their slave trading.”72 Indeed, Prins goes so far as to say, “With the coastal polities or entrepreneurs, whether of Lamu, Siyu, Faza or, formerly, Pate, there

Vansina, Paths, 19 ff. G.W.B. Huntingford, ‘The Peopling of the Interior of East Africa by its Modern Inhabitants’ in R. Oliver & G. Mathew (eds.), History of East Africa, vol. 1 (London: Oxford University Press, 1963). 69 Stiles, Historical, 42. 70 Stiles, Hunters, 858. 71 Stiles, Historical, 44. 72 Fred Morton, Children of Ham: Freed Slaves and Fugitive Slaves on the Kenya Coast, 1873–1907 (Boulder: Westview Press, 1990), 33–34. 67 68

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has always been contacts of sorts. The Boni sold ivory to the coast, paid recognition fees, gathered forest produce, and bartered this for grain, cotton goods or iron implements.”73 Thus we see the Boni involved in economic relations with both the Orma and the Bajun. Later the Somali became important partners in the ivory trade as exporting ivory through Somalia (and hence Somali middle-men) allowed the Boni to circumvent the ban that the British had imposed on that part of East Africa falling within their sphere of influence. In return, the Somali are reported to have exchanged some cattle with the Boni in order to be permitted to pasture their livestock in the forested areas during times of drought and there is also the suggestion that they sometimes prevailed upon the Boni to pray for rain at such times.74 However, bartering elephant tusks for cloth, tobacco and various food stuffs imposed limits on the development of trade between the Boni and their neighbours—the exchange involved ‘lumpy’75 goods that were not easily divisible. The process of villagisation and the prohibition on hunting that accompanied the imposition of British authority in the area also served to open up and expand the possibilities for greater involvement in the wider economy of the region. As has been demonstrated, the Boni cannot be ascribed the ‘primitive tribalism’ epithet that Gellner76 uses to describe those communities that are ‘culturally islands unto themselves’ with little concept of a world outside their group, that societies can be anything other than as theirs is. Instead the Boni had long been involved in relations of an economic nature and Spencer’s assertion, albeit in reference to pastoral communities, that “even without colonial intervention, the overall trend appears to have been towards a growing economic infrastructure”77 might be loosely applied to the Boni although the changes introduced by the colonial administration certainly exacerbated this trend enormously. Now, their more sedentary lifestyle exposed them to a capacity for a more overtly materialistic and consumptionistic way of living than their previous nomadic existence would have allowed. Similarly, the readily available range of goods 73

Prins, Didemic, 176. Conversation with elders, Berabothei, 2 December 1997. 75 A term coined by Ensminger, Making, 62. 76 E. Gellner, Saints of the Atlas (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1969), 1–3. 77 Paul Spencer, The Pastoral Continuum: The Marginalization of Tradition in East Africa (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998), 267. 74

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on offer expanded greatly in the early years of the twentieth century and this whetted the entrepreneurial appetites of the younger generation who were making the necessary changes and adaptations that were required in the face of the community’s altered modus vivendi. The adoption of Islam certainly benefited Boni involvement in a wider economy and in Bargoni it is not altogether coincidental that the individual who most enthusiastically embraced the economic possibilities on offer was also the greatest proponent of Islam in the area—namely Bobitu Kololo. It should be remembered that Bargoni stands on the threshold of Boniland proper as far as the road north from Lamu is concerned and thus might be considered to be the community most advanced along this avenue of the development of Boni culture and religion. However, Bobitu Kololo is an exceptional man not only in terms of his business innovations in the area and his devout religious convictions but he has been a local councillor for a period of twenty-five years and, during the period covered by this fieldwork, still sought to contest the seat that he had lost some years back. Ensminger singles out a kindred spirit, Shambaro,78 for a similar role in economic expansion and religious conversion amongst the Orma some time earlier. She goes on to demonstrate how accepting Islam reduces transaction costs: conversion provides a ready-made way to turn outsiders, with whom one shares no binding institutional structures that might ensure the honoring of contracts, to insiders, who are subject to commonly shared sanctions for default on contracts, such as credit. The fact that Islam is also a religion and not merely a set of secular institutions further reduces the cost of exchange. Islam is a powerful ideology with builtin sanctions, which result in considerable self-enforcement of contracts. True believers have a nonmaterial interest in holding to the terms of contracts even if an opportunity to shirk or cheat presents itself.79

Ensminger displays an enviable regard for the moral rectitude of the mercantile classes of the average Muslim community. Bobitu Kololo, who forged an alliance with Mwalimu Hussein to proclaim the message of Islam in Boniland, also looked beyond the boundaries of his ethnic community when seeking to develop the business opportunities that the change in economic prospects afforded 78 79

Ensminger, Making, 60 f. Ibid., 60.

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him in the decades either side of the middle of the twentieth century. As he reports it, his father had not been averse to augmenting his hunting and honey-gathering with nascent ventures into the realm of agricultural production. The latent business acumen of his son was facilitated by his conversion to Islam which allowed Bobitu initially to go into partnership with a Lamu-based ‘Arab’ named Talip who provided the capital for Bobitu to develop his farm beyond a purely subsistence level. Bobitu remains in close contact with his former partner and has gone so far as to name one of his sons after him.80 From these humble beginnings, Bobitu consolidated his entrepreneurial position by expanding into retailing—opening the first shop in Bargoni and owning the first bicycle in the area—and establishing himself as the middleman in relations between the Boni and the world outside: “I was like an agent, the representative of all the Boni, the only one they believed from the whole community. Anyone who wanted something went through Bobitu and they shared the work together. I got my commission and other things.”81 It is also suggested that his honourable business ventures were augmented by his central role in the illegal ivory trade but, whatever the truth, Bobitu became a very wealthy individual. However, little now remains of the prosperity he once enjoyed and his ability to spot and exploit a situation was not matched by wise investments or the setting aside of savings. The hunter-gatherer trait, so ridiculed by the Somali population of Bargoni,82 of devouring the fruits of the present with no thought of the morrow (formerly, when an elephant had been killed, the band responsible would gorge themselves into a stupor on the meat that could not be kept, before returning to the hunt when hunger dictated), had not been excised from Bobitu’s character. In these undertakings, his Islamic faith offered benefits and a wide circle of contacts: I have many friends that I have been around with. I have gone far, up to Nairobi, and have seen the different ways of living of different people. I have seen how people are involved in prayers, how some are involved in development. Everything I saw I tried to emulate. I have many friends, up to Malindi and Mombasa. My friends are like

80 Some observers are not so convinced about this relationship and hint that Talip raked off most of the profits from the enterprise and cheated Bobitu. 81 Conversation with Mzee Bobitu Kololo, Bargoni, 1 April 1998. 82 Conversation with Abdi Khalif, Bargoni, 14 September 1997.

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chapter three my brothers from the same parents. This is because of our religion, the faith and development that we share. Both go together. I used to get ideas from them by talking on the side of religion, development etc. I used to learn from them how to live a good life. These brothers of mine here do not want to go around looking at how other people live, their concerns are just honey, cutting bambakofi. They are just here, they don’t want to hear anything, they don’t want to move out of the area. If you try to tell them anything, they just leave what you have told them there, they don’t take it away with them. Maybe that is the will of God, but it is not from my side. I am doing my best but the people don’t want to hear.83

Bobitu is convinced that the practice of his faith served to predispose others favourably to him. People look and see the way you walk and your habits and customs. This is true of all tribes and among all peoples—black or white. Everybody is judged according to the way he lives. If you live nicely then you will be a nice man; if you move on the wrong side, you will be criticised. Maybe people saw that I was moving nicely, they were grateful and thanked me for following the right path and, although it is not imperative, they judged me . . . I have never gone to school but just learnt from other teachers and picked up their words. Me and other Muslims throughout the world are one. We are united. I am not strong enough to do what they are doing but I like doing my prayers, etc. On Friday I go to prayers, I give out alms, I read the Maulid.84

Something akin to the Muslim commenda, or trading partnership, that Ensminger argues had a great influence on the development of trade in West Africa85 can be seen in the relationship Bobitu had with his

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Conversation with Mzee Bobitu Kololo, Bargoni, 1 April 1998. Ibid. The Maulid is the recitation of the epic account and celebration of the life of the Prophet. There are several versions, identified with different classes amongst the Swahili peoples, see Middleton, World, 166 ff.; El Zein, Sacred, 40 ff.; J.W.T. Allen (ed. and trans.), The Customs of the Swahili People: The Desturi za Waswahili of Mtoro bin Mwinyi Bakari and Other Swahili Persons (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981), 10 f. 85 Ensminger, Making, 60 quotes Perinbam’s definition of commenda: ‘It enabled an investor or group of investors to entrust capital or merchandise to an agentmanager, who traded with it and returned the principal and previously agreed-upon share of profits to the investor. The agent received the remaining share of the profits as a reward for his time and labour. . . . The commenda, which combined the advantages of a loan with those of partnership, was a contract which regulated the use of capital, trading skills, and labor for mutual profit.’ Marie B. Perinbam, ‘The Julas in Western Sudanese History: Long-Distance Traders and Developers of Resources’ in B. Schwarz and R. Dummett (eds.), West African Cultural Dynamics, (The Hague: Mouton, 1980), 465–6. 84

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partners. The apparent sincerity of his efforts to be faithful to orthodox Islamic practice engendered respect outside his community so that he was able to obtain considerable amounts of money or goods on credit from Arab merchants, “If you had religious faith and were respectable, then people gave you what you needed.”86 Thus, his Islamic credentials, manifest in his way of living, served to establish a reputation for trustworthiness in his business dealings which contributed to their growth and expansion while serving as a model for others. A brief and complementary addendum to the economic impetus for conversion might be the self-confidence that Islam might instil in the neophyte—that religious fidelity will bring material prosperity. Even a cursory look at the lifestyle enjoyed by the Muslim inhabitants of Lamu would serve to suggest that their God had indeed blessed his people and that similar blessings would come the way of those who converted to Islam. Bobitu himself says, “About religion, it assists you in your life. If you have cleaned your heart and are a real Muslim, then your life will be assisted. It will assist your business and in other developments. If you are a real follower of the religion you will get a big assistance. God loves people who do their religious practice well.”87 The positive attitude that arises out of the conviction that religious fidelity will bear fruit in material well-being was conducive to the development of a particular brand of work-ethic. A third factor that cannot be overlooked in any examination of the initial impetus for conversion within the Boni community, and the central role played by Bobitu Kololo, is the fact that this individual is a deeply religious person in the sense that his commitment to both public and private religious observance is exemplary. He is the most faithful of only a small number of Boni men who attend the mosque for prayers with any degree of regularity and, at night, prayers Bobitu said in the privacy of his room (which reached me over the dividing wall) attest to the fact that his Islamic faith was not merely a tool to be used for the advancement of the social standing or economic prosperity of Bobitu himself or the ethnic community of which he is a member. Rather, despite the element of insidious exploitation that he perceives as lying behind some of the proselytising efforts supported by the Lamu ‘Arabs’, he cannot imagine abandoning the beliefs and practices of the religion he has held 86 87

Conversation with Mzee Bobitu Kololo, Bargoni, 1 April 1998. Ibid.

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to for so long and has done so much to promote. Islam has allowed Bobitu’s religious life to break out of the strictures imposed by Boni society that credits one moiety with a unique role in establishing the community’s relationship with their God and instead afforded him personal and direct access. Prins88 rightly observes the numerous patrilineages that exist among the Boni but suggests that no division among moiety lines is to be found—unlike amongst the Galla (Orma)89 whom he credits as a source of this feature of Boni social life. Harvey correctly detects the presence of the two moieties, again concluding that this constitutes one of the many Orma influences, which he records as being the Hurusey and Barrettuma (formerly the Utaa and Karaya, which he claims were the original names before they acquired their present nomenclature, for reasons he is unable to explain).90 He compares his data91 on clan names with those of Prins although this comparison is obscured by the fact that no published material for Prins is recorded for the year 1957 in the bibliography. Indeed, if he draws his material from Prins’s article ‘The Didemic Diarchic Boni’, which was published in 1963 (albeit based on research conducted in 1957) then he not only misrepresents Prins by ascribing to him moiety divisions that he does not make, but he also omits clan names which the Prins article contains and which resurfaced in Bargoni. Indeed, Harvey compounds the sense of confusion by not only changing the spelling of names but also ascribing clans to different moieties within two pages.92 In Bargoni the moieties were given as Beretima and Aruse93 and the patrilineages ascribed to each is as follows: Beretima Beretima Mamaje Argolo

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Aruse Karara Uta Ilaney Nyurta Mdoyo Galachi Hadiji

Prins, Didemic, 181. Corroborated by Kelly, From, 431. 90 Harvey, Hunting, 166. 91 Ibid., 168. 92 Ibid., 166 and 168. 93 My transliteration, which I allow on the grounds that the Boni dialect spoken in Bargoni differs from that spoken in Pandanguo where Harvey conducted his 89

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The other names mentioned by Prins94 were said to belong to the Boni that lived around Pandanguo but were not really known to the Boni of the Bargoni area. Harvey is in error when he claims that “Bonis say they have clans [only] because they want to avoid marrying close relatives,”95 as he is when he further asserts that there are “no activities which [are] divided along moiety lines”96 and suggests that their existence is merely of historical interest given the Boni’s “ultimate descent from Cushitic people practicing a mostly pastoral means of subsistence [which] probably provided the foundation for clan structure, for clans are highly developed among all the populations descended from East Cushites.”97 Rather, the Beretima (moiety as opposed to clan) are clearly the ritual experts and leaders that the Aruse are expected to follow. “Beretima was the first born and Aruse was the second,”98 and if prayers are to be said then this is the task of the Beretima “even if there are Aruse elders present and the only Beretima present is a young man.”99 The Beretima, as well as having a cultic function, are also described by some as acting as judges and adjudicators in community affairs in the not too distant past. Further, Harvey’s argument that “there are no clans identified with specific activities or functions”100 is contradicted by the significant (albeit subsidiary to the Beretima) role played by the Uta clan of the Aruse moiety in the prayers around the horrop tree, described in the following chapter. Bobitu Kololo belongs to the Aruse moiety and, as such, is proscribed from a leadership role in traditional religious activity. In such a context, Islam affords a person who says of himself that “God liked me to concentrate on religious affairs”101 the opportunity to relate to God directly without the benefaction of intermediaries. Rather than having to live in the shadow of the Beretima, Bobitu was able to research. See Heine, ‘Language and History of the Boni,’ in Bernd Heine (ed.), Recent German Research on Africa: Language and Culture, (Bonn: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, 1982), 106–114, for a description of these dialects. 94 Prins, Didemic, 181. 95 Harvey, Hunting, 167. 96 Ibid., 170. 97 Ibid., 171. 98 Conversation with elders, Berabothei, 18 October 1997. 99 Ibid. 100 Harvey, Hunting, 167. 101 Conversation with Bobitu Kololo, Bargoni, 1 April 1998.

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assume a leadership role in the promulgation of Islam, a faith that allows for a personal relationship with God as well as benefiting the development of other areas of interest in his life. A fourth feature of Boni life that facilitated conversion is that, while religious leadership was largely in the hands of the Beretima moiety, religiously sanctioned political authority was just as firmly in the hands of the elders. Islam can therefore be seen as offering a way out of this oppressive situation for enterprising young men seeking to escape the controls that their seniors impose upon them. Indeed, the fact that no author, until now, has recorded age-grades as a feature of Boni social life suggests that this institution was one of the first to be rejected by the young men who converted to Islam. There was no overt manifestation discernible in Bargoni, although the elders, in a moment of candour, admitted that no man who had not been through the moro, the bush-camp that serves to mark the transition from one age-grade to the next, could be considered ‘normal’. However, the memories of the elders are necessarily fractured since the group that can be expected to best recall this feature are the very individuals who worked so assiduously to orchestrate its demise. Rather, it is the generation behind these elders who are, as Chapter 4 reveals, maintaining the place of the moro in Boni society. It is clear that there are three age-grades moving, after initiation, from the ranks of the ignorant children, the mchozi, through goroba and thence to jajable before finally reaching the age-grade of the elders, kijoo. The fact that little remains in Bargoni of this institution is probably indicative of the extent of Islamisation there and the covert pressures that have been exerted by outsiders to remove elements in Boni society that serve to underpin its fabric and resist the process of Swahili-ization. Also, as is argued in Chapter 5, the demands of secular education and attendance at the madrasa ensure that little time and opportunity is available to the young people of Bargoni to fulfil the demands of the moro camps. However, it was clearly suggested that moros continue, in a somewhat abbreviated form and wrapped in secrecy, in the more distant and isolated parts of Boniland, although whether this is indeed the case or merely some wishful thinking could not be ascertained. In his study of the spread of Islam among the Upper Pokomo, Bunger sees the same dynamics at work:

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The introduction of Islam to the Upper Pokomo destroyed the power and privileges of the elders and led to the eventual destruction of the kijo (elder’s) institution. Indeed, Islamization has been in many ways as much a political revolution against the redundant privileges of the elders as a process of religious change. The end result is that a society formerly controlled by elders and their traditional religion has been replaced by an elite deeply committed to Islam.102

It is interesting to note that Bunger records the Pokomo using the word kijo in this context, a word not found amongst the literature on the Orma, which therefore suggests another source.103 What can be said with certainty is that the overthrow of this feature of control within the community, abetted by the other changes in the structure of society during this period, allowed the younger members of the community (with youthful Bobitu Kololo to the fore) to assume control of their own lives and destiny. Islam, in this context, can thus be understood as an ideology of resistance to the position and religiously sanctioned power of the elders, the kijoo. Thus, as Bunger says, “young men took the opportunity to embrace a new religion which offered status and power denied them by their age in the traditional order.”104 In the present age, one sees the same dynamic at work, only now it is Islam that is perceived to be the oppressive force and recourse is made to traditional Boni beliefs and practices as a means of resistance and self-identification. As has been noted earlier, Bobitu, in his younger days, certainly took full advantage of this development and augmented and underpinned his business activities and economic domination by enjoying political leadership through serving as a councillor for many years—an opportunity for leadership that would not have been open to him without the changes in Boni society wrought by the introduction of Islam.

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Bunger, Islamization, 37. Once, when travelling down the Tana River by boat through Pokomoland, as we approached Golbanti the helmsman, seeking to tie up on the bank, threw a rope to some young men standing there, calling out, ‘Eee, Goroba!’ Thus there appears to be a correlation between the age-sets of the Boni and those of their Bantu neighbours, the Pokomo. 104 Bunger, Islamization, 102. 103

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Conclusion This chapter has sought to propound some of the factors involved in the conversion of the Boni community to Islam some fifty years ago. It has been demonstrated that this change was the result of the coalescing of influences from outside—the impact of the colonial administration, the missionary thrust of the Riyadh mosque, the wish of Lamu entrepreneurs to reassert their hold on the area—as well as internal factors—the desire for greater equality in social relations between the Boni and other communities, the opportunities for economic expansion that Islam presented, a more egalitarian practice of religion and a means of escaping the perceived oppression of the elders. There has also been the suggestion that this transition was not a groundswell movement but was spearheaded by one particular individual who, by his religious convictions, economic success and political leadership was able to galvanise the other members of his community to follow along the path that he was breaking. This phenomenon is not without a precedent as Steven Harvey notes the religious commitment of the headman in Pandanguo, the locus of Harvey’s research, and the impact his presence and example had in encouraging and legitimising Islamic practice in that community.105 The next chapter will examine how the Islamic faith that Mzee Bobitu Kololo and others were so enthusiastic to adopt and propagate has, in time, come to be seen as a component of external influences that threaten the fabric of Boni society. Thus the bush, and religious practices associated with the forest environment, has become a metaphor for Boni resistance to subjugation and a means of renewing their sense of identity.

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Harvey, Hunting, 194.

CHAPTER FOUR

RELIGIOUS ACTIVITY IN THE BUSH The Horrop Tree Incident: 15 December 1997 The earth squelched beneath the feet of the Boni men as they entered the sodden expanse of open parkland surrounding the horrop tree, which grew obliquely from a hillock that also supported a few extraneous branches and longer grass. Although it was only 8 a.m., the atmosphere was already oppressively humid and portentous of another storm in the early afternoon. There was a stench from the semi-arid flora that was decaying into a swamp. The previous six months’ rainfall had been nearly four times the average for that time of year and the people of Bargoni were suffering grievously. On the way to the horrop tree site, the company had passed through a homestead epitomising all the suffering resulting from El Niño (see photo 3): flood water covered large swathes of the clearing and the walls of a Swahili-style house had collapsed, leaving only the thatched roof teetering on the top of supporting poles. Inside a woman sat morosely on her bed with water lapping around her feet, damp clothing hanging from pegs in the poles with little hope of drying in the muggy breeze. On those slightly elevated areas that had resisted the flood, traditional Boni beehive-like houses had been hastily erected and these offered shelter from the incessant rain, as well as greater protection from the anopheles mosquitoes whose numbers had proliferated in this environment. Fields lay under water and the prospect of a successful harvest was precarious, waterborn diseases were rife and some deaths had been recorded. Even the security situation had deteriorated and armed bands of Somali shifta roamed with impunity, in the knowledge that military vehicles were confined to barracks and that wading through the floods left few discernible tracks. In the light of such suffering the Boni elders had decided that prayers should be offered at the horrop tree. On the previous day Ali Sani had, at the behest of the elders of the Beretima moiety of the

Photo 3. A typical village scene during the El Niño rains that precipitated the horrop tree prayers.

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Boni community, performed the divinatory process termed bao1 and discerned that this was the most propitious day for the rite. A collection had been hurriedly taken up to purchase the sugar, tea, fat and coffee beans that were required. Now it was Ali Sani, a Beretima elder himself, who led the group into the clearing and the horrop tree that had been chosen for its location north-west, and hence downwind, of the village2 (see photo 4). In the shade of a bangoi tree, a short distance from the horrop, a fire was prepared, with four logs as the base upon which twigs and smaller branches were arranged. The abundance of such fire-marked logs in the area attested to the fact that this tree was a regular site for such rituals, the previous occasion having been some nine months earlier when there was an outbreak of gastric and intestinal infections. When Ali Sani failed to find a chunk of wood for the ritual at the base of the horrop where, he insisted, it had been left, Mzee Habole was dispatched to some balambale bushes on the perimeter of the clearing where he collected wood from this shrub, which also contained the properties conducive to powerful prayer. Meanwhile, Ali tore twigs from the bangoi tree and started a fire on the bed of logs. As this work progressed, more men began to drift in and one took the balambale branches that Mzee Habole had collected and went to the horrop where, squatting near the trunk, he proceeded to peel off the bark from these branches before cutting them into pegs about eight centimetres long. The thicker pegs were partly split, or forked, to aid combustion, while the thinner ones were left whole. It was now time to prepare the buni.3 The men began to sort the coffee berries and split the husks between their teeth, which diminishes 1 The local term for this process, which is found in many parts of Africa where it is known variously, for example, as khatt ar-raml (Louis Brenner, Muslim Divination and the History of Religion in Sub-Saharan Africa [unpubished paper, School of Oriental and African Studies, London, n.d.]), sikidy (Pierre Vérin and Narivelo Rajaonarimanana, ‘Divination in Madagascar: The Antemoro Case and the Diffusion of Divination’, in Philip M. Peek (ed.), African Divination Systems: Ways of Knowing [Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1991], 53–68), etc. An examination of Ali Sani’s use of this system of knowledge is found in Chapter 6 of this work. 2 The disturbance wrought by the El Niño climatic changes is evident here since mid-December, when this rite was performed, is normally dominated by the northeast monsoon, the Kaskazi, which features dry, hot weather, see Middleton, World, 9. 3 This concoction is exclusively used in religious settings where it assumes the role of sadaka, or offering. In this context of the horrop tree prayers, it is both drunk by the participants and offered at the base of the tree. It was reported that it replaced the use of boki (honey beer) which had been employed in pre-Islamic days.

Photo 4. The horrop tree prayers: The men assemble prior to the prayers proper. The horrop tree is to the right of the picture.

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the likelihood of their exploding during the roasting process as well as allowing sub-standard beans to be removed. The beans were then poured onto a small metal tray, washed in water from an aluminium sufuria, transferred to another sufuria that was placed on the fire to dry them and, shortly afterwards, a large amount of Kimbo cooking fat was added and stirred with a wooden stick. The frying continued until smoke started to billow from the pot, when the sufuria was removed from the fire and the contents poured out onto the tray again. A small quantity of water was added which evoked an effervescent reaction from the beans, now a chocolate brown and swimming in the honey-coloured Kimbo. The cook continued to stir this concoction while the assembly, which had now swelled to about twenty men, sat around talking. Unobtrusively, Mzee Habole took a spoonful of the beans and fat and, walking quietly over to the horrop tree, mounted the hillock and sprinkled the contents of the spoon against the base of the trunk praying, in ki-Boni, “God, stop the rain, cure the diseases and give us blessings!” He then returned to the gathering, the tray containing the coffee beans and the fat was handed to him and he poured some of the contents onto the palm of his left hand. Then, using his right, he rubbed the fat onto his face and hands and arms up to his elbows. The beans and fat were then passed to Ali Sani, the next senior Beretima elder, and thence down the line until the tray circulated the entire gathering, each person taking a quantity of the fat and anointing himself—some in a rather cursory manner, just taking a drop and rubbing this into their nostrils and hands, others being much more effusive, liberally anointing hands, face and even hair and feet. A number of those present also helped themselves to a bean or two as the tray passed and chewed them. While all this was taking place, another sufuria containing water was placed on the fire and brought to the boil and tea leaves and vast quantities of sugar poured in. One of those present turned to me, as we sat in the grass watching the simmering pot, our freshly anointed faces glowing in the sun, and said with feeling, “The problems in the community will surely be done away with today since this is a holy occasion.”

It also featured in rites that reflected a high degree of Islamic ‘orthodoxy’ and so, when a son of Mzee Bobitu Kololo was lost in the bush, his mother called the Imam and a number of elders to her home where prayers were said and buni was offered to them on this occasion.

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As tea was ladled out to the swelling ranks of Boni men assembled in the shade offered by the bangoi tree, Mzee Bobitu stood up and addressed the assembly in ki-Swahili: The old people, our ancestors, used to do this: pray! They didn’t pray to the horrop, but they prayed to God by praying through the horrop, by passing through the horrop. The prayers are for God but the tree was selected by the ancestors as the place where the prayers should take place. Here we have talked and everybody knows that the tribe of the Boni is two. The two tribes are one person and his brother. They are different people. The elder is the Beretima; the second born, the Aruse. Wherever people meet [for prayers], the Beretima will be in the front line and the Aruse in the second line—they will follow the Beretima. There is another distinction that is associated with a problem like this, that of too much rain. Long ago a problem occurred when the long rains came and the whole area was flooded. People resorted to staying in trees; people took their food with their children in the trees. People stayed for a whole month in the trees. They stayed there until the waters cleared but, by that time, the land had become very soft. The people wanted to come down and they discussed this and decided that the first born should go first and so the Beretima was told to go down and take a look. Beretima went down and sunk into the soil, up to his chest, so there was no possibility of walking or anything like that. After that the Aruse started to descend and the same thing happened—up to his chest he sank! After that the Utaa came. Utaa Lavicho was the youngest of the Aruse, the last born. He prayed to God and dropped down. When he reached the ground the earth was totally dry! Because of this the people had relief and all came down, they came down and continued with their lives. We have to follow the same system as the people of old, what our elders used to do. During the prayers the people will be divided into three groups—the Aruse on one side, Beretima on another and the Utaa will be the third group. Beretima will be the first to pray, Aruse second and Utaa third and last. Before all this the Muslims must read the Qur’an. First we start our prayers with the Qur’an, then the Beretima and the Aruse will pray and the Utaa last. These are my few words.

As we sat there in the grass, Ali Sani prepared some oramothop wood (reddish in colour), which, he explained, would be used at the time of prayers because of its distinctive and favourable odour. While the tea was being served and conversation made, another sufuria full of water and copious quantities of sugar was heated over the fire and the remains of the coffee beans and fat added. This drink, buni, was then distributed. It was by now mid-morning and more men continued to drift in. Only Mzee Bobitu and another mzee wore kofias (the

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white embroidered hats that denoted one as a Muslim), while the rest had their heads uncovered. Another sufuria was placed on the fire and the remaining tea and sugar was added since nothing could be taken away from this site: everything had to be either consumed or left behind. All the coffee beans and Kimbo were already gone. The numbers had swollen and so too had a sense of expectancy. Talk among the group now turned to politics and the prospects for the forthcoming general election in Kenya that was but two weeks away. Mzee Bobitu was in the thick of the discussion and eliciting strong reactions. A succession of men stood and addressed the gathering and the main victim of their, at times, vitriolic attacks was Mzee Abdi Maalim, the Somali rancher who owned some 5,000 hectares to the south-west of Bargoni village. It was asserted that he was land-hungry, seeking to gobble up vast tracts of bush and scheming, eventually, to force the Boni out of the area and into exile near Milimani, seizing the land on which the village now stood as his own. He was purportedly campaigning for a man named Fahim Twaha who was running on the KANU ticket (Kenya Africa National Union, the ruling party) and who was allegedly being bankrolled by Tahir Sheikh Said, a rich Somali businessman based in Mombasa. The argument ran that if Fahim Twaha was victorious he would have influence in the corridors of power (since his backer was also said to make substantial donations to President Moi) which would have benefits for T.S.S. (as Tahir Sheikh Said was known and which was the logo of his business empire) and his sycophants—inevitably including Mzee Abdi Maalim who would hope to be able to extend his landholdings and influence in the area as recompense for his role in the campaign. The thrust of the argument was, ‘Don’t vote for J.J.’ (‘Jogoo Juu’, the campaigning slogan of Fahim Twaha), but the reality was that large sums of money from outside the area were being used to buy up voters and all knew that secrecy was not going to be a feature of the election. Mzee Bobitu took his stance before the crowd and told the following parable: Long ago there was a king that lived in a big village and, nearby, God had made a very big rock. On top of the rock there was murrum4 that 4 An aggregate used throughout Kenya in the construction of unpaved roads, allowing for the safe passage of vehicles during the rainy season when an untreated road would have become a quagmire.

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chapter four shone with many beautiful pearls. However, they were inaccessible, nobody could get to them. So, in order to satisfy his desire for these pearls, the king engaged in a spot of politics. There was a very big bird, so big that it was able to carry even an elephant, and the king became a friend of this bird, so much so that he trained it to look after the grazing of his cows. So, every day, the big bird would come and carry the cows away to the top of the rock where they could graze in safety. The king then made an announcement. “Anyone who wants to have a wonderful life for a year, I will grant him that, he will have all that he wants for a year. But after that he will have a day of great difficulty. Who will agree to this?” Many young men offered themselves. They all enjoyed themselves for a year and then, one day, the king slaughtered a big bull and removed all the innards and then put a young man inside and sewed up the carcass. The cow with the man inside was then put out in the field and the bird came and took it off to the pasture on top of the rock. On reaching the place of the pearls, the man came out but there was no way he could then get back—the big bird showed no interest in him since it had been trained to look after cows! So he was with the pearls but there was no way he could get back, that was the end of the man! Do you want to be the same? Do you want to enjoy yourselves for a year and then get problems one day? So J.J. is using you, showering you with money during the election campaign but then he will abandon you. He will give you K.sh.10,000/=, K.sh.10,000/=, etc. but in the end you will suffer. You will get your problem! That is an example—the people of the past had a problem and you will get the same. Like the king, people will get problems!

While the majority of the crowd was held in rapt attention, Ali Sani (still within earshot) was clearing away the bush and long grass from around the trunk of the horrop tree. The remnants of the tea continued to be drunk until all was consumed. Then Ali Sani took some live coals from the fire on an aluminium tray, and deposited them at the base of the trunk. Two trips were necessary to carry the required quantity. Next to the fire lay some brown paper bearing the pegs made of balambale wood. When all was prepared, Bobitu prayed in a manner which also served by way of instruction: God, we have come here to pray for a reduction in the rainfall. We cannot ask that you stop the rain completely but that you give us some relief. It is excessive at the moment! We pray to you God to reduce the rain and leave just that which is enough for us. We come together for the prayers—we did not come together to offer prayers to the tree

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but to God. This tree was selected by the grandparents of our grandparents as a place for prayers. We have come here for prayer. We are under the big horrop tree and use it for prayer. The horrop was the place where out ancestors used to pray. This is the end, let us continue.

Then everyone squatted down and the Qur’anic sura ‘Yasin’ was recited by all present. Following this the group split into two ‘halves’, the Beretima moiety forming up on the eastern side of the clearing and the Aruse remaining under the bangoi tree. All removed their shoes and Mzee Habole was the first of the Beretima group to step forward, climb the hillock and offer his prayer at the horrop tree. Standing over the fire, with a peg of balambale held in his right hand, he prayed, “God, this excess rain, reduce for us!” Then he placed the peg on the fire and descended the hillock and the next Beretima, according to age, stepped forward. Each of the elders prayed individually although a group of young men, bringing up the rear, combined together in their prayer. Once the Beretima were finished, then the Aruse did the same and the Utaa, who had separated out of the Aruse, did likewise at the end. While all this was going on, the crowd stood in silence near the horrop, the fragrant perfume of the burning balambale wood filled the clearing while the smoke drifted upwards. While offering their prayers some of the men held their peg of balambale over the fire, in the smoke, while others rotated their wrists in a circle above the embers. All the prayers were offered in ki-Boni and a sampling of them includes: God, give us the rain that we normally receive. This rain has brought problems so give us relief ! We have come to this horrop tree to pray in this time of crisis when fever and stomach pains are afflicting our people. Please remove them! O God of our ancestors, our ancestors themselves. Wake up! The disease which is going round the village—may the wind take it away to the north, away from the village! We come as normal today, we brought you your reward (sacrifice) today, we pray under you. We ask you to remove the rain and that which is disturbing us! God, give us goodness, faith so that the ground may dry up since we are the ones that made the earth dry—the Utaa Lavicho! The bad things, may God remove them from us, since our fathers prayed under this tree! Horrop, we run towards you asking that we leave all the diseases of our body here! O grandfathers, we come under the horrop. May our forefathers look upon us. May God remove the diseases we have!

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chapter four We come, O Horrop, to you today because our grandfathers’ grandfathers prayed under you. The water which is now non-stop—God, assist us to reduce the water so that it might be as usual and not as at the present!

When all had prayed, shoes were donned and a group photograph taken. Then all the items that had been used, the sufurias, trays, walking-sticks and so on, were gathered up and all left in a single file in a northerly direction. There was no talking and the group had been enjoined not to look back as they departed. After about 300 metres a rough track was reached and behind a large bush that obscured the horrop, all stopped. Islamic prayers were now said and some of the men relieved themselves. A report was then given to the group regarding an ongoing conflict that had embroiled Mzee Bobitu and Mwalimu Mohammed Ali, the Imam of the mosque in Bargoni, and the efforts that were being made by the elders to resolve this. Once the news had been relayed and digested, all went their separate ways. A heavy downpour soaked the village soon after the men had returned. The Boni and their Relationship with the Bush The ritual activities and associated conversations that took place around the horrop tree on 15 December 1997 are pivotal to understanding the Boni concept of themselves and their perceived relationship to their environment and to the members of other ethnic communities who are having an ever greater impact on the area and the lives of the forest dwellers who have long inhabited this region. Much has been made in literature on the Boni of their intimate relationship with the wilderness or bush. Gainey talks of the forest as being “the spiritual heart of Boni culture and society. The Boni people . . . possess a rich tradition of inter-relatedness with their forest home.”5 They are classified repeatedly as hunters and gatherers as opposed to food producers (societies with agriculture and/or husbandry such as the Orma, Somali and Swahili) and so they are said to favour immediate return as opposed to delayed return in terms of their

5 Vincent Gainey, Visit Report on a Mission to the Boni People of Lamu District Kenya: 18–26 February 1999 (London: unpublished report for FARM-Africa, 1999), 6.

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labour outlay.6 However, even the latter assumption is not entirely correct since game trophies, skins and horns have often been used in exchange arrangements with other communities, for example the Swahili, and food gathered was often stored to offset leaner times.7 The picture that has been built up by writers on the Boni over the decades has been one of a community, loosely arranged in bands, which enjoys a semi-nomadic existence living on game meat (particularly elephant) and an assortment of tubers, leaves, nuts and berries gleaned from the wilderness over which they roam. Salkeld initiated the notion nearly a century ago when he wrote that “The Waboni are the hunters of Jubaland; they live in no settled habitations, but follow game . . . From a government point of view they are the only elephant killers.”8 He goes on to describe how they exchange ivory and skins with the Somali to obtain the fruits of pastoralism, agriculture or mercantile activity. Harvey reasserts the pre-eminence of the elephant in Boni culture and diet suggesting that “their lives would require radical change if rapid decline took place”.9 Nevertheless, at his time of writing, Islamic strictures were understood by the inhabitants of Pandanguo to prohibit the eating of elephant meat but ivory, leopard skins and rhinoceros horn were important for the cash they brought in. He argues that “hunting is the most important activity of the Bonis both in terms of the amount of money it brings into the village and in terms of the food supply.”10 However, by the late 1990s the elephant population that Harvey records as standing at 21,000 in 1973 had been decimated by Somali poachers and no reports were recorded of either elephants or rhinos being seen in the vicinity of Bargoni. Likewise the proliferation in baboon numbers, and the concomitant destruction wrought in the shambas, suggests that the leopard, their natural predator, has experienced a similar decline in fortunes. While the Boni have not abandoned hunting altogether, the targets of their sporadic forays are now small antelopes such as dikdik and duiker for the

6 Cf. Ernest S. Burch, Jr., and Linda J. Ellanna (eds.), Key Issues in Hunter-Gatherer Research (Oxford: Berg, 1996), 4–5. 7 Harvey, Hunting, 89–90. 8 Salkeld, Notes, 168. 9 Harvey, Hunting, 115. 10 Ibid., 130.

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pot. More frequently, the bows and arrows are used to ward off the baboons and other animals that seek to steal from the fields. Similarly, Harvey gives over many pages to describing the gathering of the fruits of the ichiele palm11 (more generally transliterated from kiBoni as tielle)12 and the manner of preparation, although he prefaces the account by admitting that “this appeared to be the only wild plant systematically harvested at present”13 and concludes by allowing that this forest product constitutes but a fraction of the annual food supply of the Boni community resident in Pandanguo.14 He admits the presence of agricultural practices—either subsistence farming or the raising of cash crops—but implies that this is subservient to gathering despite the fact that, even twenty-five years ago, it made up a considerable, indeed major, slice of the Boni food needs. More recently, others have augmented the hunter-gatherer status of the Boni, with Stiles positing that agriculture is “unviable for the Boni forest area . . . The Boni have the forest pretty much to themselves and hunting and gathering is the most adaptive mode of subsistence, given the ecological parameters.”15 The Boni collude with the perpetuation of a hunter-gatherer lifestyle and early in my fieldwork I was informed by a group of men of the foodstuffs they gather. The list included the ubiquitous tielle as well as various tubers, berries, fruits, nuts and leaves. Meat of ruminants is eaten but not that of carnivores such as lion or leopard; similarly with birds: ostrich, guinea-fowl, partridge are on the menu but not those that eat carrion. In continuity with the perception of the Boni lifestyle projected by earlier writers, the last years of the twentieth century saw a researcher in Boniland, exploring the dietary and nutritional value of the foodstuff that are derived from the bush and are still considered to constitute the Boni staples. But such a perception is a myth and represents an idealised construction of the present by drawing on a nostalgic romanticisation of the past—a feature not unique to the Boni. This community, as a result of government coercion, shifta-induced insecurity and other

Ibid., 87 ff. Henk Beentje, Kenya Trees, Shrubs and Lianas (Nairobi: National Museums of Kenya, 1994), 40. 13 Harvey, Hunting, 87. 14 Ibid., 92. 15 Stiles, Hunter, 855. 11 12

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factors, is now settled in a string of villages along the Hindi-Kiunga road and is engaged in subsistence agriculture—notably cassava and simsim production, accompanied by limited quantities of maize, augmented by the fruit of various trees—as well as the production of cash crops, with cotton and plants used in the production of red dye predominating. Yet it is the bush that the Boni imbue with significance and against the background of which they establish their identity. They cling to an interpretation of their traditional way of life and fabricate new memories to bolster this image of themselves. Memories of the past inform who they are in the present. Ali Sani revealed what he termed the ‘Big Secret’ of the Boni when he whispered . . . The first Boni came from the top of the tree, he was found on top of the horrop . . . He was found on top of the horrop and was taken to the village where he was given the name ‘Boni’. He was called ‘Boni’ because he was known to worship the horrop tree . . . God is the one who placed him in the tree and then he came to be known as Boni [which means] ‘one of the bush’.16

Indeed, there is a sense that the closer one is to the bush, the more one interacts with it, the more one possesses the elusive quality of ‘Boni-ness’ and, conversely, the more removed one is, the more one veers away from what is considered to be the essence of the people. Such a distinction manifests itself geographically. Those homes that border the bush are likely to be of the traditional beehive construction and house families who have only more recently taken up residence in the expanding settlement. The man of the home is more given to forays into the bush in an effort to collect honey or bag a wild animal for the pot, such families are more familiar with the traditional ways and religious practices of the bush and have less time for activities that centre around the mosque. Those, on the other hand, who accept a plot at the centre stage of village life are more likely to have built for themselves a ‘Swahili-style’ house (a ‘house with corners’),17 to assume the airs of urbanity, engage in some form of minor commercial activity or more seriously committed agricultural pursuits and display greater loyalty to the affairs of the mosque. The

16

Conversation with Ali Sani, Muswakini, 5 February 1998. Claudia Zaslavsky, Africa Counts: Number and Pattern in African Culture (New York: Lawrence Hill Books, 1973), 163. 17

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second group is often referred to disparagingly by the first and on one occasion Mzee Bobitu Kololo was derogatorily dismissed as a ‘Bajun’, as having crossed from bush to village to such a degree that he had abdicated his identity as ‘one of the bush’, and ceased to be a Boni. Just as the wilderness lies at the edge of the Boni psyche and informs their identity even in the settled village environment that is their more normal sphere of activity, so in the realm of religious activity: it is the religious experience and practice of the bush that boils below the surface of their assumed Islamic identity. The horrop tree casts its shadow over the mosque. Although the Boni population in Bargoni is sedentary and practises agriculture with mixed results in the fields surrounding the village, although a number of the homes were built some thirty years ago and despite their decrepitude nevertheless have assumed an air of permanence, still there is the memory of the journey through the bush that brought them to this locale, names of settlements that preceded Bargoni and no longer exist, trip off the tongue.18 Although the call to prayer resonates around the village five times a day and Islamic feasts punctuate the cycle of the year, all this is part of the settled environment that the Boni feel they do not belong to. Rather, it is the secrets of the bush—the place where the ancestors live,19 where prayers for the Boni community are offered, where trees and shrubs are imbued with the essence of those who have died20 and the wood and bark of other trees can be fashioned to become the voice of spirits21—this is the real world that constitutes the backdrop against which the Boni live out their lives.22 In common with pilgrim sites that feature in the religious life 18

Elders informed me that the community that came to settle in Bargoni originally inhabited a village called Musumarini, situated in the bush between presentday Bargoni and Hindi (before there was any road through the bush connecting these two settlements). From there they moved to a site called Magarini, near the dam on the ‘Livestock’ compound. Finally, the community moved to the present site of Bargoni village (elders, Bargoni, 4 October 1997). 19 See ‘Ancestors’, page 111 of this work. 20 See page 113 of this work. 21 See ‘Ithai’, page 119f of this work. 22 Eddie Mungai, independently and over many years, has arrived at the same conclusion: “While outwardly and superficially the Boni are Muslims, this is the face that meets the outside world. However, there is an inner core that contains Boni religion, culture and ritual which they jealously guard and protect. This is their essential identity. The Boni may come across as shy and reserved since this inner dimension is not something they share with outsiders. It is their secret, theirs alone. It is who they are.” Eddie Mungai, Lamu, 4 February 1998.

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of other peoples, the bush constitutes a ‘given’, an absolute reality and touchstone to which the Boni can refer for answers concerning their origins and destinies.23 Indeed, the more the encroachments of modern life impinge upon the Boni community, the more there develops a nostalgia for the past and the place of the bush in it.24 There is a sense that the process of villagisation has served to intensify and exaggerate the religious and sacred character of the bush, that the inroads forged by other ethnic communities into the forest area that has long been the sole abode of the Boni has led to a process of mythicisation as the Boni grapple with their own identity. Here myth is understood in the sense used by Jonathan Smith as a “strategy for dealing with a situation”25 and, as such, is “a story concocted and told to deal with a situation at hand. It bears the tradition, but not so much a record of pristine truth or otherness revealed as the embodiment of a practical strategy for dealing with a situation.”26 Whereas, in the not too distant past, the bush was the place where the cycle of daily survival was played out, where food was obtained and the other necessities of life sought—where the religious sphere was one dimension of the whole—now, with their retreat from that environment, the bush has seen its sacred character flourish as it becomes more peripheral and distanced from the daily life of the average inhabitant of Bargoni. However, to talk of the ‘traditional religion’ of the Boni in terms of a static entity would be misleading, since all evidence would point to an ongoing process of eclectic appropriation of a variety of influences from neighbouring communities. This dynamic allows the Boni to 23 David Parkin, Sacred Void: Spatial Images of Work and Ritual Among the Giriama of Kenya (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 5. 24 “In the past prayers were conducted around the horrop—the Boni preferred the bush for prayers rather than the village. The Boni went into the bush with their bows and arrows to go hunting. They ate meat, they were not farmers. They ate tielle [and other fruit of the bush]. They enjoyed good health and strength, more so than people of today who only eat Kimbo [a manufactured cooking fat].”—Ali Sani, Muswakini, 3 December 1997. 25 Jonathan Z. Smith, Imagining Religion: From Babylon to Jonestown (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1982) xiii where he adopts K.V. Burke’s definition of a proverb [K. Burke, The Philosophy of Literary Form, rev. ed. (New York, 1957) 256] and applies it to the role played by myths in any given society. 26 Sam Gill, ‘No Place to Stand: Jonathan Z. Smith as Homo Ludens, The Academic Study of Religion Sub Specie Ludi’, Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 66.2, 1998, 293–4.

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continually renew their religious practices in the light of the contemporary situation. To paraphrase Parkin, the bush is a “spatial text [that], having been wiped clean, is rewritten to include earlier lines but also at least a few innovative ones.”27 Thus, much that passes as ‘traditional’ in Boni parlance might be of only recent assimilation but it reflects a deep resonance with who the Boni perceive themselves to be at that particular moment. Indeed, much that the Boni profess to be of their essence is, in fact, infused with Islamic sentiment while Muslim rites are informed and percolated by elements of the pre-Islamic past. The Boni word for ‘God’ is a case in point. Enquiries solicited the assertion that the Boni had always known of a high, albeit distant, God whom, they insisted was called ‘Al ’ and who was addressed as ‘Alue’—all clearly revealing the influence of Islam. Nowhere was evidence found to support Stiles’s assertion that ‘Waq’, the Orma word for God, was used by both the Boni and their neighbours, the Sanye, in the past.28 As was suggested in chapter 1, there is no point in seeking to discern or artificially construct an overarching cosmology that will encompass all aspects of Boni religious thought, as Ogotemmeli did for the Dogon. Instead, as the horrop rite demonstrates, each such occasion affords the opportunity for re-negotiation—the example of Bobitu’s prayer before the tree clearly reveals his attempt to Islamise the action and remove any hint of idolatry from the proceedings— and the Boni can be understood in the biblical metaphor of the householder ‘which bringeth forth out of his treasure things new and old’ (Matthew 13:52). The only model proffered that might be loosely construed as a cosmology was one put forward by Ali Sani which described the world as divided into three distinct zones: the air, the earth, and the area under the earth. These in turn, he argued, were the domain of spirits ( pepo and jinn), human beings, and ancestors, respectively. However, with the influx of cosmologies from the Swahili-dominated coast and the Somali-controlled hinterland in recent years, one can question how far this model reflects a long standing tradition amongst the Boni. Rather, an examination of the work of the mganga, Ali Sani (see chapter 6), reveals elements that have been reworked into the contemporary schema. Reflecting Topan’s rhetorical question,29 27 28 29

Parkin, Sacred, 9. Stiles, Hunters, 858. Topan, Pepo, 12.

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instead of asking how far has Islam accommodated ‘traditional’ elements of the Boni cosmology, perhaps it is more a question of how much of Islam has the latter accepted. As will be seen in chapter 6, Ali Sani sees the air as the medium of spirits of a distinctly Islamic variety but, even in the horrop tree rite, the evil that had beset Bargoni was transferred to the tree and thence dissipated on the wind. It was noted that the tree had to be downwind of the settlement to avoid the possibility of further contamination by the pernicious force. Whether spiritual entities existed in the realm above the earth is unclear but supernatural characteristics were attributed to those who regularly inhabited this sphere. Such an understanding is not rare in the study of religion in Africa and nearly 50 years ago Evans-Pritchard noted, in reference to the Nuer, “God being above, everything above is associated with him.”30 Birds, as travellers in the air, are imbued with spiritual significance and represent harbingers of good- and ill-fortune. Again, this reflects Nuer thought where “some birds are spoken about by Nuer as gaat kwoth [Children of God], especially those which fly high and seem, to us as well as to Nuer, to belong to heaven rather than to earth, and therefore to be children of light and symbols of the divine.”31 Owls (huhu in kiBoni), nightjars (bobochi in kiBoni) and other birds of the hours of darkness are particularly feared as agents of the shetani and are considered to bring physical and mental sickness to children if they alight on the roof of a house where a young child is resident. To avert such an eventuality many homes with infants erect a stick with a length of white cloth at the top near the house (see photo 5) and this is intended to flutter in the breeze and scare away the winged intruder. At night there is a rumbling sound and this is caused by the birdfriend of the shetani that takes the shadow from you when you move and this is dangerous. Children should not be outside at such times, they should be taken into their homes for protection. Many people put flags on the roofs of their houses to ensure that such birds do not land on them—the birds avoid such roofs. People might also use local medicine but if they do not know this then they use the flag. If the bird passes and smells the medicine then it goes away and does not land.

Despite the flag and buried medicine, Ali Sani’s son, a sickly boy of nearly two years, was said to have been a healthy infant until 30 31

Evans-Pritchard, Nuer, 3. Ibid., 3.

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Photo 5. Home sporting a white flag to keep malevolent spirits away from the house and the baby.

struck down by a huhu, “who steals the shadow of children,”32 and which condition manifested itself as kwashiorkor. Ali was using more medicine, contained in a pouch (halisi) draped around the boy’s neck, to ward off this evil. Those in the community who wish to express a more ‘orthodox’ Islamic approach to their problem might place texts from the Qur’an in the halisi or, in the case of Zuhura Bobitu, soak some Qur’anic verses in water and then give the child some of the liquid to drink.33 Another form of protection is to kill an owl (‘a bird with big eyes and a mouth like a human mouth’)34 and to place the bones in 32 33 34

Conversation with Ali Sani, Muswakini, 27 January 1998. Conversation with Zuhura Bobitu, Bargoni, 27 January 1998. Conversation with Ali Sani, Bargoni, 1 December 1997.

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pouches around the neck, arms or stomach of a child and this will offer protection against other birds of this kind and shetanis in general. The honeyguide bird is said not only to guide people to hives containing honey—it is asserted that one can summon such a bird and it will dutifully respond—but it is said to have another cry which announces an impending death in the community. The cry of an electric-blue bird of the starling family is said to announce the imminent arrival of visitors and, if it seeks to enter or settle in your home, to signal a blessing upon the people who live there. The nearby call of a woodpecker can also announce visitors but if someone is planning a safari and such a bird is heard crying on the person’s left then this augurs well for the journey, if it is heard on the right then this indicates misfortune. Bats are perceived as bringers of blessing and the sound of their high-pitched chatter in the house is interpreted as a sign that money is coming that way. Ali explained that the birds have special powers and knowledge but they cannot talk to humans directly although their signs and behaviour can be interpreted. “The birds are the friends of the wind and know the secrets of the shetani.”35 The particular relationship of the Boni community with birds appears to be long established. Bobitu Kololo described how a farmer working in a field would often take along a small bowl with him in which he would place water for the birds to drink and that this would ensure the person would receive a blessing (Bobitu, in keeping with his Islamic persona ascribed the blessing as coming from God, adding that helping birds in this way is commendable). However, it would seem that such a view pre-dates the arrival of Islam and an Orma inhabitant of Bargoni described a woman known as a Waqdokolier in traditional Orma society who “knew the way shetani move and act and the language of birds. . . . The old woman would explain the sound of the birds and, other than believing in Waq [the Orma high God] the people will also have faith in the power of the old woman to interpret the sound of animals.”36 While the air is currently understood to be the domain of pepo and shetani spirits, which are clearly a Swahili import, the bush and the area under the earth are spheres in which spiritual entities of a pre-Islamic kind hold sway. According to the image presented, the 35 36

Ibid. Conversation with Madobe Khalif, Bargoni, 1 December 1997.

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Boni traditionally viewed the world as constituting a huge saucer with the sky above and this form was supported on the back of four fabulous beasts that supported it at the four cardinal points: pembe pembe pembe pembe

ya ya ya ya

kibula (north)—on the horns of a giant cow lakwawa (east)—on the dorsal fin of a giant fish shanga (south)—on the horns of a giant cow lakutwa (west)—on the dorsal fin of a giant fish

No explanation for these animals was available and while Prins, in the light of his article on a Boni headrest,37 might be expected to deduce that the presence of the cows pointed to a pastoralist past, fish were anathema to the Boni and had no place in their diet until recent times. Indeed, a number of the Boni residents of Bargoni asserted that their community was part of a wider Katwa confederacy and the words that Allen puts on Aweer [Boni] lips, that the Boni are ‘the same as’ the Katwa, were heard repeated in Bargoni.38 The Katwa are understood by students of the Swahili coast to be a pastoralist people who were assimilated into the Bajun and who still reflect pastoralist/Cushitic characteristics whereby, for example, “many still refuse to eat fish (a common pastoralist trait) in spite of the hardship which this entails now that most of them live where meat is often unobtainable.”39 Mzee Bobitu Kololo described this relationship as follows: When the all people came from Shungwaya, one group settled separately and they ate a type of fish called ‘Bora’ which is poisonous. When they ate this many died and so the rest said, ‘Tunakatwa’— these are the Wakatwa, those that refused. In this way the Bonis and their brothers argued where to settle—on the islands or on the mainland. They argued and one of them said, ‘If I go to the islands, what shall I eat?’ Some said that if they went to the islands then they would have to eat fish again. The others said that it was best to remain on the mainland—these were the Aweer.40 So some went to the islands and others to the mainland.41

37

A.H.J. Prins, ‘A Carved Headrest of the Cushitic Boni: An Attempted Interpretation’, Man, November–December 1965, 189–191. 38 Allen, Swahili, 106. 39 Ibid., 105. 40 The appellation, which the Boni formerly applied to themselves, was not used during the period that fieldwork was being conducted in Bargoni. All Aweer/Boni referred to themselves as Boni. 41 Conversation with Mzee Bobitu Kololo, Bargoni, 27 May 1998.

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Ancestors It has already been stated that the Boni are considerably indebted to the Orma for cultural features that they have now made their own, and the religious significance attached to certain trees is a case in point. Writing before the First World War, Alice Werner asserts that the Orma, at the time she was observing them and hence prior to their universal conversion to Islam in the 1920s and 1930s,42 attached great religious significance to certain trees, such as the baobab and the wild fig, and that sacrifices and other religious practices were associated with them: Traces of a very interesting tree cult are apparent. The baobab ( yak) is especially honoured; every month milk is poured out at the roots and a white thread tied to the trunk (or branches?). Every year a black sheep is sacrificed to it. The wild fig-tree (oda, Swahili mkuyu) is also held in honour but I could not hear of any sacrifices being made to it. Krapf says that in Abyssinia prayers and sacrifices are offered under it—apparently to Waq, but ‘a spirit of a high order’ is believed to be immanent in the tree itself. Bruce says that ‘the wanzey (wanza) tree . . . is avowedly worshipped as a god.’ Another tree which of old received, as the Swahili say, heshima is one called in Galla madier, of whose wood spear-shafts are made.43

However, her claim that “ancestor-worship, so far as it can be said to exist at all, seems to be confined to sacrifices . . . partaken of by mourners, at the funeral and a year after,”44 is at variance with the Boni experience as revealed in the rite around the horrop. In the latter case, recourse is made without reference to the death of the individual, nor is a particular ancestor identified. Rather it is the corporate body of deceased that is appealed to. The context in which prayers and sacrifices are offered is one that sees the well-being of the community under threat: in the case described at the beginning of this chapter it was the El Niño rains and concomitant afflictions that had precipitated the appeal. The previous occasion (March 1997) sought to address an outbreak of gastric infection in the village. Rather than seeking to placate the spirit of a deceased and thus avoid the ill-effects that might accompany neglect, which is the nature

42 43 44

Ensminer, Making, 34. Alice Werner, Galla, 286. Ibid., 285.

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of the prayers and sacrifices that Werner refers to amongst the Orma, the Boni rites seek to induce the assistance of the company of ancestors in combating the evil that has befallen the human community. A fundamental relationship involved in the horrop tree rite is that between the living community and the ancestors. ‘Ancestors’ in the context of the horrop tree can be understood in two, not mutually exclusive, senses. On the one hand ‘father of our fathers’ can refer to the primal ancestor of the Boni people who is equated with the horrop tree. Ali Sani described such a myth thus: The first Boni came from the top of a tree, he was found on the top of the horrop . . . and was taken to the village where he was given the name ‘Boni’. He was called Boni because he was known to worship the horrop tree . . . Even if he goes elsewhere, once he sees the horrop he will worship it [kuabudu—kiSwahili]. Even if he goes into the mosque, he will still worship the horrop. It is a holy tree since the Boni came from the top of the horrop; the horrop is our father and the first Boni came from the horrop.45

On the other hand, the horrop is the place to encounter the deceased human ancestors of the Boni community and although it was said by a more fervent Boni Muslim that there was no concept of an afterlife in the traditional beliefs of his community (“When they were dead, they were dead completely”),46 this was patently not so. Another informant maintained that a dead person remained behind and was able to see what was going on in his family and clan and was able to communicate advice or admonishment in dreams. However, they were not able to involve themselves directly in human affairs but could intercede on behalf of the human community with the high God. Salkeld, writing nearly one hundred years ago, notes: “when a Boni dies he is buried on his side as he sleeps, his head to the north, his bow, arrows, and spear are buried with him, but economy decides that the iron heads of his arrows and spear should be kept by his relatives.”47 The care obviously taken and the provision of the essential accoutrements of a mature Boni-man’s life evidently point to a belief that he will require such equipment in the afterlife. Likewise, Prins records the planting of sticks to mark the grave of a deceased Boni but fails to explore the significance of this while choosing, 45 46 47

Conversation with Ali Sani, Muswakini, 5 February 1998. Conversation with Ali Gubo, Bargoni, 28 January 1998. Salkeld, Notes, 169.

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instead, to comment on the lack of stone to designate a grave-site in this sandy environment.48 Yet it is this former feature that is of prominence. Even today, when a man dies, branches from the wahari tree are positioned at the head and foot of the grave, in the hope that they will not only mark the grave but, more importantly, take root and grow (this tree is able to reproduce through fragmentation).49 Indeed, walking in the bush with an elder can reveal the presence of pairs of wahari, six feet or so apart, that mark the burial sites of waBoni of the past. Not only do they mark the site, but the trees themselves are imbued with the spirit of that ancestor who lies there. The dead were laid in the earth at their burial but their spirit gives life to the dead branches that mark the grave and infuse the growing tree with the spirit of the deceased. This regenerative dimension explains the fact that the wahari is frequently associated, although not exclusively so, with women and their religious activities; women conduct their prayer gatherings around the wahari where, I was informed, issues such as infertility and infant disease and mortality were frequently addressed. In the traditional divinatory technique known as fal (examined in chapter 6), the rope used is run through the female diviner’s hands, which grasp the crushed leaves from a wahari tree. In such a case, the spiritual power of the deceased is transferred, via the leaves of the wahari, to the cord that is used as part of the divination. The horrop, on the other hand, is the tree par excellence for prayers of the men either as individuals or, as in the case that opened this study, of the community. The horrop encapsulates the spirits of the ancestors of that area as a community and it is to this community of ancestors that the living Boni traditionally turn in their time of need. As Ali Sani explained in reference to the sprinkling of buni at the base of the horrop:

48

Prins, Didemic, 175. As an aside to her writings on Orma funeral rites, Warner noted that the waSanye planted the gars tree (the horrop) on graves, and records seeing “a Sanye grave at Arabuko which had a tree of this kind growing on it.” [Alice Werner, ‘The Galla of the East African Protectorate’, Journal of the African Society xiii.L, January 1914, 284). She noted that Krapf described the Abyssinian Galla as planting aloes on graves and this the Boni call Balambale and also infuse with great religious significance. So here, in other cultural settings, we see the religious importance of two of the three trees that the Boni consider to be imbued with religious significance. 49

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chapter four The horrop has its rights, it takes and chews the buni. It is a sacrifice, this is what the ancestors did and we do the same. The ancestors are mentioned by name and asked to take the buni that is placed at the foot of the horrop. The buni is the food of the ancestors under the horrop. Without buni they will not listen to your prayers. This is a kind of payment, a salary paid to the horrop. You say to the horrop, ‘Make yourself happy today!’50

Indeed, the interrelatedness is apparent in the requirement that the prayers are attended by a person whose line has a long association with the area, and who can thus be relied upon to have ancestors at the horrop tree when rites are performed there. As Mzee Bobitu Kololo explained, with the endorsement of a gathering of elders: A man goes to the horrop and prays, “Parents, grandparents, great grandparents: I have been born here, this area is mine, listen to my prayer and help me with my problem.” . . . So you remember the ancestors that used to live here and pray under the horrop, you don’t go alone, you have to mention the ancestors, mention their names, those who used to live here before. You have to do this before you do anything else. Alone you can do nothing unless you mention the names of the ancestors and then they will bless you.51

In times of particular need, a person who had emigrated might be summoned to his original home to attend horrop tree prayers where his voice might be expected to carry weight with the ancestor spirits who are perceived as still residing there. If you go to a certain place where you want to pray and you recall that some named ancestors lived there then you have to use their names. The present descendants have to be there to pray to these ancestors. If you are a Boni and are living in an area where the Sanye used to live then you have to summon some of the Sanye to pray for you—you might have to find relatives of the ancestors in Mokowe, Hindi, and other places. They are called to pray in the area where their ancestors used to live.52

Thus the naming of ancestors as a prelude to private or more informal prayers was said to be important, just as wahari trees serve not just to mark a grave but to recall the name of the deceased member of the community. These spiritual entities are not mere anonymous 50

Conversation with Ali Sani, Muswakini, 18 December 1997. Comment by Mzee Bobitu Kololo, on the compound of Mzee Mocho Divo, Muswakini, 1 February 1998. 52 Ibid. 51

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forces but explicitly named ancestors, related to the area and to the members of the community gathered for ritual activity. The relationship of an individual to the ancestors of that locale is illustrated by the rite accompanying the birth of a child to a mother who married into a section from outside that area. When such a child is born, an old woman of the area pours sand from the ground over the infant’s head and body, saying, “My child, do not cry, this is your land now, this is where you belong.”53 How this is actually effected is not clear and, as the description of the horrop tree rite illustrated, even the addressee is not consistent: prayers are directed to i) the ancestors, ii) the horrop tree itself, and iii) the Islamic God whereby the horrop tree is merely located as a traditional site for prayer. When asked if it is the horrop that hears the prayers and how, Ali Sani, who officiated at the rite, laughed off the question: I don’t know. I don’t know who is inside the horrop. I don’t know if the horrop takes it up or what happens. But you will certainly get what you want. You will still get what you want because we believe in that tree. You see that: We believe in that tree. Because it has been happening since long ago. This is our secret!54

All he could say was that one made one’s petitions at the tree and they were answered: We talk to the horrop. You tell it all that you need, just as I am talking to you now. You tell the horrop: I want this and that, that sickness is too much or other things, that you want to get this and that. And the horrop hears . . . it is trusted completely.55

Ali Sani can comfortably pronounce that the horrop is a holy tree, . . . we worship [kuabudu—kiSwahili] the horrop because we are following the old culture and traditions. We have not left it. Even if someone goes to the mosque, he still has to worship the horrop! It is a holy tree and it has to be highly respected.56

Indeed, such is the power of the horrop tree that it is considered also to be the locus for prayers offered by animals. Mzee Bobitu Kololo asserted that elephants walk round and round the horrop when preparing 53 54 55 56

Conversation with Ali Sani, Muswakini, 28 March 1998. Conversation with Ali Sani, Muswakini, 5 February 1998. Ibid. Ibid.

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to move or ‘undertake change in their lives’57 and their low rumbling voices were understood to be the prayers being offered on such occasions. Lions, on the other hand, while renowned for their religiosity, prefer another Boni holy tree for their prayers, the balambale. Their footprints are frequently seen in the vicinity of this tree and they are said to arrange tufts of grass and to jump over them from the four cardinal points as part of their ritual activity. Traditionally, wood from the horrop was used in a number of important ways in a village setting, for example to fashion the traditional chair and headrest of the kijoo lub, associating him with the line and wisdom of the ancestors. It was the standard wood for making the mortar and pestle used to pound the fruits of the tielle to make flour. Today no religious significance is attached to this choice of wood, although it is difficult not to discern the perceived involvement of the ancestors in this life-sustaining activity, preparing the staple food necessary to perpetuate the human community. This regenerative dimension is clearly apparent in the role it played in the traditional marriage rites of the Boni. According to the elders of Bargoni, there were two forms of marriage in the pre-Islamic era, or two variations of the one institution. One involved the careful arrangement between the two families involved and the other featured the young couple opting to elope and sort out the ramifications later. In the case of the former, the young man would inform his father of the young woman who had caught his eye and the onus would then be on his father to negotiate with the girl’s father, initially on his own but later with other members of his family, and an amicable agreement would be reached. Attention would be focused on the quality of the boy’s parents and whether he displayed heshima—respect, dignity and integrity, the quality of one not given to shouting or using bad language. In the past a young man would marry outside his family but within his section (Islam’s condoning of marriage between close relatives is something that the Boni do not find easy to accept but it is tolerated). Once the union was agreed, construction of a marriage hut would commence within the community. This would be a simple grass structure but would feature a central horrop pole supporting the roof, with another length of this wood serving as the threshold.

57

Conversation with Mzee Bobitu Kololo, Bargoni, 17 March 1998.

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The girl, adorned in her finery, would then be escorted by her women relations, with much singing and dancing, to the hut and, near the door, an older woman would admonish the girl on the duties of a good wife and the need to respect her husband. The young bride would then be prayed over and blessed by the women after which she would leap over the length of horrop and enter the hut. The arrival of the groom followed much the same pattern, with his age-mates and a few senior men accompanying him with song and dance; again, there would be a suitable exhortation, prayers and blessing near the door of the hut by one of the elders after which the groom would cross the horrop wood and enter the marriage chamber. Once the bride and groom were safely ensconced in the privacy of their dwelling, the rest of the community would feast and dance some distance away. As for elopement, if a young man stole a girl and went off into the bush or to another village, eventually they would have to return and settle matters with the parents of the girl. Firstly, word would be sent to the girl’s parents to alert them so that they could build a marriage hut. Then, the young couple would be expected to buy a cow and, driving this before them as a form of recompense and peace offering, they would visit the home of the girl’s parents, together with the young man’s father and other male members of his family. The fact that the Boni are not pastoralists, although Prins questions whether they were in the past58 and this description would appear to lend credence to his assertion, meant that such an animal would have to be obtained from Orma or Somali sources. The kijoo lub, the senior elder of the village, would then sit with the parties and agree an appropriate fine before making formal arrangements for a wedding proper. Then the cow would be slaughtered and eaten by all those present. The bride and groom would then go to the wedding hut, leap over the horrop branch at the threshold and enter—they were now married. In the past polygamy was widely practised and did not suffer under the constraints imposed by Islam which limits the number of wives to four. Divorce was known but, like Harvey’s informants in Pandanguo,59 the residents of Bargoni also asserted that this was not as common as presently found in the community. 58 59

Prins, Didemic, 175, and also Prins, Carved, 189–191. Harvey, Hunting, 178.

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Ali Sani was insistent on the centrality of the horrop in the indissolubility of the marriage: [The horrop] is more important than anything else. During the wedding ceremony, when the woman crossed the horrop at the threshold, then she was your wife completely. Even if you later separate, she is still your wife. And if she has children from another man, the children are yours! The marriage of the horrop is very powerful, very powerful indeed. You can’t erase it. It is not like paint which you can apply and then remove. Horrop cannot be removed, it stays! 60

The central feature of the marriage rite, the element that gave it legitimacy and made it binding, was leaping over the horrop branch. Since the horrop is the place of abode of the ancestors of the community, this rite served to cement and bless the union in the light of the ancestors. Also, it represents the coming into the human community of the forces of the bush. The horrop is a tree of the bush, the place where the ancestors are to be found and communicated with, and bringing the branch into the hut of the newly-weds is a clear assertion of the needs of the human community, and the reproducing of the human community, for the blessing of the spiritual entities of the bush. The life-sustaining quality of the horrop is also apparent in connection with its role in prayers and ritual activity associated with hunting. In a life traditionally given over to the vagaries of the hunt, an adult man’s existence would be punctuated by recourse to the horrop and the benediction of the ancestors in his efforts to secure success in the chase. After initiation, a young man would be expected to undertake his first ‘serious’ kill such as an elephant, buffalo or lion (as opposed to the small game of his youth). After succeeding in this, he would be joined by his obaa61 who would proceed to cut the tail and an ear off this animal, threading the latter onto the former. The newly initiated would then take this to the horrop where he would cut the tail and ear into pieces, leaving it there without looking back as he walked away. Returning to the village would occasion great rejoicing and he would be liberally anointed with coconut oil. Now the initiand had proved himself a man and was eligible for marriage,

60 61

Conversation with Ali Sani, Muswakini, 5 February 1998. His age-set guardian—see details of Boni age-sets later in this chapter.

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since “a girl can have no respect for a man when the only blood he has shed has been that of his mother!”62 Later in life, lack of success might necessitate his placing his arrows, bow and quiver at the base of the horrop and, after lighting a fire and adding balambale wood by way of incense, praying for more propitious times before continuing into the bush in search of quarry. On other occasions it might be the womenfolk who would be enjoined to offer prayers, but they would retire to the wahari tree where they would remove leaves and, placing these on their heads, circle the tree three times in an anticlockwise direction (so that their left arms are nearest to the tree) before returning to the settlement carrying the leaves ‘like meat’63 on their heads. Ithai The prayers around the horrop tree, while restricted to the members of the Boni community in Bargoni, constituted an open rite in as much as non-Boni residents were aware of its enactment and the reason behind the ritual was understood to be the profusion of rain. However, there are other spiritual entities linked with the bush and the forest environment that are shrouded in secrecy—the mysterious world of the ithai. Early in the period of fieldwork it was said that the ithai “were the spirits of the past and were similar in character to the pepo spirits among the Swahili. Sometimes, when you were walking in the bush, you would hear beautiful singing but when you went to investigate the source you found nothing—this would be a case of the activity of the ithai.”64 Indeed, initial references to these entities were couched in terms suggesting that their memory was but a figment of the Boni past no longer affecting the Islamic milieu to which the community belonged—“We became Muslims, these are things of the past.”65 At other times, tentative enquiry met with a blanket of secrecy and the pronouncement that There is no one who can tell you about this. Outsiders cannot know what is revealed at the moro, it is the final secret of the Boni . . . You

62 63 64 65

Conversation Conversation Conversation Conversation

with with with with

some elders, Muswakini, 6 February 1998. Ali Sani, Muswakini, 4 March 1998. Mzee Bobitu Kololo, Bargoni, 15 October 1997. some elders, Muswakini, 6 February 1998.

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chapter four can harm yourself with this knowledge. You can die. This is no joke! Even if you were to pay one million shillings, no one would tell you about this secret . . . Don’t disturb yourself with this.66

This illusion of impenetrability was dispelled when, towards the end of my period of fieldwork, I was allowed a cursory dip into the ithai phenomenon on condition that my informants retained their anonymity. I can but pay tribute to the trust that these junior elders placed in me and acknowledge the barriers that they were prepared to overcome in order to impart their knowledge. Trips deep into the bush were required to avoid discovery or the danger of our being overheard, which would result in ostracism. The fear of my informants that the spirits might consider them to be meddling in secrets attested to the bravery and integrity of these friends. What follows is a far from complete picture of the ithai phenomenon. Exposure coincided with the last few weeks of my stay in Bargoni, and my informants refused to countenance any discussion in the settlement. Time spent in the bush was necessarily limited because of the emotional strain that this process engendered in my informants. This is certainly an area of Boni religious activity that could profitably be explored in more detail in the future. Leaving aside the Islamic gloss that Mzee Bobitu Kololo endeavoured to bring to bear on the horrop tree rite, it is clear that the spiritual entities involved in that ritual are understood to be the ancestors of the community: either the collective body of the deceased or else the primal ancestor who begot the Boni people at the top of the horrop tree. It is to these ancestors, variously comprehended and often coextensive, that prayers are addressed and to whom recourse is made. Ithai, on the other hand, have a different origin and are said to be the original inhabitants of the world—ugly, dangerous creatures who ate human beings. Finally, the human community had had enough and went hunting for the ithai in the bush and, when they cornered them, slaughtered them with pangas and caused the creatures’ blood to splash onto the nearby trees. With this blood went the spirit of the ithai—‘the ithai jumped into the trees’67—so these same varieties of trees are now employed in rituals pertaining to ithai. “So that is why people use these trees, because of the blood of the ithai, it reacts the same as it was before.”68 66 67 68

Conversation with Mzee Mocho Divo, Muswakini, 1 February 1998. Anonymous, bush outside Bargoni, 20 May 1998. Ibid.

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There are nine ithai arranged in a strict hierarchy, with Hongaa as the most junior up to the most powerful and feared Hartawini. Two basic models are followed in the fabrication of the ithai—that of the bullroarer69 and the flute/panpipes. The major difference between the ithai that belong in the same grouping would be the size of the instrument (which, in turn, determines the sound produced, the ‘voice’) and the material used in its construction. The following table serves to detail these variables.

Ithai

Model

Material

Dimensions

Hongaa

Flute

Wahari, tomor, balambale, bilang, shongor or mlenge

3cm (long) × 1.5cm (diameter)

Mchocho

Flute

Wahari, tomor, balambale, bilang, shongor or mlenge

5cm (long) × 1.5cm (diameter)

Forfori

Flute*

Mlenge or Balambale

40cm (long) × 2cm (diameter)

Gare

Bullroarer

Tinith or Balambale

15cm (long) × 5cm (wide) × 4cm (thick)

Yei

Bullroarer

Kikonyi or Makulatorche

10cm (long) × 7cm (wide) × 2cm (thick)

Enkishaa

Flute** Darap

100cm (long) × 8cm (diameter)

Gunyigunyi Bullroarer

Enyima Orthei

30cm (long) × 20cm (wide) × 4cm (thick)

Hartachief Bullroarer

Howocho

70cm (long) × 30cm (wide), 4cm (thick)

Hartawini Bullroarer

Howocho

70cm (long) × 50cm (wide), 4cm (thick)

* The ithai forfori consists of two tubes bound parallel with each other and trimmed so as to sound in harmony with each other. ** Enkishaa is so large that it cannot be handheld and has to be mounted on two forked sticks planted in the ground.

69 Extensive writings exist on the subject of such instruments going back to the earliest days of the comparative study of religion. Alan Dundes, in ‘A Psychoanalytic Study of the Bullroarer’ (Man, new series, 11.2, 1976, 220–238), gives a good historical overview and his bibliography lists many of the works on this object of enquiry. Taking a Freudian position, his argument challenges the phallic interpretation of the bullroarer in favour of what he terms the ‘anal erotic element’ (230).

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The bullroarers are of a diamond shape and are fabricated from the wood beneath the bark of the particular tree. Normally a slab of such material would be removed from the trunk of the tree using a panga and subsequently trimmed to the required shape. A hole is drilled at the top point of the bullroarer and fibrous twine attaches the instrument to a handle derived from the long’i shrub. The instrument is spun around the head to produce its characteristic ‘voice’ of the individual ithai. The flutes, on the other hand, are formed from the outer bark that is carefully removed from the wood beneath. An incision is made around the circumference of the branch and another further along the branch and corresponding to the desired length of the instrument. These are joined by a cut extending along the branch which is then beaten so as to detach the bark from the tissue beneath. Through gently bending the branch and peeling back the bark, the outer layer of the branch is removed. The flutes are made airtight along their length by tightly binding the tube with fibrous twine. The operator blows over one end, which is cut at a right-angle while the exit hole is trimmed to assume a forty-five degree angle. Each ithai is said to have its own characteristics. Forfori, for example, is said to have healing properties such that a sick person can be sat before this ithai and prayers expressed through the warbling duet of this instrument will effect a cure. The saliva that dribbles out is particularly powerful in this regard. It is difficult to speak authoritatively of ithai rituals and their place in Boni society when their contemporary existence is only obliquely referred to and efforts are made to divert the researcher from the scent. However, a number of features emerge from the data collected. Firstly, ithai are potentially dangerous. This point is initially brought out in the myth surrounding their origin but even in their fabrication it was clearly necessary to perform rituals to ensure that the ire of these entities was not directed at the operator or his companions and their power harnessed for use by the human community. The rituals involved varied in complexity depending on the perceived power and strength of the ithai involved. At one extreme there might be a perfunctory offering at the beginning of the session—for example, prior to obtaining the wood for making one of the junior ithai, soil is taken up from near the base of the trunk and thrown against the trunk three times. Upon completion of the rite, and by way of thanks and appreciation, the operator took a thurible with burning

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charcoal to the tree from which the wood had been removed and, adding incense, rotated the thurible three times around the trunk in an anti-clockwise direction before setting it down before the tree. Grains of incense were then scattered to the four cardinal points before burying the bullroarer and other paraphernalia and taking leave of the site. This would have the effect of insulating the power of the ithai so that it would not harm the operators. A similar concept is apparent in Ali Sani’s fabrication of medicine recorded on page 231f. The more powerful ithai required more elaborate preparations to safeguard the participants. One encampment in the bush that was arranged for addressing the ithai question saw four arrows set, at the four cardinal points, against the wahari 70 tree that stood at the centre of the space, with their points upward. Then the participants took some tobacco leaves into their mouths and, after chewing, spat juices against the trunk of the tree after each ejaculation, praying: We don’t want to be harmed. We want peace. We don’t want sickness but we want happiness. From time to time people have used you to protect themselves. This is a gift that we have brought you. A sacrifice for you to hold so that we may not be ill or fall sick. That other people may not be harmed. That we may not be harmed so that we may continue well and finish well.71

Flakes of tobacco were scattered at the base of the tree and it was reported that, in the past, fermented honey beer (boki ) would also, and preferably, be offered in this manner. It was explained that while the tobacco was an offering (ada) to appease the ithai, the arrows (and the virulent poison that the Boni use to coat them)72 were there for protection. The arrow is used “Because it is poison and also has a sharp point. This poison is very strong and it will attack the sickness that would otherwise attack us. It will take it away.”73 Similarly, the chippings and flakes left after making the ithai were carefully removed since their presence posed a risk to the participants in the ritual process. Abuse of the ithai wood, such as treading on it, would incur sickness and thus care was taken to remove splinters from where people were sitting. Even when the wood is being cut from the trees, prayers are said: “There are prayers that I may not 70 71 72 73

Anonymous elders, 4 May 1998. Ibid. Salkeld, Notes, 169. Anonymous elders, 4 May 1998.

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be injured. I mourn and then I remove [the wood]. Without mourning and taking this, if I just remove, right now I will have a fever and on reaching home I’m finished. Don’t think that this is a small matter. This is a very big thing in the world of the Boni.”74 Secondly, there is the question of the modus operandi of the ithai. Both the instrument and the sound it produces are variously referred to as ithai and it would seem that both are required to induce the trance-like state whereby the operator becomes possessed or taken by the ithai proper. The sound produced, accompanied in some cases by the hypnotic revolving of the instrument, leads the operator into a trance whereby his body is ‘possessed’ by the ithai—the answers that the operator provides to questions that others may pose are those of the ithai. Referring specifically to one of the ithai (but probably applicable to the others), it was reported, “Now, when you have got hold of Hongaa then your heart changes and all your thinking becomes that of Hongaa, and also that what you speak.”75 Experience of ithai reveals elements both of shamanism and possession according to the definitions put forward by Rouget.76 So, the operator can be taken by the spiritual entities to distant places to ‘see’ and obtain information that had occasioned recourse to ithai, for example the location of a lost individual or the health and wellbeing of a distant relative. On other occasions, the operator becomes possessed and acts as the medium for the ithai’s benediction on supplicants. A sick person might be seated in the midst of the operators of the flutes that make present the ithai Forfori. The saliva that would drip from the flutes onto the sick individual would contain the healing power of the ithai. Since knowledge of the ithai is limited to those men who have gone through the initiation camp (moro), women and children are shrouded in cloth when they are brought into the presence of the ithai for healing of one kind or another. Finally, ithai are inextricably involved in Boni age-sets. This feature of Boni society has only been hinted at in the past, with Harvey acknowledging that he was unclear “whether there are formal age grades among the Bonis as is so common among most East African 74

Anonymous elder, 12 April 1998. Ibid. 76 Gilbert Rouget, Music and Trance: A Theory of the Relations between Music and Possession (Chicago and London: Chicago University Press, 1985), 18–19. 75

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populations.”77 However, he suggests that Alice Werner’s assertion of three age-grades among the Sanye opens the field for a similar investigation of the Boni.78 It is apparent that the Boni also have three age-sets which are preceded by a stage of youthful ignorance. This latter is the period of the mchozi and is prior to initiation which takes place in late adolescence when a man begins the journey through the stages of goroba (young men), jajable (mature men) and kijoo (elders). It is suggested that the ithai loosely arrange themselves in a similar series of agesets, corresponding to their place in the hierarchy. Thus, more minor issues would be the concern of the ithai that are seen as corresponding to the goroba (Hongaa, Forfori, Mchocho), somewhat up the hierarchy would be the ithai corresponding with the jajable (Gare, Yei, Enkishaa), while major issues would be the preserve of Gunyigunyi, Hartachief and Hartawini—the feared and all-powerful patriarchs who would be addressed only by a gathering of the kijoo on issues that had a serious bearing on the community as a whole. Unlike the complicated gada system of the Orma, the time of transference from one age-set to the next appears to be determined by the pressure of numbers building up at the rear, which necessitates all taking one step forward. Initiation into the age-set system takes place in a special camp in the bush, away from the settlement. While Harvey refers to a “sort of bachelors club for young boys [where] all the unmarried boys slept and there was a chosen leader”79 it is unclear whether he is writing of the ritual encampment that the Boni call moro. The leader of this encampment is an elder called the kijoo moro who is a ritual expert in the community (there may be more than one but not usually exceeding two or three) against the kijoo lub who is understood to be the administrative figure in the settled community. Harvey’s account of the lub (who he transliterates as lubwa)80 would appear to apply to the senior age set, the kijoo, rather than the kijoo lub described here who is one of the elders but who assumes a special leadership role. Thus, there is the kijoo lub concerned with the affairs of the village and the kijoo moro whose responsibilities lie in the bush as the ritual leader of the moro. Both positions are assigned by a 77 78 79 80

Harvey, Hunting, 179. Ibid., 184. Ibid., 177. Ibid., 179–180.

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process of public acclaim with the person being accepted by the community for the role rather than any dependency on voting etc. He would be chosen on the grounds of the respect in which he is held by the community, his thorough knowledge of religious and related matters. Both these leadership positions are expected to be occupied by men of outstanding ‘purity’ and integrity, not given to violent outburst, lying or deceit. While the kijoo moro was the ritual leader, instruction of the mchozi rested with their immediate seniors—indeed, instruction prior to ageset advancement generally is in the hands of the immediate superiors—whose task it is to impart religious and cultural rules and regulations with the information often couched in songs that have to be learnt by heart.81 Learning respect was a frequently ascribed raison d’être for the moro phenomenon and discipline was strict, with unquestioning obedience being demanded. However, even more important is initiation into the secrets of the ithai with the initiands being introduced to the individual entities and sworn to secrecy. Much beating takes place (one informant showed scars supposedly inflicted during such initiation) as a means of instilling the fear necessary to safeguard this veiled world, as well as toughening up the young men so that they have the strength of character required to preserve this esoteric knowledge. Feats of physical endurance and performance were frequently required that were beyond the limitations of the mchozi and, to offset the punishment that failure would bring, a senior figure, called the obaa, would be assigned as intercessor on behalf of the mchozi. The obaa himself would frequently undertake the assignment given to the mchozi or else would plead for mitigation on their behalf when punishment was to be meted out. In this he endeared himself to the mchozi as well as fostering their indebtedness, and he assumed a father-like role in the group of initiands that continued for the rest of their lives. Indeed, it was said that the obaa usurped the position of the biological fathers of those being initiated. Respect and loyalty characterise the relationship between the mchozi—both individually and as a group—and their obaa, all of which engenders 81 I was repeatedly assured that a gathering of elders would be called to sing on my behalf so that I could record them. However, despite these assurances and my numerous promptings, such a gathering failed to take place. Whether this constituted a deliberate policy of delaying or merely a lack of organisation is not altogether clear. Further research in the more ‘traditional’ areas of Boniland, to the north and west of Bargoni, might afford the opportunity to collect details of these songs.

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esprit de corps which in turn reduces the risk of anyone revealing information that would be injurious to the group. The return of the initiands from the moro into normal village life is significant. Not only does it mark the successful completion of the liminal stage whereby a youth (mchozi ) left the community to return as an adult (goroba) with the right and duty to marry and beget children, engage in hunting and other ‘manly’ activities, but it is also imbued with spiritual benefits for the village community. An encounter with the ithai is potentially perilous and to have survived the brush is to have extracted a blessing from this erstwhile adversary. The new goroba enter the village with their heads shrouded in cloth and the women go out and anoint them with coconut oil on their forehead and chest after which their heads are shaved. Thus there is the bringing of benediction, accrued in the bush, into the settlement. Another means of bringing the healing properties of the ithai into the village—for the women and mchozi—is through the ‘Mate ya Ithai’ (‘The Spittle of the Ithai’). This is formed when the cortex immediately below the outer epidermis of the shongorori shrub is squeezed in water and the resultant liquid mixed with the viscous liquid made by crushing the leaves of the chope bush with those of the ororomochothie. After men have been dealing with ithai they return to the village with the ‘Mate ya Ithai’ which they use to anoint the women and children, tracing a line down the forehead, the nose, mouth and down the front of the throat. That the moro as an institution continues to this day is beyond doubt. “Anyone who has not passed through [the moro] is not normal, not a full Boni!”82 One such encampment was said to have taken place in Mararani just a few months before this assertion (February 1998). However, the form appears to have been severely abbreviated with the traditional one month period stipulated in the past reduced to a perfunctory day or two. Similarly, this feature was reported no longer to take place around Bargoni but was said to have retreated deeper into the forest area of the interior of Boniland where its covert nature could be safeguarded and where the cultural influence of the Swahili was less pernicious.

82

Comment by Mzee Mocho Dino, Muswakini, 6 February 1998.

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chapter four Boni Identity in the Bush

Both the ritual activities associated with the horrop and the ithai spirits that imbue other trees in the bush and forest serve to establish Boni identity. However, the picture is not homogeneous and, as has been suggested, each occasion affords the reflective participant the opportunity to renegotiate the unfolding events from the perspective of his perceived self-image. Examination of Bobitu Kololo’s role on 15 December 1997 is illustrative of the point being made. As a primary Islamic evangeliser of the Boni in the region, Bobitu is one of the most fervent champions of Islam, devoted not only to the prescribed prayers in the mosque but also to private prayer and Muslim practices that he happily assumes despite widespread apathy and disregard for them in the community at large. Yet, he readily acknowledges that one cannot abandon the tradition of one’s forefathers and hence enthusiastically attends the horrop tree rite although he is at pains to remove anything that might fly in the face of orthodox Islamic praxis. Thus, the possibility of intercessory spirits in the form of ancestors is something that he cannot countenance and therefore he re-interprets the horrop tree as being the traditional site where prayers were originally addressed to God. Similarly, there is no place in the new order of things for boke (fermented honey beer) which is replaced by buni and Islamic prayers are incorporated into the rite to underscore the current religious identity of the community. Yet the rite is also used as a political stage to draw attention to the perceived threat posed by outside influences intent on wresting self-determination and land out of the hands of the local community. According to Eddie Mungai,83 who has known Bobitu Kololo for a number of years, the latter gradually has become aware that the Islamic package that he accepted with such alacrity contains the seeds of Boni destruction. Bobitu is aware of the need to distinguish between the Islamic faith that he espouses and the Swahili proponents who seek to establish cultural/political/religious hegemony by a process of dominance and control. Thus he is eloquent in his joy that the incursion of Muslim missionaries into the area has allowed “the Boni to come to know fully the Islamic religion and to know

83

Private conversation, Lamu, 4 February 1998.

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God” but condemnatory of the perceived tactics employed by some to undermine Boni development: “The Boni have been tricked by the ‘Arabs’ so as to keep us down and that is still the position today.”84 The response to this is shrouded in paradoxes. Firstly, pre-Islamic religious practices are employed to bolster the Boni’s self-identity as ‘different’ to the interlopers and settlers that, in other areas of life, they seek so much to identify with. Just as, on the way to the horrop, a traditional grass-thatched beehive type of house had been constructed to offer respite from the El Niño rains, so too was traditional religious practice utilised to offset the encroachment of forces threatening to engulf the community and sweep away their way of life. While, as is suggested in Chapter 3, Islam originally afforded a means of circumventing structures that some (predominantly younger) members of the community perceived as inhibiting involvement in the nascent market economy, now, inextricably linked to Swahili-ization and oppression, it was seen as legitimising those parties that sought to usurp Boni custodianship of the forest and undermine their way of life. Bobitu’s allegorical speech (see page 97–98) is clearly intended to alert his listeners to the reality of the situation. He later explained that the demarcating of land, such as Abdi Maalim had achieved, was in clear contravention of a law, written and preserved on skin and still existing in Tundwa on Pate Island, attesting to the Bonis’ ownership of the land. Bobitu himself had been briefly detained and imprisoned when he sought to bar surveyors from undertaking their work when Abdi Maalim had, through processes Bobitu perceived to be corrupt, obtained the title deed for his expansive ranch.85 Now he was aware that the forces of the market economy, which he had helped to unleash, had taken root in the minds of his people and greed was rampant: “Provided they eat money, look after money, follow money [then they are happy].”86 Bobitu has no illusions that the Boni will experience disenfranchisement at the hands of the union between Abdi Maalim and the Mombasa-based businessman Tahir

84

Conversation with Mzee Bobitu Kololo, Bargoni, 15 October 1997. Indeed, Bobitu Kololo is frequently disparaged by the Maalim clan with Abdi Nassir saying, on one occasion, that ‘Mzee Bobitu is hated by many people!’ (Abdi Nassir, Bargoni, 15 September 1997), although later Abdi Khalif interpreted this assertion as meaning ‘he is hated by many people because he speaks the truth, he tells it as he sees it’ (Abdi Khalif, Bargoni, 19 September 1997). It is apparent that Bobitu’s integrity is a source of irritation to those who do not share his moral rectitude. 86 Conversation with Mzee Bobitu Kololo, Bargoni, 16 December 1997. 85

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Sheikh Said, with the latter rewarding Abdi Maalim with land in return for the former’s support in the general elections. As Bobitu Kololo explained of his speech: “We should know what is going to come after eating money, what is ahead of us. This is African planning—to have our land taken away from us!”87 Thus Boni identity and consciousness is asserted and reinforced through participation in a rite that clearly united the living Boni community with that of the ancestors. A second paradox is that the process of villagisation, which did so much to undermine the traditional semi-nomadic hunting and gathering lifestyle, is now the structure that serves to facilitate Boni resistance. Previously, relatively independent groups of Boni lacked the ability to co-ordinate resistance to outside influence and instead depended on the environment, in which they had developed a high level of adeptness, to dissuade pastoralists from entering in and, similarly, this familiarity with the terrain allowed them to avoid a relationship of subservience to the Swahili. However, such structures proved ill suited to oppose the concerted intrusion of colonial influence and the activity of shifta bandits. In place of isolated, politically uncentralised, bands scattered throughout the bush, large numbers of Boni now live together in settled communities where ideas are more easily shared and disseminated amongst a wider audience. The ability to call a gathering of Boni men, such as was witnessed around the horrop tree, would not have been possible in the past and thus the work of subjugating the interests of these loosely associated pockets of Boni population would have been far easier.88 The Boni population of Bargoni is composed of representatives of different sections of the community and therefore more narrow interests are transcended for the sake of the whole. The experience of villagisation and the shared background of internment in Mokowe during the shifta troubles exposed the population of this area to a level of urban sophistication and awareness of the ways of the world that put them in good stead to comprehend the moves that are now afoot.

87 Ibid. Thus one witnesses that, just as the Kikuyu were accused of grabbing the land of the Swahili in chapter 3, the Swahili are, in their turn, using similar tactics to appropriate to themselves the land of the Boni. 88 Heine, Language, names these different sections and ascribes them to clearly differentiated geographical areas. These names and locations were independently verified by Bobitu Kololo (Bargoni, 12 October 1997).

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Thus, one witnesses a concentration of power in the hands of traditional religious/political leaders that would not have been possible in the past and a comprehension and articulation of concerns and responses in the name of the whole Boni people. Villagisation has, therefore, given rise to a consolidation of religious and political power in the hands of the very elders who were to be marginalised by the process of modernisation. Another important element in the horrop tree ritual that consolidates Boni self-identity is the use of language. While all religious rites in the village setting follow Islamic practices and see prayers recited in Arabic, in the bush one witnesses a challenge to the hierarchy that accords higher status to ‘foreign’ languages—whether it be kiSwahili as the lingua franca of the ethnically heterogeneous Bargoni, or Arabic as the ritual language of the religious sphere. Language and religion are the two great symbolic constructs of a people, and both are under threat in the case of the Boni. As has been demonstrated, Islam is the religion perforce in the village environment and, as Heine89 illustrates, Boni multilingualism is giving rise to a situation where kiSwahili is becoming the language of choice for some of the Boni population in Bargoni at the expense of the native tongue. The horrop tree ritual is a clear affirmation of both religion and language as defining who the Boni are, as against the other ethnic communities in their midst. A similar political component can be discerned in regard to the ithai phenomenon. Secrecy was a repeated refrain in matters pertaining to ithai, this was something unique to the Boni community (although sometimes said to be shared with the Sanye and the Pokomo communities) and marked them out from their neighbours. The association of ithai with the moro and the age-set structure of Boni society attest to the importance of these spiritual entities in the very fabric of the community. However, one observes a dismissal of ithai among some of the elders who were responsible for the introduction of Islam into the area. Mocho Divo and Bobitu Kololo rejected their significance and, in an act of overt Swahili-isation, likened them to pepo spirits that are a nuisance at times but do not constitute anything of major import. Two reasons can be propounded to justify their stance. Firstly, their Islamic faith precludes belief in such entities that rightly belong

89

Heine, Language, 106–114.

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to a pagan past and are thus incompatible with their present religious position. Such a view is untenable in the light of Islamic practice along the East African coast, where there are numerous examples of pre-Islamic elements relating to spirits and ancestors being incorporated into the assumed Muslim schema. More likely is that the elders who dismiss the ithai are the very people who, as youths, rebelled against the age-set structures that pitted them against “the penetration of Western capitalism as an invasive and increasing dominant mode of production.”90 The ithai underpinned a social structure that they saw as oppressive, preventing them from benefiting from the lucrative prospects held out through involvement in the commercial activities that were penetrating the Boni forest. Money altered the “balance of power between younger men who can more easily acquire cash and older men who to that extent have lost control and respect.”91 The opting for business necessarily involved a rejection of tradition that subjugated the young entrepreneurs to the capricious authority of their elders whom they perceived as out of touch with the evolving reality on the ground. Thus one can see a tension between the voices of those who originally clamoured for change and who adopted the Islamic bandwagon as a means of achieving their liberation and independence and, on the other hand, the voice of tradition which sees the guardians of ritual activity as the custodians of Boni identity. The observation of such a phenomenon is not limited to the Boni in particular or conversions to Islam in general. Kirby, writing of Christian conversion in West Africa is able to say, A former generation would have never felt comfortable with giving such attention to traditional ways, for while they were unselfconsciously a part of these practices, they tried to repress them. The current generation no longer experiences the old life as a social and spiritual unity. However, many of the old problems and exigencies addressed by these systems still pertain. Although the problems are officially ignored by Christian structures, the people themselves are less rigid.92

90

Spencer, Pastoral, 48. Ibid., 48. 92 Jon Kirby, ‘Cultural Change and Religious Conversion’ in Thomas C. Blakely, Walter E.A. van Beek and Dennis L. Thomson (eds.), Religion in Africa: Experience and Expression (London: James Currey, 1994), 67. 91

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Such an observation can equally be applied to the Boni. Recent history reveals the oscillation in fortunes of these two camps and the horrop tree rite is itself another chapter. The horrop tree and the men who gathered there reasserted the centrality of such ritual activity to the Boni against individuals such as Bobitu Kololo and Mocho Divo who, as young men, had sought to undermine the religious/ social/political structures of the Boni community and to bring it within the orbit of Islam. Bobitu’s address to the assembly acknowledged the political centrality represented in the gathering and his very presence conceded that the question of Boni self-identity and the distinctiveness of the community against the Somali and other interlopers lay in the ritual relationship between the traditional religious/political leaders and the ancestors. It is as if, in trying to undermine the power and influence of the traditional patterns of leadership and to make his own voice representative of the Boni people as a whole, Bobitu had ultimately made the very group he was opposing more powerful while he now occupies a position on the fringes of political influence. Thus, in assuming the role of the herald of Islam and embodying in himself the prosperity, power and influence that such an association represented and was thought to accrue, Bobitu placed himself centre-stage and relegated to the sideline those who sought to preserve the structures that he had broken out of. Now, around the horrop tree, it is the voice of tradition—albeit modified and reworked in the light of events—that reasserts itself and in drawing on the memory of the past places itself at the centre of the future.

CHAPTER FIVE

ISLAM IN THE PUBLIC SPHERE IN BARGONI Introduction It is hard to imagine as merely coincidental that the room I was assigned when I took up residence in Bargoni was adjacent to the village mosque. The only window looked out onto the mihrab of this house of prayer, only some three metres or so away, and I literally lived in the shadow of the mosque as well as having my days and nights punctuated by the calls to prayer. Kanzu-clad men, albeit frequently few in number, passed my door at the ascribed times of worship and the soft murmur of madrasa students, learning by rote the sacred texts, whispered in the background on numerous evenings. The assumption was that, if I had come to study religious activity in Bargoni, then the focus of my enquiry must be the mosque and its environs. If I had come into the community from outside and was to return with a report on the sacred dimension of life, then care must be taken to ensure that my observations accorded with the face they wished to present to the wider world where this carefully crafted image was intended to evoke a favourable response. Thus it was that the initial impression projected, both in early tentative conversations and by activities in the near vicinity of my habitation, was of an orthodox Islamic community seeking to live out its life against the backdrop of faith. The Projection of Boni Identity to the Outside World The D568 is the name of the track, passing as a road, which winds from the junction at Hindi, on the Lamu-Garsen road, to the township of Kiunga on the extreme north coast of Kenya, on the border with Somalia. Impassable to motorised traffic during the El Niño floods but still used by people on foot, the D568 is the conduit through which the outside world flows into Bargoni and the channel through which the community of Bargoni seeks to export a constructed and

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nuanced image of itself to the outside world and which is acceptable to those outside observers. Indeed, the dynamics at work represent, in a microcosm, the forces that have been observed by many scholars as lying behind the expansion of Islam on the African continent.1 The road brought Islam, trade and urban civilisation into the area and, once the community in Bargoni had invested in the perceived benefits that adherence to the new religion and the concomitant life-style had to offer, conveyed to the wider Islamic world outside Boniland the commitment of the people of the village to Allah and Mohammed, his Prophet. The road thus acts as a permeable interface whereby the creeds and expectations of those outside are absorbed and processed, and a suitable façade is constructed to display and communicate the sentiments necessary to engender recognition by the religious authorities on Lamu. It is notable that the three mosques that exist in greater Bargoni—the one in Bargoni proper, in Muswakini and in Berabothei—are all situated alongside the road and constitute, in their respective locations, the only ‘permanent’ buildings (brick walls with a corrugated ironsheet roof as opposed to the wattle and daub and palm-frond-thatched roofs that, together with the traditional grass beehive-like houses, comprise all the other business and residential properties in the area). They clearly suggest to the visitor that this area belongs within the orbit of Islam and attest to the religious fervour of the inhabitants. Likewise, the two cemeteries—other symbols of Islamic identity— are positioned along this north-south artery. Thus the public proclamations of Muslim identity are strung out along the road and engender a notion of orthodoxy in the mind of the visitor and instil an aura of Islamic personality on the populace. The creation of an image conforming to the expectations of those outside, the invention of a corporate persona to project onto the world, is not merely a construct of the collective unconscious but a reality that the Boni are aware of and conspire to perpetuate. Mzee Habole Guarcho expressed it thus: “Islam is Islam and we follow the

1 For specific reference to the East African situation see David C. Sperling, ‘The Coastal Hinterland and Interior of East Africa’, in Nehemia Levtzion and Randall L. Pouwels (eds.), The History of Islam in Africa (Athens: Ohio University Press; Oxford: James Currey; Cape Town: David Philip, 2000) 273–302. Other essays in this volume confirm this position.

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laws and stuff like that but we cannot forget the customs and traditions of our fathers.” Another elder present on this occasion concurred with Mzee Habole, “Yes, Islam is Islam but we do not forget our tribal traditions!”2 Such sentiments are not the sole preserve of senior male members of Boni society but are echoed in the words and actions of members of both sexes across the age spectrum. Around Bargoni, women dress in a variety of clothing ranging from ‘kitenge’ cloths covering the torso and wrapped around the waist, to fashionable ‘western’ clothes that have been bought from the mitumba3 markets in Mokowe or Lamu. Similarly, young mothers have no hesitation about breast-feeding their children in public—it constitutes a natural part of daily life. However, a safari to Mokowe, Lamu or further afield necessitates the women donning a buibui and conforming to the ideals of female modesty and piety that are perceived as existing in those centres. “In the towns we are Muslims, in the bush we are Boni!” posited one young woman travelling, on the back of an army lorry, to Lamu.4 The smiles and nods of her travelling companions suggested agreement.5 The Somali residents of Bargoni are contemptuous of this perceived deceit. “The Boni are not really Muslims. Few of the elders (wazee) pray. Mzee Bobitu prays but then he spent time in Lamu and learnt there. But the young people do not pray . . . Some of the young girls ‘street’ [flirt and engage in prostitution] with the soldiers.”6 The previous June (1997) an Imam from Ijara had come to Bargoni and, together with some of the more devout young people, had gone from house to house seeking to encourage their lapsed colleagues but with little effect—the Imam reportedly left in disgust when he saw the lack of impact his work was having on the figures attending prayers in the mosque. “They have no religion, neither Islam or Christianity [a loose term covering all non-Islamic religion]. . . . To be a Muslim 2 Conversation in the compound of Mzee Habole Guarcho, Muswakini, 30 October 1997. 3 Markets selling second-hand clothing. 4 Conversation, 3 April 1998. 5 Hugh Brody records a similar sentiment on the lips of an Innu woman (also a hunter-gatherer community) of Canada’s far north. ‘On the land we are ourselves. In the settlement we are lost. That was the way they made our minds weak.’ (Hugh Brody, The Other Side of Eden: Hunter-Gatherers, Farmers and the Shaping of the World [London: Faber and Faber, 2001] 277). 6 Conversation with Abdi Khalif, Bargoni, 14 September 1997.

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is not just about having a name, it is about behaving as a Muslim. My name is Abdi but that doesn’t make me a Muslim, it is the way I act and the way I pray. Only a few people here are faithful to their prayers.”7 Indeed, many Somali strenuously seek to distance themselves from the laxity of their Boni hosts, suggesting that their shared religious faith is tenuous in the extreme—“We merely share our names with them.”8 Such an attitude closely reflects the notion of takhlit whereby the Boni are seen as ‘guilty of compromise, hypocrisy and backsliding’ and their religious practices are perceived as displaying an unacceptable degree of ‘mixing’, understood as “the combination of indubitably respectable Islamic elements of belief or practice with quite unacceptable local elements.”9 The tendency by members of the Somali and other immigrant communities in Bargoni to condemn in a blanket fashion the religious vagaries of the entire Boni community is unjustified (reference has already been made to the public and private piety of Bobitu Kololo and others aspire to such a level although the number is, admittedly, small) but, as Fisher illustrates, the “gap between slanderous allegation and the actual situation is a commonplace of the way in which the vanquished voice is often treated.”10 According to Fisher’s analysis, the vanquished voice denotes those who have emerged as the losers in debates on Islamic orthodoxy or orthopraxis and whose arguments or way of life have been designated wayward and thus consigned to the pages of history by the ‘victors’. In Bargoni there is a definite sense of superiority on the part of the Somali population and the limited Swahili presence with the perception of what constitutes Islamic orthodoxy being an important criterion. The attitude of Abdi Khalif, previously cited, is typical of the more recent immigrants amongst whom the Boni are seen as adopting a minimalist stance that features the uttering of the shahada or adoption of Islamic names but which members of other communities consider to be insufficient in establishing a ‘true’ Islamic identity.

7

Ibid. Conversation with Abdi Khalif, Bargoni, 20 September 1997. 9 Humphrey J. Fisher, The Vanquished Voice: Shaykh Muhammad’s Defense: A Case Study from the Western Sahara (Unpublished manuscript, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, n.d.), 48. 10 Ibid., 48. 8

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Other areas of Boni life are implicitly designated as wayward since they fail to conform to the cultural norms in which the Islamic message has been couched by those who promulgate it. Despite the exalted role played by the Bedouin in Islamic tradition, the former lifestyle of the Boni is nothing but wayward and dangerous, contrasting with the urban ideal that holds sway along the Swahili coast. Being different is seen as at least inferior, if not wrong, and so it is that the Boni are expected to adopt the values and lifestyle of the culturally dominant Swahili. Since there is the perception that compliance with the ‘orthodox’ position is rewarded, a situation of dependency is created. Thus it is that religious rituals surrounding the initiation of young men, weddings and funerals are being grafted on to the Boni social fabric, drawing on the rich repository of Swahili culture, at the expense of whatever might be life-affirming and enhancing to an independent self-identity emanating from the Boni’s own religious heritage. The relationship between the Boni on the one hand and their Swahili and Somali neighbours on the other is, therefore, ambivalent. There is a sense of humiliation that accompanies the denigration of their traditional values and way of life and the dependency that sees the community absorbing elements from these other cultures. But there is also the religious joy that the embracing of Islam is reported to have engendered, as well the pleasure of receiving the largesse on offer—albeit with strings frequently attached. This situation of dependency is also being consciously exploited, as will be demonstrated, for political and economic gain by an essentially external elite. Under the guise of Islam and through the assertion of orthodox religious credentials, efforts are being made to control the Boni population through a process of resocialisation and the establishment of a system of patronage. Largesse becomes the chosen tool for manipulation at the expense of the Boni’s self-determination in matters economic, political and religious. Outsider’s Perception of the Bush The expanse of semi-arid bushland that extends up either side of the D568 from Hindi towards the border with the Republic of Somalia, called ‘Boniland’ in this work, is understood in markedly different ways by the various ethnic communities that are today associated with it. Chapter 4 examined the place that the ‘bush’ holds in the imagination of the Boni and, indeed, for centuries the Boni com-

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munity occupied an environmental niche in the coastal forests that offered a degree of protection from the vacillating fortunes and ambitions of their more numerous and powerful neighbours—in more recent turn, the Orma, Somali and Swahili. The expansionism that has been a feature of the history of the pastoral Orma and Somali would have been curtailed, and the forest-dwellers’ environment and way of life preserved, since “the tsetse fly would have blocked further movement, for cattle could not enter the forests without dying from trypanosomiasis.”11 For such pastoralists, the Boni forest constituted a hostile environment that would bring death to any cow or camel that a foolish herder might seek to graze in its environs. More recently, the use of modern veterinary medicine has reduced, although far from eliminated, the threat to cattle and Abdi Maalim’s ranch of 5,000 hectares on the edge of Bargoni village supports a large herd but trypanosomiasis is still prevalent, loss by disease being augmented by lions and leopards that pick off the young and stragglers. However, the incursion of elements of the Somali population into the area during the colonial era as an extension of that administration and their subsequent efforts to settle have given rise to a shift in their self-identity and their perception of the environment. Although the elements of the Somali community that came to settle in Bargoni were drawn here because they were nomadic pastoralists, enticed by salaried employment in the Livestock Department, the present members of this component of the Bargoni population see themselves as distinct from their Boni hosts on account of their self-ascribed urbanity. They have constructed a perception of themselves as a people who belong and feel at home in a town setting and as espousing features of a distinctive status, namely Islamic orthodoxy and secular education. “The more a person is educated, the more he is drawn to Islam; the more religious a person is, the more he is drawn to education”.12 It is argued by Bargoni-based representatives of this community that the Somali have always valued the urban dimension of their culture and were quick to see the benefits and opportunities presented by modern education when separated from the Christian polemic in which it was viewed as being initially couched. The Somali view their urbanity, manifested by their religiosity and education, as having given rise to their prosperity whereas the Boni’s 11 12

Harvey, Hunting, 27. Conversation with Abdi Khalif, Bargoni, 3 October 1997.

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bush existence has resulted in their being sidelined and susceptible to exploitation. Indeed, the resident Somali themselves are often quick to take advantage of whatever help is offered to the Boni and so, for example, Somali children are enrolled under Boni names in schools where financial or other assistance is extended in an effort to improve the lot of the original forest dwellers. Within the local Somali mindset, the forest is seen as an alien environment to be tamed and domesticated by giving it a value that accords with the orderly world-view of the Somali community. It is of value only in as far as it has the potential for fostering the material well-being and financial security that are concomitant with an urban population. Thus the destruction of the natural resources of Boniland has largely been at the hands of the Somali who, within the last twenty years, have decimated the elephant population for ivory, reduced the hardwood stands to isolated pockets well away from tracks and paths, and slashed and burnt the bush in an effort to reduce the breeding locales of the tsetse fly as well as affording more extensive tracts of grass for their cattle. If the Somali residents of Bargoni seek to make much of their urban affinities, how much more true is this of the Swahili influence that has exerted such a powerful cultural and religious ascendancy over the Boni population of Bargoni of late. Indeed, it can be suggested that the assumed hostile attitude of the Somali towards the bush and their identity as an urban people reveals a direct correlation with that of the Swahili influence in the area. In the sphere of ‘orthodox’ Islam, it is the littoral’s version that is held up as the ideal and conforming to that model is necessary if the Somali are to avoid being open and susceptible to the accusations of compromise that they in turn level at the Boni. It is coastal, Swahili-Islam that is promulgated as the standard, Islamic leaders active in Bargoni have all received instruction within that vein and thus, in the public sphere, all who aspire to Islamic respectability must conform to the attitudes and practices that have arrived in Bargoni, along the D 568 from the south. Part of this package is the stress laid on the settled community. As Middleton puts it, “the Swahili are urban dwellers and their civilization has been an urban one.”13 Indeed, the concept of utamaduni

13

Middleton, World, 54.

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(urbanity) is a central tenet of Swahili self-perception and something to be carefully guarded from nefarious outside forces. Many of the so-called stone-towns along the coast feature encircling walls that not only afforded protection against military aggression by their neighbours but also served to demarcate the area as possessing urbanity and civilisation (utamaduni na ustaarabu); “towns are seen by their inhabitants as oases of purity and urbanity set in a barbarian wasteland, and at the core of each is its congregational mosque.”14 The town, in the mind of the Swahili, is a haven of purity wherein are areas set apart for learning and civility, prayer and religious performances,15 with many of the latter serving to accentuate this separation and establish clearly defined boundaries. In his examination of the ritual of Kuzingua Kuzinguka Ngombe [sic], El Zein16 describes the circulation of the bull around the town of Lamu. This rite is intended to purify and redefine the town by driving away the malevolent spiritual entities, jinn, who are understood to have invaded the town and attacked the citizens with misfortune of one sort or another, and who seek to undermine and destroy their religion. These hostile, anti-Islamic, anti-ustaarabu jinn originate in the bush (and are thus to be distinguished from “the benevolent jinn, who converted to Islam and thus can live inside the town”)17 and are “called upon and put to work only by impure human beings . . . These impure human beings are, of course, the Wa Shenzi [sic], or the people of the bush.”18 As El Zein puts it: The wangwana [patricians] claim that an accumulation of impurity inside the town makes it subject to easy attack by the bad jinn. When the boundaries separating purity from impurity and the town from the bush vanish, the bad jinn are able to penetrate the town and do harm to it. When the numbers of deaths in the town rises above the usual number or when the children get sick, or people lose their minds, or when fire or flood strikes the town, the wangwana explain such events as the work of the malevolent jinn. The circulation of the bull around the town is intended to drive away these jinn.19

14 15 16 17 18 19

Ibid., 60. Ibid., 56. El Zein, Sacred, 281 ff. Ibid., 282. Ibid., 282. Ibid., 285.

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Indeed, the rite eloquently brings out the defiling quality of the bush whereby “all those who go into the bush have to take a ritual bath after they return to the town and before they go to the mosque to pray . . . the ritual bath [as opposed to perfunctory ablutions] after returning from the bush indicates that they are . . . suffering from great defilement.”20 El Zein argues that the ritual he labels, with little regard for grammatical niceties or respect for the conventions of Swahili lexicology, Kuzingua Kuzinguka Ngombe, is geared towards separating the town from the bush, culture from nature, and that as a result the town is elevated to the highest level of purity, and turned into a sacred place. However, Middleton and Ylvisaker do not see the Swahili view of the world in such black and white terms and both, in their respective fields of interest, construct an analytical model that resembles a series of concentric circles where purity/urbanity/civilisation lie at the centre and these attributes diminish the further one moves away from the core. Thus, Middleton places the wangwana (patricians) at the centre surrounded by the other town dwellers who, based on their ancestry or origin, do not enjoy the same level of refinement. Then there are those who live and work outside the towns who are Muslims but distinguish themselves from their non-Muslim neighbours. These latter are “alien peoples [who] are often called washenzi (barbarians), implying lack of civilization, inferiority, and also some sense of the absurd. The word refers to those peoples without attributes of common humanity.”21 Ylvisaker sees this model played out topographically when she examines land use on and around the Lamu archipelago in the nineteenth century. With the mosque and the town remaining at the centre, around the urban centre but still on the island the townsmen kept mashamba (sing. shamba) of trees which required many years’ growth to reach maturity and which therefore tied up the capital of the owner. Here the boundaries were clearly marked, land could be bought and sold, and traditional Islamic laws of inheritance applied to island real estate. Because there was no danger involved in farming on the island, there was little need to propitiate evil spirits.22

20 21 22

Ibid., 307. Middleton, World, 192. Ylvisaker, Political, 73.

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The fields (no longer termed mashamba but now makonde) on the mainland (the bara) opposite the islands constituted an effort to impose a degree of civilisation on the wild bush but clearly it was a much more dangerous undertaking given the hostile environment: both the physical danger afforded by the animals living there and the threat posed by the malignant spirits of the bush. Ritual experts were employed to help alleviate the threat and discern the most propitious sites and times for planting but there was no getting away from the evil lurking in this environment and certain areas were never subjected to the hoe. One such place was Margiza, near the well cultivated area of Hindi. Here a child had once been mysteriously lost. The mwalimu . . . advised the cultivators not to enter Margiza, but the farmers knew it to be a fertile area and they could not bear to take this pronouncement, so they sought the further advice of a Lamu mwalimu, who agreed that they might go ahead. The cultivators chopped the trees, as was the practice, and then tried to burn off the area, but rain came and prevented the success of their efforts. For three consecutive years they attempted the same thing but were unable to complete the clearing because of rain. After this they conceded that the shaitani of Margiza were indeed at odds with them, and until today the area has never been cultivated.23

Thus, although the absence of adequate fertile land on the island meant the population of Lamu had to farm tracts on the mainland24—both for their own consumption and for export—there was the inescapable recognition that it posed a grave threat to both physical and spiritual well-being. Farming in the bara constituted an effort to stamp some, albeit tenuous, imprint of civilisation upon the wilderness, to make some claim for it as lying at the peripheral orbit of Islamic and urban influence. Barbarity resided in the bush and for partners in commerce and civilisation the people of Lamu looked out across the sea and especially towards Arabia, the birthplace of their religion. Middleton records the taste in the not too distant past for prestige items that originated in that part of the world, material goods and possessions that spoke of purity and honour. “They came from outside Africa, and as such were dissociated from the ‘African’ part of Swahili culture, from non-Muslim peoples of ‘inferior’ origins, and from ‘barbarian’ forms of behavior.”25 “Ties of religion 23 24 25

Ibid., 80–81. Ibid., 61. Middleton, World, 196.

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and claimed ethnicity with the Swahili’s Asian partners have always had a strength lacking in the relations with hinterland partners.”26 The antagonism felt towards the bush is not confined to the authorities on Lamu, in which case it might be considered a mere anachronism, but, rather, the animosity has been perpetuated in the twentieth century by both the colonial and post-independence administrations. Pouwels singles out the Land Titles Ordinance of 1908 as a most damaging act of legislation and it certainly continues to undermine the status of the Boni on their land up until the present. Against a background of dispute regarding conflicting claims for land that pitted ‘native’ claims for individual land ownership against British jurisprudence and Islamic law on land and property rights,27 A.C. Hollis, the Commissioner of Native Affairs, “ruled (incorrectly) that any land covered by bush was wasteland and, therefore, belonged to the Crown. It was this ruling which was the backbone of the Land Titles Ordinance.”28 This served to further alienate the Boni from the bush. The religious authorities posit that the bush is the domain of evil spirits and, by extension, those associating with that environment are tainted with such a suggestion. Then the colonial administration denies that the land belongs to the Boni community, usurps it and bans activities like hunting that constituted the traditional way of life for this forest people. Such a view continues into the present and lies behind the attitude towards the bush held by the secular authorities so that, as recently as March 1999, Vincent Gainey can write, “Originally peoples such as the Boni were identified as being among the ‘landless and jobless’. Despite having a viable lifestyle as hunters and gatherers, they do not own land and are not part of the cash economy and thus this lifestyle was not recognised as such. They are considered squatters on land that they have traditionally occupied for centuries.”29 Such a situation is clearly evident around Bargoni. The only buildings constructed to the east of the Hindi-Kiunga road, as it passes through the village, are governmental—the Livestock Development compound and the army camp—and the rest of the land on that side is designated as falling under the sway of the District and

26 27 28 29

Ibid., 59. Spencer Trimingham, Islam, 154–7. Pouwels, Horn, 183. Gainey, Visit, 5.

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municipal administrations in Lamu. The map in appendix 1 shows how the traditional land of the Boni is proposed to be carved up into ranches that make sense in the concept of economic development espoused by those in positions of local and national leadership even if the Boni fail to benefit. Indeed, there is deep unease amongst many of the people in the village that Abdi Maalim is keen to expand his holding and take possession of the land presently occupied by the village, thus forcing the people to move elsewhere, deeper into the bush. However, even the uncut forest is under threat as a refuge for the Boni since: The government perceives a threat to the forest and citing the Rio biodiversity convention propose [sic] shortly to gazette the forest. This in effect means that the forest will be closed to all but the most tightly controlled utilisation . . . Indigenous users such as the Boni would be excluded from the forest and be liable for persecution if caught trespassing in the forest. Gazettement therefore has very serious potential implications for the Boni. Their whole resource base would be denied them, and their livelihood threatened.30

As is demonstrated in Chapter 4, it can be argued whether the bush does, in fact, constitute the ‘whole resource base’ of the Boni in the contemporary scenario. However, the effect of the legislation that Gainey talks of has already been experienced in the setting aside of large areas of Boniland as National Reserves—the Boni National Reserve in Lamu District and the Dodori National Reserve across the provincial border in North Eastern Province. Although the full economic potential of these two areas has not yet been exploited in terms of setting up the necessary infrastructure to attract tourists, there is, nevertheless, the mentality that the bush of the Boni only makes sense if used for agriculture or to generate revenue from tourism. Luxury hotels have been constructed on expropriated land in the vicinity of Kiwaiyu but the people of the region had no say in this parcelling out of their land, although a cursory effort was made through the ‘Shungwaya Welfare Association’ to address the issue (see letter in appendix 1). However, although the Boni align themselves with this association and see it as an umbrella group encompassing the marginalised groups of the north Kenya coast, it is tempting to read between the lines of the letter and discern an

30

Ibid., 7.

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effort by the Bajun to secure sole ownership over the land at the expense of their erstwhile Boni associates. In championing the case of nomadic peoples who have been dispossessed of their bush habitat in the name of wildlife conservation and the establishment of game reserves by modern states, George Monbiot writes: The only problem was that the places chosen were the homes of thousands of local people. Far from being ‘primordial wildernesses’ they were, in fact, among the longest-inhabited places on earth. Most of the regions in which the game concentrated were the regions in which the best grazing was found and the best water sources were located: the places, in other words, which were most important to the survival of the local people. When these areas were turned into exclusive parks and reserves, some peoples were deprived of most of their dry season lands.31

The culprit in Monbiot’s eyes is the palaeontologist-turned-conservationist-turned-politician-turned-conservationist, Richard Leakey who, after being expelled as head of the Kenya Wildlife Service some years ago, has recently been reinstated and, as Gainey observes, With the reappointment of Richard Leakey (who has a home on Lamu island) to Director of KWS the future for community involvement in natural resource management of the national reserves and parks remains unclear. This was the policy of his predecessor, Dr David Western, but Leakey has shown less enthusiasm for the whole idea, preferring instead total exclusion of human populations from protected areas.32

Thus it can be seen that the three major external protagonists seeking to stake a claim in the future of Boniland all view the bush environment as base, undeveloped, dangerous and outside of them. Their role is to come in and give meaning and value to the area, to stamp this wilderness with human values where before there existed physical and spiritual danger or unharnessed economic potential. This attitude stands in contrast to the evolving understanding of their relationship with the bush that is found amongst the disaffected elements of Boni society: those who have been marginalised by the processes of villagisation and Islamisation, those who see that their wholesale embrace of a lifestyle that arrived up the D568 is not all that it promised to

31 George Monbiot, No Man’s Land: An Investigative Journey through Kenya and Tanzania. (London: Macmillan/Picador, 1995), 81. 32 Gainey, Visit, 8.

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be. For such, the landscape is imbued with, or is being imbued with, memory. It is a place to retreat to from the vagaries of forces beyond their control, a place where they can be themselves rather than conforming to the expectations of others.33 Rather than being an environment marked by danger and hostile spirits—as the Swahili would want to have it—or of untapped commercial or economic potential which all too often excludes the native forest dwellers, the bush evokes inspirational images of the ideal past. But it is a past that the Boni are unable to return to since, more and more, they are drawn into a world that sees them subjugated to others. In this, as will be seen, economic dependency is underpinned and facilitated by Islam, as used and manipulated in the hands of the Lamu Swahili, which strives to separate the Boni from their more familiar milieu as well as countenancing the exploitation to which they are subjected. Political, economic and religious forces conspire to deconstruct the Boni world. Religious, Commercial and Political Dominance If both religious and secular attitudes towards the bush are diametrically opposed to those of the Boni, in the village setting one witnesses a converging of the religious, political and economic spheres. The D568 served to introduce an attitude towards the bush that encouraged the adoption of a more settled life, this road opened up Boniland and ushered in efforts of economic and political dominance on the back of Islam, the religion of the town. The history of the expansion of Islam in Africa is replete with examples of how commercial activity went hand in hand with the spread of this religion,34 and this same pattern manifests itself in Bargoni. Here it is of note that the Imam, Mwalimu Mohammed Ali, a Bajun from the island of Pate north of Lamu but within the archipelago, is not only the custodian of Islamic teaching within the village but is also the proprietor of the sole shop which sells such necessities as sugar, tea and cooking fat. The integration of religion and commerce in the figure of this one person, who is an ‘outsider’

33 One recalls the comment of the young woman, recorded earlier in this chapter, “In the towns we are Muslims, in the bush we are Boni!” 34 Spencer, Pastoral, 253.

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in Bargoni, is significant in demonstrating how these two dimensions of life go hand in hand and are manipulated for the benefit of the powerful. One demonstration of this might be the events surrounding the Kenyan general election of 29 December 1997, which witnessed the establishment of a polling station within the compound of the primary school in Bargoni. The prime mover in the event that transpired in Bargoni that day was a Kenyan Somali businessman based in Mombasa, Tahir Sheikh Said, whose business empire, known by his initials ‘T.S.S.’, includes interests in food processing, cotton refining, transportation and so on.35 T.S.S. had already established a name for himself in the village by seeking to assert his Islamic credentials. During the month of Ramadan the previous year he had personally delivered and distributed, free of charge, food stuffs to augment the meagre rations in the settlements on the mainland north of Lamu, allowing his fellow religionists to eat well at the end of each day’s fast. His acts of kindness and generosity can be interpreted cynically as an effort to ingratiate himself with the recipients of his largesse as well as creating a culture of dependency. Similarly, he supported financially Bargoni Primary School. A meeting held on 21 September 1997 discussed how best to use K.sh.100,000/= (approx. £1,000) he had donated at which Abdi Maalim clearly stated “You will support T.S.S.”, in apparent reference to the candidates in the forthcoming election. There is also the suggestion that his resistance to outside forces perceived to be detrimental to coastal culture appealed to voters in 35 T.S.S. subsequently erupted onto the broader political canvas in 1999 on being elected KANU branch chairman in Lamu after years of obscurity nationally. Despite an impoverished beginning, his fortunes have risen spectacularly, and he is now “a billionaire in every sense of the word” (The People, 9 July 2000). His manipulation of the 1997 general election is affirmed. It is reported that he bankrolled the KANU campaign on the coast (People, 9 July 2000), ensuring that he could wield “massive influence in certain high places” (Daily Nation, 12 July 2000). In a speech reported in The People (5 July 1999), T.S.S. claims that “it is only those communities with godfathers in the government that realise tangible progress . . . In our contemporary society, godfatherism has been the order of the day but unfortunately, Lamu people have no godfathers at the top. Since independence there has never been security in Lamu and shiftas continue to reign in the region. Our hospitals are non-functional, roads inaccessible, children no longer go to school due to poverty. Our enemies have been saying, let the sleeping lion lie because it would be risky to awaken it. I have now awakened it and it is roaring ready to bite.” The loyalty T.S.S. bought amongst the citizens of Bargoni in 1997 is still operative: in a newspaper advertisement supporting T.S.S. one of the signatories is Clr. Ali Gubo of Bargoni (Daily Nation, 8 July 2000).

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Bargoni. T.S.S. had received a lot of favourable publicity locally relating to his alleged efforts, in the name of Islam, to purchase one of the few hotels on the island of Lamu that sold alcoholic drinks and to curtail this activity. In this he received the backing of important elements in the society who saw tourism as introducing a lifestyle that rode roughshod over local sensibilities and this assertion of his Islamic outrage was applauded. The Boni population could sympathise with this spirit of resistance, this reassertion of tradition, since they had felt the negative impact of foreign forces on their own way of life. For example, the army camp near Bargoni was seen by many as a centre of vice and corruption that attracted the youth and undermined their morals; likewise the sights on offer in Lamu were dissolute and unacceptable. Yet the ‘western cultural invasion’36 continued with the trappings of materialism much sought after while the moral degeneration perceived to accompany a consumeristic way of life (with allusions frequently made to the hedonistic lifestyle of tourists on Lamu and the delinquent behaviour of local beach boys) is a cause for concern. Thus, T.S.S. was seen as both a provider of largesse and a champion of resistance to the creeping tide of nefarious forces that are inimical to coastal culture. However, there was also a hidden agenda, that Mzee Bobitu Kololo alluded to in his speech at the horrop tree, that of seeking control and influence for himself and his sycophants under the guise of religious enthusiasm. During the election in Kenya it was recognised that he was seeking to expand his influence in the government and thus he was a major benefactor of the president and the ruling party, KANU (Kenya African National Union). He was also bankrolling a number of candidates in coastal constituencies, one of whom was the KANU candidate for Lamu West under which constituency Bargoni falls. Fahim Twaha, like his sponsor, played the Somali/Arab card and his ethnic roots and financial dependency ensured his loyalty. T.S.S.’s representative and Fahim’s agent in Bargoni was the wealthy Somali rancher, Abdi Maalim, who, seeking to expand his extensive land holdings in the area as well as harbouring political aspirations at the district level, saw the backing of this candidate as the means to achieving his goal. “T.S.S. and Abdi [Maalim] have come to an

36

Parkin, Sacred, 193.

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agreement: T.S.S. says, ‘I am a member of the KANU party; the President and I are very close. Also, if you assist me then you will get the land you want and more besides!’ ”37 It is of note that, a few months after the general election, Abdi Maalim was ‘rewarded’ by being chosen as a nominated councillor on Lamu District Council. Thus, while the election was taking place in the primary school, the son of Abdi Maalim, Abdi Nassir, was in the Imam’s duka recording names and election numbers of those in the community promising to back Fahim on the understanding that they would each receive a payment of K.sh.300/= (approximately £3) for their trouble. The ostensibly secret nature of the balloting was circumvented by taking advantage of the illiteracy of most people, who were forced to rely on ‘assistants’ at the polling booths to help complete their election slips. As Chapter 3 pointed out, Islamic authorities in Lamu, having long resisted the opening of a primary school amongst the Boni on the grounds that such an institution would be used for Christian expansionism and pose a threat to the Islamic sensibilities in the village, had preserved a population with little experience of education outside the madrasa system. Choices were therefore mostly public and votes for Fahim could be easily verified. Failure to support Fahim would mean forfeiting their payment as well as effectively renouncing any chance of employment on the ranch of Abdi Maalim or the possibility of receiving his help in time of hardship. All this was couched in religious terms. T.S.S. had demonstrated his beneficence by acts of charity during Ramadan and, just one month before the election date, on 26 November—as if to serve as a reminder to the populace—he had provided more food, which was distributed through the offices of the Imam (as opposed to the subchief and much to the latter’s anger and annoyance). This was despite the fact that the heavy rains and flooding had done little damage, since the crop that was expected to see the people through this period had already been harvested and little had been lost as a result of the inclement weather. Interestingly enough, six months later (with the election long since passed) when the full impact of El Niño was being felt in terms of severe food shortages, T.S.S. provided no relief. Such behaviour can be seen as a cynical manipulation of people in the name of Islam to achieve private ambitions. Thus, at the end 37 Conversation with Mzee Bobitu Kololo, Bargoni, 16 December 1997, as he reflects on and explains his role in the horrop tree prayers of the day before.

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of December 1997, the population of Bargoni was expected to back this paragon of virtue by asserting their Muslim identity. Such an assertion was commensurate with their wish to receive further largesse from outside sources. The Somali voice, while eager to enjoy the fruits of Boni obsequiousness, is nevertheless dismissive of what they perceive as the ‘expedient’ dimension of religious practice on the part of their neighbours. “The Boni are not sincere about their religion, they do not practise their religion, it is just a means of ensuring that they can live together [with the Somali and other Muslims] . . . They have joined the religion but not the faith, only so that they can use the religion so as to survive”38 suggesting that their conversion was a ploy aimed at ensuring that they enjoy the patronage of other Islamic communities. “If there was food being given out at the mosque then they would all come, but if there was a harambee for the mosque then no one would bother,”39 was how it was put. Abdi Khalif, in a moment of candour, described the Boni as being weighed down by a sense of being victims of a cruel set of circumstances that sees them as always looking for external assistance. His perception of them as being always in need of food and education (a case, perhaps, of projection on his part since this poverty was never voiced by Boni informants) meant that they would eagerly grab whatever was offered.40 For their part, the Boni accept with equanimity that strings are inevitably attached to whatever might be proffered by way of external help and assistance—that the giver will come back for his or her ‘cup of tea’. An example might be the offer by the Catholic Relief Service, operating through the Catholic parish on Lamu, to give children under five years of age food supplements and other assistance. The sub-chief was charged with drawing up a list and included seventy names that accorded with the terms and conditions. He, together with the council of elders who assisted him, was in no doubt that such apparent philanthropy was merely a prelude to a more overt religious activity on the part of the ‘organisation’. It was explained that the Father already had a foot in the NYS (National Youth Service) camp on the outskirts of the village where he went to conduct 38 39 40

Conversation with Abdi Khalif, Bargoni, 21 September 1997. Ibid. Conversation with Abdi Khalif, Bargoni, 20 September 1997.

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services and the feeling was that he now intended to widen his scope by moving into the village to preach. The elders agreed to this as being the likely scenario and admitted that they would go along as far as necessary to enjoy the benefits on offer. They were of one mind that no one gives out food without having some other plan in their heads and readily admitted that the best way of getting a religious project off the ground was by an initial display of charitable assistance. It constitutes a ‘testing of the waters’.41 It is evident that the various communities within Bargoni view fidelity to Islam differently and this both establishes their sense of identity and colours their perception of themselves and others. Amongst the Boni there is a much looser corporate Islamic identity, which might be due to their relatively recent and, one might say, pragmatic conversion. On the other hand, one might be witnessing the ongoing presence of an ‘inclusivist’ view of the community that has, in the past, accepted with equanimity members of other ethnic groups into its midst, a community of loosely federated bands. In their case, as has been demonstrated, there is far greater individual expression of religious identity as far as Islamic practice is concerned and less apparent need to create one model of orthodoxy. While no Boni would ever express doubt that he was a Muslim, it seems impossible to comprehend that adherence to Islam necessitates wholesale abandonment of a religious way of life (not that this has ever happened along the ‘Swahili’ coast) that has served this ethnic community well in the past. Rather they take a more pragmatic line, which concurs with Brenner’s assertion that “ ‘religious’ ideas, practices, and institutions [move] through various regions of the African continent, traversing political and ethnic boundaries . . . ethnicity [is] not at issue, and new religious ideas and practices [are] borrowed and incorporated with apparent ease among different groups.”42 Brenner argues that efficacy is more important than doctrinal articulation and this would hold true for the Boni. The Somali population, on the other hand, like to picture themselves as the epitome of Islamic orthodoxy, condemning what they consider to be the aberrations in religious

41

Conversation with sub-chief, Bargoni, 22 September 1997. Louis Brenner, ‘“Religious” Discourse in and about Africa’ in Karin Barber and P.F. de Moraes Farias (eds.), Discourse and its Disguises: The Interpretation of African Oral Texts (Birmingham: Centre of West African Studies, University of Birmingham, 1989), 92. 42

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practice amongst their host community despite the fact that they, as individuals, frequently seek similar redress (for example, securing the services of a diviner) when the situation necessitates it. For the Somali, Islam is very much a part of their ethnic identity and, although there might be great divergence amongst individual members as far as practice is concerned, there is, nevertheless, a nebulous ideal of what it is to be a Somali Muslim. In this respect, the Somali appear to be on the defensive. They represent a diaspora community, living amongst an alien people and cut off from the support of extended family and clan ties—resembling more nuclear families than the extended units of their home areas. Thus by reasserting and, indeed, idealising their Islamic credentials they affirm their identity and bolster their sense of moral and cultural superiority amongst a people upon whom they depend for hospitality. Over and against such a stance, the Boni manifest a relaxed, open and encompassing attitude towards their religion and certainly do not hold to the view that Islam is the sole medium of God’s relationship with humanity. Bobitu Kololo, the most pious Muslim adherent among the Boni, related the following story: There were three people living together—they were neighbours. One was a rich, devout Muslim, one was a well-off non-Muslim and the third was a Muslim but very poor. They sat. The poor man had a lot of problems—he had a wife and family to support. He said, “Instead of going to someone who is not a Muslim, I will go to my Muslim neighbour who is rich. I will explain my problems to him so that he helps me.” So he went there and explained to his rich Muslim neighbour that he had a wife and family to support and he asked for some assistance— just for the food of that day for, tomorrow, God knows. The rich Muslim said that he could not assist anyone and told his poor neighbour to go away. So he went home and his problem not only persisted but intensified. So he said, “Let me go and see the one who is not a Muslim.” So he went and explained his problem. “Okay,” said the rich non-Muslim, “bring your container for food,” and he gave him food—greens, fat, beans, etc. The poor man went home and ate with his family the food he had been given. However, one of the figures in this story had a great problem. The one who was not a Muslim had a lot of problems such that he could not sleep at night. He could not sleep any night—this was a disease that God had given him. However, after the poor man had gone home with his food which this rich non-Muslim had given him, his benefactor slept flat out without knowing anything. He slept until 9.00 a.m. and was very happy.

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chapter five After taking breakfast and drinking tea, he summoned the poor man. “Come here,” he called and the poor man was given food—a sack of rice, a sack of sugar, a sack of beans, a sack of maize—until his home was full of food. “When you finish that, come and get more”, he was told by the rich non-Muslim. The rich Muslim, on the other hand, inherited the insomnia of the other man. He could not sleep all night—the first day, the second day, the third day. His problems were increasing and so he went to the poor man and said, “Come, take this food.” But the poor man replied, “I have food.” “Who gave it to you?” asked the rich Muslim. “God has given me food. Yes, my neighbour has assisted me,” the poor man replied. “That one is not a Muslim, I am the right person to assist you,” retorted the rich Muslim insomniac, “I am the right person to assist.” But the poor man said that he didn’t want such help. So the rich Muslim went to the well-to-do non-Muslim and demanded that he make up an estimate of all that he had given to the poor man and he would repay him. “Did you tell me to give the food?” asked the rich non-Muslim. “No.” “Then why are you telling me you want to repay me? Go away!” said the non-Muslim. So the rich Muslim went home and his disease increased until he died. So for human beings to assist one another is what God intended and has commanded. Everyone who assists another—whether he is a Christian, Muslim or whatever—God will pay him back. God does not distinguish between Muslims, Christians etc. Everyone who assists another will be assisted by God.43

On another occasion a group of young adults of both Boni and Somali communities were relaxing in the shade of a tree one Sunday morning and one of the women chose to sing a song, a popular Christian hymn in Swahili. A Somali man present upbraided her for singing in such a fashion, like a Christian, but the woman was not to be put off: “There is only one God!” she declared, and when challenged she defended herself confidently: “The Christians pray to Bwana Mungu (Lord God)—there you are, they believe in the same God as us Muslims!”44 However, it must be said that her retort can reflect not only differing religious views, but also contrasting gender

43 44

Conversation with Bobitu Kololo, Bargoni, 5 December 1997. Conversation, Bargoni, 23 November 1997.

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relations within the two communities. The Somali are more protective of their women who are expected to be quiet and submissive— encouraging their seclusion and segregation as well as trying to control women who always run the risk of losing control of their thoughts and passions—while the Boni women enjoy much greater freedom. Indeed, one female visitor I entertained in Bargoni, who was familiar with Islamic communities along the coast, commented on the vitality and self-confidence of Boni women in contrast to the ‘sullen and withdrawn’ women (or, at least, the impression they apparently sought to project) she had encountered in the environs of Mombasa.45 The Mosque The three mosques in greater Bargoni all occupy dominant and strategic positions along the main road, which serves to suggest that their role is, at least in part, a statement to outsiders since none is actually situated in the midst of the community they purport to serve. Indeed, their proximity to the road that is the channel of Swahili cultural and religious influence to Bargoni suggests an eruption of a pocket of influence and a staging post for further inroads. Not only are the mosques on the periphery of human habitation but there is a sense among the Boni that they are not ‘theirs’. Funding for the construction, and the actual builder and his team, came from outside Boniland and, in this respect, the attitude that the Boni are being exploited by those who claim to be doing the assisting manifests itself yet again when one examines the details of this project. It was reported that some years ago a group of elders from Bargoni went to the offices of the Muslim Welfare Association on Lamu Island to beg for money to build a permanent mosque, arguing that the standard of Islamic practice was suffering because of the poor facilities. Representatives from the MWA came to the village and took photographs to illustrate the poverty and neediness of the area to accompany their request for funds from Saudi Arabia. It was said that the application was successful but that only a fraction of the money allotted was used to build the mosque and that the rest was ‘eaten’, that is, diverted to build large homes for the

45

Conversation with Rebecca Janacek, Bargoni, 24 February 1998.

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contractor from Lamu as well as influential Arab Muslims on the Island. “The leaders use dini [religion] and maendeleo [development] to get money from the Arabs and the Europeans and then use it to make themselves rich and the poor get nothing,”46 was how it was put. The elders of Bargoni stoically agreed that, once money for projects reaches Lamu, then the leaders—both religious and political— take their cut, improve themselves and then make a token gesture to the poor. “Wanashrikana wa viongozi! [The collusion of the leaders!]” It is interesting to note the grouping of Saudi Arabian ‘Arabs’ (the main benefactors of religious programmes) and Europeans (perceived as the primary donors for government development projects) as both being victims of the machinations of unscrupulous middlemen. The failure of the Boni to ‘own’ the mosque is clear in the lack of maintenance and upkeep which has compounded the problems inherent in a building that already suffered from shoddy workmanship and cost-cutting practices in its construction. The inadequate pitch in the design of the roof makes it subject to leaks, while the failure to invest in the necessary foundations needed in this predominantly sandy area has led to cracks in the walls. Similarly, there is no support or financial remuneration for the religious leaders of the mosques: the Mwalimu of Bargoni relies on his business for income, that of Muswakini is a farmer, while in Berabothei the mosque is sited on the army compound and depends on military personnel for leadership. The call to attend prayers does not elicit an altogether enthusiastic response from the community, numbers of those attending daily rarely reach double figures, and even then the composition is almost entirely Somali. Boni elders argued that attendance at the mosque was not a prerequisite and that often the choice was made to pray at home. No evidence was gathered to support this assertion, however, and, like so many other statements, it appears to represent a version of reality as the speaker would like to have it. Friday midday prayer does attract greater numbers, with a wider degree of ethnic diversity apparent in the composition of the worshippers. Similarly, when a visiting Islamic scholar stayed in the village for a few days his nightly exhortations and extrapolations attracted an audience of between thirty and forty men—albeit from the three

46

Conversation with Mzee Maalim Hussein, Bargoni, 1 November 1997.

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mosques in the vicinity—which was politely appreciative of the knowledge he was sharing. Major events in the Muslim calendar evoked a range of responses. While Bobitu Kololo was fastidious in keeping his fast during Ramadan, going so far as to extend it for six days beyond the celebration of Eid Al-Fittr to accrue extra blessings, others felt no hesitation in approaching me for cups of coffee provided they were discreetly positioned behind the door of my house and not visible from the road. Similarly, the celebration of Eid Al-Fittr saw the largest crowd attending the mosque, but the fact that Abdi Maalim had donated a cow and a sack of rice by way of a community feast constituted quite an attraction and thus, while the prayers were being said, the women sat around laughing and talking as the food was being prepared and a group of some twenty-five men failed to make it to the mosque but instead availed themselves of the shade of a tree and awaited their portion of the edibles. However, even if the overtly religious dimension of Eid failed to find a resonance in the lives of some, the celebratory aspect was fully entered in to. New clothes, particularly for the children and women, were everywhere apparent and, after prayers at the mosque and the community feast, some few hundred members of the Boni community retired to a homestead of an elder in Muswakini where a dance was held. This was quintessentially Boni and consisted of a band playing an assortment of drums—some traditionally made of wood and covered with skins, others of modern design incorporating tin or plastic cans that had contained cooking oil—while the participants formed a wide circle around the designated dance area. Women made up half of the circle and men the other and although, in the lulls in the dancing, one group might serenade the other, the dancing itself was mixed. The dances all featured elements of courtship or of the male capturing the female and included: 1. Habuka: With the band playing, a soloist singing and the crowd clapping, one young man leapt out of the crowd, span round and pretended to aim with a bow at his chosen partner. She (sometimes ‘they’ if a number of girls standing together think that they have been the victim of a particularly attractive cupid) shuffled forward with a set face to the centre of the dance arena and stopped just short of the hunter, acknowledged him, before turning round and

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returning to her place (with her face creased in a smile or mock embarrassment). The hunter retired to his place and, as the singing and clapping continued, another young man came forward and, with a show of acrobatics, proceeded to aim his arrow. 2. Bere: With singing and clapping from the crowd, a woman moved around the inner circumference of the circle with a shuffling gait that gave the impression of gliding—no discernible up-and-down movement to her head, but rather a side-to-side roll—and with her face set impassively. A man stepped out and followed her, taking station at her left shoulder, bobbing up and down and holding his hands, slightly apart, extended over the woman’s head. The two circled in formation until another man appeared to replace the first, or else another woman replaced the female dancer. I was informed that this is specifically a courtship, rather than marriage, dance since it involves the man following the woman rather than vice versa which is the case in a marriage relationship since “If a man wants to marry a girl then he follows that girl to her father’s house to show interest—it’s the same in this dance.” 47 The dancers represent giraffes, the man’s loping gait being reflective of this, and his extended hands imitating the neck. The woman is supposed to make a movement with her neck and head that is like a giraffe walking. In neither case is there any direct physical contact between the male and female dancers. Such a juxtapositioning of Islam and the traditional ways of the Boni is a common feature of the public face of religion in Bargoni. Indeed, although the Islamic feast was the ostensible reason for the celebration, it is easy to discern a rootedness in a pre-Islamic past that informs and interprets the present. In this the traditional pattern of slaughtering an animal, feasting and dancing continues apace. Islam is the common currency that facilitates exchange between the Boni and the world that the road brings in. However, there are worlds in the background that the mosque fails to allude to and a particular image conveys this. In Muswakini, the mosque occupies a slightly elevated position commanding a bend in the road. On the other side of the track, a little way into the bush but still visible, 47 Conversation at the home of Mzee Habole Guarcho, Muswakini, 30 January 1998.

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stands a doum-palm draped with scaffolding upon which individuals scurry as they tap potent palm-wine from this tree, eliciting little reaction from the kanzu-clad men making their desultory promenade to the house of prayer. Islamic Education If the religious actions of the mosque appear to have little direct impact on the vast majority of the Boni population of Bargoni, the same cannot be said of Islamic education. Two strata of understanding are apparent here: on one level there is the hope, expressed by some of the more pious Somali residents and by Mwalimu Hussein (the preacher of Islam to the Boni), that the education of the young in the ways of orthodox Islam will lead to a greater commitment to the teachings of the Prophet amongst the Boni community in the years to come.48 The second level, as is suggested in Chapter 3, sees Islamic education as a means of emasculating the Boni through cutting them off from the life-giving wells of tradition and exerting ideological control over the community. Islamic education is addressed on two fronts, in the madrasa school and in the government primary school in the village. As one enters Bargoni from the direction of Lamu, on the left is an extensive corrugated-iron sheet roof straddling the collapsed walls of what was the original mosque, which latterly served as the madrasa school. Now it constitutes a retreat for the goats from the midday sun and the learning and recitation of the suras takes place in the mosque proper. Mohamed Ali, the Imam, claims49 that before his arrival in 1976 the people had largely been living in ignorance of their faith with few attending the madrasa school and no resident, 48 Such a view reflects a general hope behind the role of the madrasa school. David Sperling notes this when he writes, “All informants agree that by increasing religious knowledge the madrasas have brought a greater awareness of the importance of religion to young and old alike. Consequently, more people are practicing Islam than before. More people attend Friday (and daily) prayers, and more women are praying than in the past. Thus, village madrasas have more than fulfilled their purpose of providing the younger generation of Muslims with a deeper religious training. By bringing about a general religious renewal, the madrasa movement has had a profound influence on daily village life.” David C. Sperling, ‘Rural Madrasas of the Southern Kenya Coast, 1971–92’, in Louis Brenner (ed.), Muslim Identity and Social Change in Sub-Saharan Africa (London: Hurst and Co., 1993), 209. 49 Conversation, Bargoni, 2 December 1997.

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qualified Mwalimu to instruct them. However, this assertion of his relative importance fails to take into account the fact that, a number of years previous to that date, the Bargoni community had been living in exile in Mokowe, open to instruction from coastal scholars. Even prior to the shifta-induced insecurity, travelling walimu visited the area and children were also sent to larger urban centres for instruction. Thus, the ignorance that Mohamed Ali speaks of was, perhaps, less pervasive than he would admit. However, it is true that more established patterns are now in place and boys (only) of Bargoni gather each evening at dusk for night prayer followed by an hour given over to memorising texts from the Qur’an. This can be augmented by another hour, early in the morning, during the school holiday period. However, the men of the village are not entirely happy with the progress the boys are making and criticise the Mwalimu for devoting too much time to his business interests rather than the propagation of the faith. This reveals a change of role for madrasa-centred Islamic education that has occurred in the last 25 years, coinciding with Mohamed Ali’s residency. As was argued in Chapter 3, madrasa education was used by elements of the Lamu hierarchy as a means of dominating and controlling the Boni population—akin to the methods employed in Lamu where the Bajuni and other lower-class citizens were dissuaded from seeking education while the upper echelons surreptitiously advantaged themselves.50 On the strength of the assertion that western education was a vehicle for Christian proselytism and hence to be avoided by any Muslim worthy of the name, the madrasa constituted the alternative avenue for education in literacy. However, as V.Y. Mudimbe has pointed out in his analysis of the missionary and colonial discourse in central Africa, the religious process of conversion is inextricably linked with an inherent political component. This is pertinent here to an understanding of the processes at work around the establishment of the madrasa school in Bargoni. Mudimbe51 identifies three stages in the conversion process and, although he is referring specifically to the action of Catholic missionaries in the Belgian Congo nearly 100 years ago, such an analysis can also be applied to efforts at conversion to Islam in Bargoni. The pattern he sees emerging recognises

50 51

See footnote 38 of chapter 3 of this work. Mudimbe, Idea, 109.

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that, at the beginning there is an individual who speaks in the name of both political power and absolute truth. This develops into a style of communication which is edifying and refers itself to an absolute truth which serves to make the speech specific, seducing and thus spells out its power. Finally the convert assumes the identity of the style imposed upon him or her to the point of displaying it as his or her nature. The madrasa school, while seeking a conversion of the heart, also achieves conversion of the mind and is thus a political instrument, a means of ‘domestication’, to use Mudimbe’s terminology.52 This is not to say it was a clear and conscious decision on the part of individuals or groups in Lamu—in the same way, as Mudimbe points out with reference to the missionary/colonial enterprise in the Belgian Congo, “most missionaries did not have the education, much less the time, to ponder [the] paradoxes flowing from their generosity.”53 Nevertheless, the process of ongoing conversion that revolved around the madrasa had the effect of imparting an identity that held up the Swahili model as the standard: it domesticated the Boni youth, converting them to a new way of living. Indeed, the madrasa can be understood as pursuing “the complete deconstruction of an individuality in order to ‘invent’ a new one”54 and this, as is the case with Catholic seminary formation, is achieved through the reordering of space, time and consciousness which “are ‘essential’ parts of a plan of domestication.”55 Just as, in the previous chapter, it was seen how the events around the horrop tree served to create a new ‘memory’ for the Boni participants, so too with the mosque/madrasa complex. Here, according to Mudimbe, the metamorphosis of a memory “takes place during a process of neutralization, re-creation, and rearrangement of a site, of its geography, and of the values by which a tradition distinguished it.”56 It is, he argues, “a force of domination, and its counterpart, subjugation, marks the transformation of a memory whose reconstruction testifies to this very violence.”57

52 53 54 55 56 57

Ibid., Ibid., Ibid., Ibid., Ibid., Ibid.,

114. 107. 122. 122. 134. 134.

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It was the clamour of the Somali settlers for education for their children, because they were aware of the importance this played in modern society, that upset this hold and led to the establishment of Bargoni Primary School in the mid-1970s and the gradual demise of the importance of the madrasa school in the eyes of the external sponsors. Now the Imam is no longer supported financially by the vested interests of Lamu entrepreneurs via the Riyadh mosque complex and, instead, has to find means of supporting himself which Mohamed Ali does through his various business enterprises. The primary school offers the other focus for Islamic instruction and the headmistress, Hadija Nassir, a former Christian from TaitaTaveta District, is the wife of Abdi Nassir who, in turn, is the son of the Somali rancher Abdi Maalim. Thus, although the structures of madrasa and government primary schools are very different, a similar dynamic is apparent in both. Sponsorship and patronage continue to foster a dependency culture among the population, an awareness, as Sperling puts it, that “foreign donations can have strings attached,” and that “scepticism exists regarding the motives of urbanbased donor agencies.”58 The expression ‘there’s no such thing as a free lunch’59 might be aptly ascribed to the situation. Under the guise of philanthropy or religious enthusiasm, powerful individuals use the school and madrasa institutions as a means of domestication, a tool for introducing a new memory amongst the susceptible youth of Boniland. The madrasa and school systems are not merely involved in the transmission of Islamic faith and secular education respectively—the situation is far more complex. It is also about cultural propaganda and the pursuit of commercial interests, about a process of transformation that will lead to a sense of ‘sameness’ in the eyes of the propagators of this process, when the ‘other’ begins to conform to the yardstick of the powerful. This process necessarily entails a concomitant alienation from the memory of the Boni people. This process is at work when T.S.S., via the Riyadh mosque, sponsors the mosque and madrasa in Bargoni, when he uses his financial resources, through the person of Abdi Maalim, to support the school and swing the general election. The school then is in the hands of representatives of these outside

58 59

Sperling, Rural, 206–7. A saying often associated with the American economist, Milton Friedman.

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interests, those who wish to control and manipulate the Boni population, and run by the wife of Abdi Nassir who is derisive of her host community. While the school originally enjoyed the full complement of classes from Standard 1 to Standard 8, during the academic year 1997/8 only Standards 1–3 and Standard 5 were extant and the school boasted an enrolment of 84 students (54 boys and 30 girls) and four teachers, including the headmistress (two men and two women), all of whom are Muslim. Islamic instruction is considered a constituent element and is represented in the syllabus in two forms: first, Religious Education, which deals with the historical dimension of the Prophet’s life and with the development of Islam as a world religion, and second, the Pastoral Programme of Instruction, which has to do with the living out of the Islamic faith in the here and now. Resource people are sometimes invited in this connection when, for example, an explanation of Islamic dietary law is offered.60 School starts each day with prayers in Arabic and this language is also a part of the RE syllabus, with students expected to recite Qur’anic texts in that language as well as to translate them into Swahili. In this respect, madrasa education complements that on offer in the school. The headmistress further maintained that frequently the students will go en masse to the mosque at the end of morning school with a prefect checking attendance, but no evidence of this was observed and it seems to represent more the ideal than the reality. In keeping with an analysis that interprets the use made of Islam as an ideology in the hands of those who have a vested interest in maintaining and enhancing their power within the community, it comes as no surprise to learn that Hadija Nassir maintains that education should favour the development of ‘orthodox’ Islamic beliefs and practices in the students since this is the component stressed and presented in the school rather than the more ‘peripheral elements like spirit possession’.61 The latter are no longer in the hands of the dominant group, they are out of their control and can easily assume a role of resistance to, and liberation from, the model that is being imposed. Having made such a claim, it is worthy of note that she

60 61

The example given by the headmistress herself, Bargoni, 4 October 1997. Ibid.

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herself, on at least one occasion, employed Ali Sani, the local Boni diviner, to ascertain the nature of her child’s sickness and to prescribe the necessary medication. Within the school, Islamic sensibilities are addressed, with the relaxation of the rule in most Kenyan schools that girls’ hair be cut short. Here female students are allowed to grow and plait their hair, but whether or not to cover it is a matter of personal choice and reactions are mixed but, on the whole, given the relative youth of the students, the number who decide to do so is low. The dress code also allows for long dresses or skirts with trousers underneath (although again, this is more an ideal since most girls appear in skirts of the standard length found in Kenyan schools) and segregation of the sexes is practised in the classroom with girls sitting at the front and boys at the back. An annual feature of the educational establishment in Kenya is the publication of a league table of positions of each district in the Certificate of Primary Education exams. Lamu District and neighbouring Tana River District regularly vie for the unenviable position at the bottom of the list. The headmistress sees religious factors as involved in this, citing the reality that by the time the girls come to sit the examination their minds are inevitably turned to thoughts of marriage and hence a life at home rather than the prospect of a career. As a result they often fail to make much effort and this is compounded by the fact that their education has already been compromised by the likelihood of girls being taken out of school to assist at home when sickness strikes or to prepare meals to end the fast at the end of each day during the month of Ramadan. So the situation of Islamic education in Bargoni presents a far more intricate picture than the mere instilling of religious knowledge might suggest. It is very much about bringing the Boni into the web of Swahili influence, ‘domesticating the memory of the Boni’ as Mudimbe would have it. However, the yardstick held up is that of Swahili Islam ensuring that superiority and domination lay in the hands of the Boni’s coastal neighbours such that insertion into this schema is on the terms of the powerful. Islamic education, whether it be incorporated in the government primary school or the madrasa, can be understood in this light. As Geertz observes, “religious issues . . . tend to penetrate educational contexts quite readily . . . If the general strike is the classical political expression of class warfare,

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and the coup d’état of the struggle between militarism and parliamentarianism, then the school crisis is perhaps becoming the classical political—or parapolitical—expression of the clash of primordial loyalties.”62 Despite the former opposition to government secular educational establishments, a leaf has been taken from the book of the Christian missions and education in its various forms is now being grasped by the Islamic authorities in this area as a means of resocialisation, used to confound or negate the original socio-cultural and psychological identity of the Boni. The young people are kept in a more or less permanent state of education since school holidays only increase the time available for madrasa attendance. This has the effect of keeping the youth village-bound and this locale is very much the focus of Islam. It also prevents young men from going off into the bush to attend the initiation camps, or moro, and thus the fundamental structures of the Boni society are undermined. At the moro young men would go to be initiated into the various age-sets, they would learn of the spirits of the bush and then would, with accompanying rites and rituals, re-enter the village community. This would, in effect bring in the wisdom and knowledge of the spirit world of the bush into the homesteads. Now, Islamic education precludes the possibility of taking time out for such instruction and prevents the mediums of transmission between bush and settlement from enacting their role. A number of the elders were aware that vital elements of Boni self-identity were not being passed on to the youth with the demise of the moro in the Bargoni area. It was felt that responsibility now rested on the shoulders of the fathers of the youths but this appears problematic and one not-so-old father pointed out another man who would initiate his son into these secrets of this world-in-the-background should the former die before fulfilling this duty. Given the robust health the speaker was enjoying, it was clear that he had no intention of performing this function himself in the near future, if at all. Compounding the problem is the fact that the youth, through their education and village-bound existence, are removed from the world that the elders wish to reveal to them and thus common ground is receding.

62

Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures, (London: Basic Books, 1973), 274–5.

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Marriages If education constitutes one avenue of domestication, then the present form of marriage also represents a process of alienation from the traditional memory of the Boni people. The present form, as witnessed in Bargoni, has been heavily influenced by Islam of the Swahili variety such that little overtly remains of the pre-Islamic forms as were described in the previous chapter. There is a strong sense that marriage, rather than celebrating integration into the past and present life of the community as conveyed by the involvement of the horrop tree in the marriage rite, now becomes a stepping out of that tradition. Particularly for women, marriage constitutes an entry into the urban sphere and it is notable that, even in the small amount of literature on the Boni, there are a number of references on how women view Islamic marriage as a passport to a ‘better’ life in town-based societies that reflect a greater degree of urbanity. Thus, Harvey notes that “Boni women liked to marry town men who were good Muslims because they could put on a buibui and not have to work,”63 and Prins, as recorded earlier, ascribes the process of genocide that he discerns as taking place amongst the Boni to this net outflow of women.64 In a microcosm, marriage for a woman reflects the ambivalent relationship between the Boni and Islam as a whole: a woman is attracted to an Islamic marriage because, ideally, it represents an escape from the drudgery of daily life to the status of a kept woman; on the other hand, it constitutes a loss of independence that Boni women often manifest. Thus marriage today is pre-eminently an Islamic religious rite and reflects the influence of Swahili culture on the development of Islam among the Boni. Details vary and depend very much on whether the marriage is the first for the bride or whether she has already been married and divorced. The prevalence of divorce is understood by the Boni to be a new phenomenon, since the elders of Bargoni echoed Harvey who records an elder as saying: “Divorces were less [in the past] than nowadays . . . These days divorces are numerous.”65 As was revealed in Chapter 4, the presence of the horrop tree in the wedding rite was understood to have a binding influence that is 63 64 65

Harvey, Hunting, 178–9. Prins, Didemic, 177. Harvey, Hunting, 178.

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absent in the present ritual which, combined with the more relaxed and tolerant attitude towards divorce prevalent in Islamic societies, has resulted in an escalation in the divorce rate. This phenomenon is certainly not unique to the Boni or, for that matter, to Islamic societies and Parkin records the same lament emanating from the lips of a Giriama elder: In the old days, women would not leave their husbands because they would have been blessed (ku-haswa) at their marriages. This is like being given an oath, for if a wife did leave her husband for another man, she would die or would never be able to have children. But nowadays many marry in a Christian church and so do not get blessed, and that is why more women leave their husbands.66

While Parkin refers to the introduction of Christian marriage rites amongst the Giriama, the situation is not dissimilar amongst the Boni where Islamic practice has had the same effect. In the observed case of a young couple who were marrying for the first time, arrangements were more elaborate than in successive unions. As in the past, negotiations were conducted between the two families and there was repeated gift-giving by the groom’s side to the bride’s family. Divination, using the technique called bao (see chapter 6), determined the date and time for the marriage and on the day before dancing and singing began in the homestead of the groom and this moved, in the evening, to the compound of the bride. Traditional Boni song and dance, as described previously, were performed and the event had a highly charged sexual aura—young women were dressed in their finery and heady perfume pervaded the air. Indeed, perfume is an important means for a young woman to ‘capture’ a husband and is closely associated with the world of spirits where it is understood that a spirit enters the body through one or other bodily orifice, particularly the mouth or nose. As will be demonstrated, smoke and smell are important in the treatment of sickness and possession, but also in prayers the inner intention of the person praying is frequently encapsulated in spittle that is then directed at the object of the petitions. In the case of the marriage dance under discussion, the smell of the girl entered into the being of the boy and she pervaded his being. Likewise, in the case of seduction, a girl will frequently apply her perfume to the body of 66

Parkin, Sacred, 84.

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her beloved so that, as he absorbs the fragrance, her ‘spirit’ will take over just as a shetani or one or other spirit will possess a person. Thus, if a sexual encounter does take place, there is a sense that the male party is not entirely responsible for his actions since his faculties have been over-ridden by the spirit of the woman which entices him. On the male side, many of the young men were slightly inebriated on palm-wine. The perfume, the alcohol, the dancing and the darkness that sees only the dance area illuminated by a single hurricane lamp are all conducive to furtive liaisons. The drums were frequently taken to a fire for heating, to produce a superior tone, but the drumming also served to ‘heat’ and inflame the passions of those in attendance. While all this was taking place at the bride’s homestead, she was not present at the dance nor on the compound but was away with relatives. The dancing went on well into the night, and the following day got off to a slow start but eventually arrangements were made between the families and the Imam as to when his services would be required. Meanwhile, preparations continued for the marriage. In the case I witnessed, a start had been made on constructing a special wedding house but this was not complete when the wedding took place (the time being determined, in part, by the leave allowed to the young man, who was a policeman based in Malindi) and thus another adjacent hut on the compound had been set aside. This had been decorated with brightly coloured kitenge clothes on the walls, ‘Like a Swahili room,’—this is not merely a matter of decoration but a statement. As Middleton notes: Cloth and adornment are used as signs and symbols not only to denote status, occupation, age, gender, and other directly observable criteria of persons and groups, but also to denote degrees of moral purity of their wearers within particular statuses and groups. The adornment of house interiors has much the same function. Clothing and adornment are significant not only within and between Swahili communities but also as a sign of civilization in the eyes of their non-Swahili neighbors [my italics].67

As preparations were being completed, the young woman with her friends and a few older female relative were still closeted away and the girl was dressed and beautified and there was much laughing as sexual secrets and ‘women-only’ lore were imparted.

67

Middleton, World, 196.

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As this was going on, the female relatives of the groom had gathered on a nearby compound belonging to that side of the family and there they prepared to carry the box containing the bride’s trousseau to the compound of the bride where the wedding would take place. The box contained shoes, a head-cloth, kitenge, as well as a sum of money for the mama mdogo (the ‘little mother’—the girl’s mother’s younger sister) who is responsible for preparing the girl for the marriage. There was much gaiety, the women were in their best clothes and many had plucked their eyebrows and replaced them with a dark lines produced by burning an old piece of rubber. Many sported a red dot in the centre of their foreheads, a feature borrowed from some of the finely dressed wives of Hindu merchants in Lamu, whose conspicuous wealth and style they seek to emulate. “They are good business women,”68 it was said with a hint of envy, their apparent independence and acumen being held in high regard. The fact that these women were Hindus and not Muslims was not apparently recognised but, clearly they represented a status and way of life to which some of the womenfolk of Bargoni aspired. The groom’s wedding party arrived at this compound where the women and the trousseau were waiting. There was singing and ululation as the entourage was led by the groom’s mother, carrying a load of firewood on her head. The trousseau was taken up and carried with much singing and dancing to the bride’s compound, borne on the head of one of the groom’s sisters-in-law, since it is her task to welcome another sister-in-law in the person of the new bride (see photo 6). The long line of women was warmly welcomed as it snaked into the bride’s compound, a mat was set before the door of the marriage hut and the box deposited upon it. The women of both households then formed a tight circle and dancing took place of quite an explicit sexual nature. A number of women danced in the centre exhibiting much in the way of rolling hips and pelvic movements and eventually the arena was left to two old women who excited the crowd by dancing very close, their pelvic areas touching and they engaged in rhythmic thrusting, even going so far as to start kissing each other.69

68 69

Conversation with Zahara Bobitu, Bargoni, 18 March 1998. For details of such dances among the women of Lamu: Fuglesang, Veils, 235–6.

Photo 6. Wedding scene: A bride’s trousseau is carried into the compound of her husband.

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Eventually, the box containing the trousseau was taken inside the marriage house and set at the foot of the bed and the exclusively women’s entertainment moved to the area where the dance had taken place the evening before. General dancing ensued, although this petered out as many of the women departed to go about their duties at home and the men took to sitting around in groups, talking. As night began to fall the bride was brought, with much celebration, from the homestead where she had been secluded and was greeted by the assembled women who had remained outside the hut containing the wedding chamber and she danced there for a while before entering the house. Mats were laid out in the area in front of the wedding hut with a central one placed nearer to the door and covered in a red kitenge with a cushion at either end and a hurricane lamp placed strategically close by—the groom was to sit on this mat as he fulfilled the Islamic rite. Between the cushions was a bag of incense. The Imam arrived after evening prayer at the mosque; he sat in front of the door of the hut with the bride’s father to his right and a thurible containing lighted coals was set before him and the mat where the groom was to sit. Incense was added and the Imam started to recite prayers while the groom appeared, removed his shoes and sat cross-legged on the mat prepared for him, between the two cushions. A white cloth was produced from inside the hut and placed on the ground before the Imam—this would be used to verify the virginity of the bride and, all being well, enhance the status of the girl’s family the next morning. The majority of those that were assembled were middle aged or older people; the men folk sat around the Imam, with any remaining women on the periphery of the gathering. Taking the groom by the hand, the Imam solemnly asked whether he agreed to take the girl as his bride and he received such an undertaking. The cushions and white cloth were then returned to the house and tea was brought and distributed among the men although the groom did not receive a cup. As this was done, incense was added to the thurible and a member of the groom’s entourage wafted smoke first over the Imam and other luminaries, then over all the men there who indicated a wish for this to happen. Upon completion and the return of the thurible, a woman came forward and repeated this action for the female section of the crowd. Tea continued to be served as six or seven of the groom’s agemates came forward and, returning the groom’s shoes to him, escorted

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him inside the house. After this the witnesses gradually drifted away but later in the evening younger members of the community returned for more dancing. The rite described above is appropriate when the marriage is the first for both partners but other rites are to be found. At the other end of the scale was the case of an elderly Bajun man from Pate Island who had been in negotiation with a Boni family in Muswakini to marry their daughter, a young girl in her late teens. Having consulted a diviner, he had been given the most propitious date and time to conduct the ceremony and so he arrived by tractor in Muswakini one afternoon to announce that the wedding would take place the following morning. He had already undergone the legal requirements of Islamic law in Lamu, en route, and now consummation remained. Word was swiftly disseminated and a dance was arranged in the girl’s house that evening and which went on well into the night although she, in keeping with tradition, was being cared for and prepared on another compound. The following morning, soon after dawn, tea was prepared by the female relatives of the bride and the groom and his friends and other men from Bargoni enjoyed this before the groom departed for the mosque to purify himself and prepare himself for the marriage. Meanwhile the bride was brought back to her compound and a room was hastily arranged as the bridal chamber. At the auspicious time supplied by the diviner, the groom, between two male supporters and escorted by the madrasa students from Muswakini, singing and dancing and waving greenery which they plucked along the way, left for the journey to his bride’s compound. The groom wore a white kanzu, his shoulders were draped with a red chequered cloth and on his head there was a Lamu kofia (hat). As the groom’s party approached their destination, a group of women from the bride’s family came to meet him, singing and ululating. There was an air of happiness as the two groups combined and made their way into the compound where more people had gathered to receive the groom. He was taken to the door of the bridal chamber and the singing and joyous confusion continued until Mzee Bobitu Kololo recited a fatia after which the groom’s two assistants took him by the arms and whisked him into the house amidst much cheering and further ululation. That constituted the wedding ceremony and the crowd slowly dispersed. In the rite of marriage described above, one witnesses a very clear

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and fundamental shift in the complexion away from the horrop-centred ceremonials that were a feature of the past and towards a form that is firmly rooted in the Swahili model. Indeed, it is now the figure of the Imam, the Muslim authority in the community, who manages and conducts the proceedings and the generative dimension of the Boni rite—manifested in the use of the horrop tree wood to provide the threshold of the dwelling and the pole supporting the roof in the marriage hut—has been eclipsed. The absence of the horrop tree serves to break the cycle of life within the community since the ancestors are excluded from the celebration of a union that is a public statement of regeneration—a uniting of the past with the potential for the future. In the same way there is the shutting-out of the bush from the marriage which now assumes the character of Swahili urbanity. Thus the religious and cultural ascendancy of the Swahili has served to foster a sense of alienation amongst the Boni, effectively cutting them off from a sense of their belonging with the ancestors in one, ongoing, community. Marriage is a ritual that now belongs within the orbit of the mosque and not the horrop, a rite that serves to legitimate their new identity: ‘We marry like this because we are Muslims now.’70 It suggests a sense of belonging within the wider Swahili/Islamic world where there is a sense of ‘sameness’, which, in turn, has the effect of creating a distance between the Boni community and the bush and the memories that reside there. Funerals If, as is suggested, a result of the Islamisation of the Boni is to subjugate them to the powerful of Lamu, then it comes as no surprise to discern that the rites surrounding funerals are deeply imbued with Swahili/Islamic sentiment, although this is not to say that pockets of resistance are not apparent. There is a very clear dichotomy and discontinuity between the traditional religion of the Boni and the Islamic structures that promote the interests of the powerful and hide their servitude from the Boni. Chapter 3 revealed that, like many indigenous religions of Africa, that of the Boni was concerned primarily with order in the here and now. As van Beek and Blakeley put it, “Indigenous African 70

Comment by Mzee Habole Guarcho, Muswakini, 28 April 1998.

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religion . . . often is a means to an end; people are often quite clear about why they do things and what they aim at: health, fertility, rain, protection, or relational harmony. Religion is part of a survival strategy and serves practical ends, either immediate or remote, social or individual.”71 This general observation accords with what was reported in the previous chapter when the primary attraction to the horrop tree was to address the very real and concrete issue: the superabundance of rain that was having a deleterious impact on the community; previously, gastric diseases had led to a similar recourse. Similarly, in the case of the ithai, it was ‘mundane’72 issues that were addressed. Another feature of pre-Islamic Boni religious activity was that it was community centred, drawing the living into communion with the ancestors. The latter preserved an interest in the well-being of the living and could be called upon to assist the community of which they were still inextricably a part. Again, van Beek and Blakeley identify this communitarian dimension as an essential feature of African religions: The religious action that is the core of African religion is group orientated, problem orientated, and closely linked to sociocultural context. The group can be relevant on any level of social interaction, but there is always a group as a frame of reference . . . The problems the actions aim to solve also are group related: definitions of illness tie the individual disorder to social problems.73

However, the Islamic belief, as it is propagated in Bargoni, is the antithesis to these features. Firstly, the emphasis is not on seeking to restore a sense of harmony and wholeness amongst the living community in this world, but the focus switches to seeking the joys of heaven in the after-life. A dualism is introduced in which this life is a penitential preparation for the rewards of heaven where, it was said, things far surpass what is at hand in this world: women are far more beautiful and available than in the here and now and thus one must not allow oneself to be attracted by earthly female beauty since this is but a dim reflection of what awaits the pure man in heaven. Likewise one must refrain from a few bottles of beer sure in the hope that there will be rivers of beer in the after-life.74 71 Van Beek and Blakeley, ‘Introduction’, in Blakeley, van Beek and Thomson (eds.), Religion, 17. 72 To use a term coined by van Beek and Blakeley, ibid. 73 Ibid., 18. 74 Conversation with Abdi Khalif and Abdi Maalim, Bargoni, 14 September 1997.

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In the pre-Islamic religious activity of the Boni, the wide repertoire of rites was performed in order to restore a benevolent order on earth which was understood from a anthropocentric point of view. Religious practice had an essentially life-enhancing function, geared towards structuring the fabric of society and relationships between its members (both living and dead) so as to facilitate all that contributed to a good life—happiness, peace, fertility, freedom from hunger. The message of Islam, as proclaimed in the village, is orientated towards a life with God in a post-death experience. Practices in this life are to conform to the teachings of the Prophet and the hadith which ensure that the individual remains pure and hence eligible for entry into a glorious future that lies beyond the grave. Indeed, there is the notion that angels are continually observing the moral and religious lives of individuals to assess their worthiness for a heavenly reward, and subterfuge may be needed to enhance one’s chances. It was whispered that angels change shifts in observing the mosque and to be there at prayer when one shift goes off and the next comes on is to accrue double points for the same activity.75 The material world is thus but a stage to pass through en route to heaven whereas, from the traditional Boni viewpoint, this world is the one inhabited by the living community and the ancestors. Thus, rather than the dualism that is manifest in the presentation of Islam in Bargoni, the Boni formerly held a monistic understanding of the world in which they lived. Another important shift that one notices between these two views is that the pre-Islamic Boni religion was essentially communitarian whereas the portrait painted of Islam is much more individualistic. Even when a hunter went to pray for success under the horrop tree, this would involve a relationship with the ancestors and so incorporated the individual into a wider network of relationships. The Muslim view is perceived as focusing on the salvation of the individual and thus spiritual ties of communion are less apparent. This comes out in the funeral rite under discussion. The Islamic authorities have appropriated this religious activity on the grounds that the words and ritual are intended to facilitate the transition of the individual from life on earth to a state of anticipation of heavenly bliss. In funeral homilies, much was made of the virtuous in their graves hearing the voice of angels, and how this constitutes a foretaste of the joys awaiting them in heaven on judgement day. Such 75

Ibid.

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a belief flies in the face of an understanding that sees death as a transition from one state of being in the community (a living member) to another (as an ancestor). The pre-Islamic notion of existence saw the world as the locus where the drama of human and spiritual interaction was played out and coalesced, where the spiritual dimension constituted a world-in-the-background to the human community that sought order and harmony in the here and now through interaction with these spiritual entities. While Islam certainly does not negate the importance of the world—indeed, great attention is paid to the correct ordering of society—there is a projected understanding that it is but a transitory stage prior to the individual being taken up into God. In this connection, the rite serves to cut off the Boni from the life-enhancing and regenerative dimension of traditional funerals. Instead of the cyclical progression of the community marked by birth, death and rebirth (as an ancestor within the community), the process is abruptly disengaged—the dead are now taken out of the life of the community and into a state of suspension as they await the day of judgement. So the imposition of Swahili-style funeral rites in the name of Islamic orthodoxy has the effect of alienating the Boni from their religious past, wrestling the destiny of the individual-after-death away from this hunter-gatherer community and into the Islamic world. It is another manifestation of the domestication of the Boni and constitutes, de facto, the death of the community—the regeneration of ancestors is being aborted and the community is being undermined by the emphasis being attached to the quest of the individual to attain life with God. “In the past, all the Boni would go to pray at the horrop,”76 it was said, in contrast to attendance at the mosque which was seen as more a matter of personal choice. To effect this change, there has been a subtle yet significant shift in the placing of the grave and the positioning of the body which constitutes an unwitting interruption of the ongoing link with the past. “In the past we buried our dead in the bush, near where we were living at that time, and we marked the graves with branches from the wahari tree. Then, later on, we could take our children there and tell them that so-and-so was buried there.”77 As stated, there are two cemeteries in greater Bargoni—the older one is some dis76 77

Mzee Habole Kirio, Muswakini, 30 October 1997. Mzee Bobitu Kololo, Bargoni, 30 October 1997.

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tance to the north of Bargoni sub-village while the more recent site in Muswakini is on the right hand side of the road, east of the mosque and the settlement it serves. The older of the two reflects Boni tradition as recorded by Prins who noted that burial grounds “are invariably to the northward of the didemic settlement. The sites are circular: low mounds of individual graves marked by wooden sticks are surrounded by a circular fence of thorn brush. Stone is not used, a fact also that may not be without significance in the Horn of Africa.”78 The Muswakini burial site is significant for its location close to the mosque and its break with the traditional location that would have seen it to the north of the community. Similarly, according to Islamic tradition pertaining in Bargoni, the corpse is laid in the grave with his/her head facing east, towards the coast, and the feet to the west. The earliest reports on the Boni, however, refer to a Boni man being buried “on his side as he sleeps, his head to the north,”79 The north is important here, both for the location of the burial ground and the positioning of the body, since it reflects the direction of the settlement of Shungwaya, the mythical home of the Boni and other coastal peoples. “The Boni came here from Shungwaya and our fathers were buried so that they could see where they came from.”80 One might detect here efforts to create a new memory amongst the Boni with Mecca assuming the role and place that was formerly occupied by the mythical Shungwaya. The actual existence of this town is a hotly contested issue.81 Morton,82 in his examination of the Shungwaya history as it exists among the Miji Kenda, is dismissive of any historical foundation, arguing that it was the fabrication of groups or individuals at the end of the last century who had their own political83 or religious reasons84 for concocting such a story. He argues that “traditions 78

Prins, Didemic, 175. Salkeld, Notes, 169. 80 Mzee Habole Guarcho, Muswakini, 2 December 1997. 81 Allen, Swahili, 50. 82 R.F. Morton, ‘The Shungwaya Myth of Miji Kenda Origins: A Problem of Late Nineteenth Century Kenya Coastal History’, African Historical Studies 5, 1972, 397–423. 83 He suggests that such a myth might lend support for the continuation of slavery in the coastal environment (415) or to help create a sense of self-identity and unity among the Miji Kenda (Ibid., 422–3). 84 That the creation of such a myth might foster the conversion of the Miji Kenda to Islam by showing that a common history was shared by coastal Muslims and the non-Muslin Miji Kenda alike (Ibid., 421). 79

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collected prior to [the late nineteenth century] agree that the Miji Kenda originated elsewhere, and at a distance from the southern Somalia coast, where Shungwaya is thought to be . . . The Shungwaya tradition is more than likely an appended myth which entered the oral and written literature around 1897 or a little before.”85 While Morton cannot countenance the possibility of a factual basis to the existence of Shungwaya, other scholars are equally insistent on the historicity of this town. “Shungwaya has been a historical town. Its ruins are still to be found near the present Port Durnford Bay in the south of Somalia,” writes Prins.86 Although he acknowledges the practice among peoples of creating a ‘history’ that enhances their sense of ‘status-value’, he posits that the existence of the Shungwaya tradition amongst so many disparate and widely scattered communities suggests a common origin. A detailed analysis of the ‘Shungwaya Phenomenon’ lies outside the scope of this study. Efforts to establish the historical veracity and geographical locality of Shungwaya, and to account for the conflicting details contained in the accounts of the various ethnic communities, continue. The weight of evidence, however, seems to come down on the side of the historical validity of Shungwaya. Sperling writes: “the traditions have been dubbed fabrications, but their overwhelming consistency (collected over a wide area and time) would seem to confirm them as genuine . . . From the whole corpus of these traditions, it has been argued that Shungwaya comprised a large, multiethnic community (including Cushitic-speaking and Bantu-speaking peoples) spread over a wide region.”87 According to Stiles, “Boni oral traditions state that only they and the Bajunis lived in Shungwaya, and this is supported by the Dahalo [a related hunter-gather community living further south, towards the Tana River].”88 He suggests that Shungwaya was a Bajuni/Swahili type of society with the Boni living in the forests and supplying ivory to this community or communities as they had done for centuries. He claims that the Boni left that area “because of overcrowding and a

85

Ibid., 407. A.H.J. Prins, ‘The Shungwaya Problem: Traditional History and Cultural Likeness in Bantu North-East Africa’, Anthropos 67 (1972), 10. 87 David C. Sperling, The Growth of Islam among the Mijikenda of the Kenya Coast, 1826–1933 (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of London. 1988), 26. 88 Stiles, Historical, 42. 86

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lack of game, and that there were many Boni graves from deaths.”89 The Bajunis lay the blame for their departure on incursions by the Orma. The mythical importance attached to Shungwaya is not unique to the Boni and, despite the above assertion, other ethnic communities also claim to have been present there. Parkin records the hold it exerts over the Giriama, part of the Mijikenda group of communities living further south along the Kenyan coast, where again the direction of this lost settlement serves to dictate the positioning of the body in the grave.90 Similarly, he witnesses the change of orientation of the grave on the coastal fringes of Giriamaland as Islamic influences begin to take hold and the process of disengagement with the past is exerted.91 However, as was suggested earlier, the Boni must not be seen as merely kowtowing to the demands of an external religious authority. It has been noted that, in his cursory examination of Boni burial sites, Prins records the marking of graves with wooden sticks recording, as noted above, that “stone is not used, a fact also that may not be without significance in the Horn of Africa.”92 Prins misses the point here. The fact that the land is largely sandy and devoid of stones might account for his final observation but it is the fact that “individual graves [are] marked by wooden sticks”93 that carries import. Significantly, the branches used are from the wahari tree94 and so, while going through the motions of conforming to Islamic praxis, the belief in ancestors and their role in the life of the community is being affirmed. This constitutes a reaffirmation of the resilience of the power and influence of ancestors in African communities that Islam is unable to eradicate so that, even amongst the Swahili of Mombasa, such an undercurrent continues to persist despite over a thousand years of Muslim identity.95 It is also to be noted that the use of the Islamic burial sites is confined to the burial of men or ‘honorary men’, that is elderly women, past child-bearing age, who are given a funeral similar to that of a 89 90 91 92 93 94 95

Ibid., 43. Parkin, Sacred, 23. Ibid., 38. Prins, Didemic, 175. Ibid., 175. See 113, 190f. Topan, Pepo, 6–7.

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man. In such cases, the woman’s body is taken to the mosque, into that section that is the preserve of men, where prayers are said before the male members of the community accompany the corpse to the graveyard for burial. In such cases, as Boddy asserts, “death represents a movement beyond the (feminine) world into the (masculine) spiritual domain.”96 However, while Islam attaches great importance to the burial of men within its jurisdiction, such attention is not extended to childbearing women or children and so no great furore arises out of the Boni wish to bury these members of their community97 in the home compounds. Thus, while the Imam might regard this as a minor concession to Boni sensibilities, it represents a tenacious holding-on of fertility within the orbit of the home which is the archetypical place of women. Indeed, the house and homestead are very much the domain of the female sex. The traditional home is full of connotations associated with nurturing and regeneration: a place where conception takes place, where life-sustaining food is prepared, where even the most elementary acts as going in and out of the beehive type dwelling require one to adopt a foetal position. The traditional home is built by women and the fire within is their responsibility. Thus, while the burial of men is to initiate them into the community of the ancestors (who, according to reports, are all men), burying the bodies of fertile women and children within the environs of the home is to reclaim for the community the essential fertility of the group. The Islamic dimension to such funerals is perfunctory and comprises the ritual core of the funeral form. The body is not taken to the mosque but rather the Imam is invited to pray at the graveside immediately before internment. This same somewhat subdued, almost casual, attitude is evident in those other funeral-related rites that centre around the home. At one point, for example, a sadaka was held by Ali Sani at the house of his wife’s parents in memory of his real sister (tumbo moja—from one stomach), Mutosha, who had died in Witu Hospital a few weeks previously. Mutosha was a widow who lived with her children in Pandangua, therefore news of her death was slow in reaching Bargoni and precluded the possibility of Ali

96 97

Boddy, Wombs, 70. Significantly, a young Somali mother was buried in the Islamic graveyard.

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attending the funeral. Thus tea was prepared at Mzee Habole’s compound and distributed to all the males present while the conversation was lively and those gathered busied themselves with simple tasks such as making arrow shafts as they drank the tea and chatted. The duty of reading the fatia fell to Mzee Habole, as the household head, but Ali Sani had long since departed after finishing his tea: “There are only the usual prayers to come,” he said as he left, obviously feeling that he had done his duty to his departed sister by attending the sadaka and that the reciting of Islamic prayers was extraneous. The sense of communion symbolised by the drinking of the tea—the sadaka per se—was what was essential, its sharing constituted the integration of the living with the dead. The Changing Identity of Boni Muslims Prolonged interaction with the Islamic world, and their espousal of Islam some fifty years ago, has resulted in an ongoing process of conversion that has seen the Boni adapting their self-perception and self-identity. However, clearly bounded ethnic identities were never understood as immutable but were frequently badges of convenience and a reflection of changing fortunes. Stiles notes the various processes that might lead to the Boni absorbing disenfranchised elements of neighbouring communities,98 with the Kijee section being composed of former Orma pastoralists but now fully integrated as members of the Boni community.99 Similarly, Allen suggests that some Bonispeakers became part of the Swahili Katwa100 and, indeed, paints a historical picture of the Swahili coast replete with cases of shifts in ethnic identity.101 Traditionally, such changes occurred because of dire economic or ecological circumstances that necessitated the abandonment of one mode of living and absorption into another community offering improved prospects. More recently other factors have come into play and the case of the Bajun—immediate neighbours of the Boni and low-status Swahili—is illustrative of the process. 98

Stiles, Hunters, 857, Historical, 41. Stiles, Past, 42, also Heine, Language, 108 and 113. 100 Mzee Bobitu Kololo confirmed this position by asserting that “the Wakatwa clan of the Bajun were, long ago, brothers of the Boni who were later absorbed by the Bajun. But they still follow Boni customs like not eating fish” (Mzee Bobitu Kololo, Bargoni, 24 September 1997). 101 Allen, Swahili, 105 ff. 99

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Earlier this century, it was the demand for representation on the Legislative Council and system of taxation, based on ethnic criteria and skewed in favour of ‘Arabs’, introduced by the British colonial administration that was conducive to the nurturing of a foreign, nonAfrican and, instead, Arab identity102 amongst the Bajun people whose roots historians trace back to earlier Bantu incursions into the north Kenya coast area. Prins recalls how on Pemba Island, the number of Shirazi (those tracing their line of descent back to Persia or Arabia) rose from around 12,000 in the census of 1924 to 33,000 claiming such ancestry in the census of 1931, yet the overall population showed hardly any natural increase. At the same time those claiming to be Swahili (hence ‘African’) all but vanished as a distinct category103— those who could sought to escape the “ordinances applicable to ‘natives’ ” amongst whose number were included the Swahili but those of Arab extraction were excluded.104 Thus to be classified as an Arab afforded the individual a more favourable tax and political status as well as a privileged ‘non-native’ stance before the law and it is therefore not difficult to imagine that there was considerable movement across the ethnic divides to obtain optimum benefit.105 Individuals and communities changed identity and mentality. As might be expected, the situation was reversed in the post-independence period when an ‘African’ identity was advantageous. Thus, the Bajun (considered a branch of Swahili and, according to the definition holding sway at that particular time, non-Arab) displayed a 116 per cent increase between 1962 and 1969 while the Kenyan Population Censuses of 1948, 1962 and 1969 show the Arab returns standing at 24,174, 34,048 and 27,886 respectively.106 The same process can be observed among the Boni and their wish to establish Islamic/Arabic roots. An example might be the version 102 A.I. Salim, The Swahili-Speaking Peoples of Kenya’s Coast: 1895–1965 (Nairobi: East African Publishing House, 1973), 182 ff. 103 A.H.J. Prins, The Swahili-Speaking Peoples of Zanzibar and the East African Coast (Arabs, Shirazi and Swahili), (London: International African Institute, 1961), 4. 104 Ibid., 188. 105 Hamid b. Hamidin, a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of History at the School of Oriental and African Studies, would concur with this interpretation of events. His research among archival material pertaining to the early decades of the twentieth century along the Kenyan coast clearly illustrates the rise and decline in numerical fortunes of various ethnic groups and this fluctuation can best be explained in terms of the concomitant value attached to ‘Arab’ identity. 106 S.H. Ominde (ed.), Population and Development in Kenya, (Nairobi: Heinemann Educational Books, 1984), 38–39.

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of the Shungwaya myth that was proffered in response to my solicitations. Stiles records the outline of a version107 that echoes similar accounts collected from other coastal peoples that espouse a Shungwaya legend. However, the rendition given by some Boni men of Bargoni contains important additions and a new slant that represents a more recent gloss on the story as they seek to have it conform to, and confirm, their present circumstances. The account now goes: Long ago in Arabia there lived a king and his subjects and the latter wanted to escape from his rule and so they went and consulted one of the local witch-doctors. He noted that the king only slept for six hours a night but that he would make him sleep much longer so that they could make their get-away. He told them to slaughter a camel and hang the meat on some of their doors. Then the king slept for thirty-six hours and when he awoke the meat was rotting and the people had gone. The escapees had four seas to cross and when they came to them they prayed—the men and the women—and the waters parted and they were able to pass dry-shod. Eventually they reached the place called Shungwaya. There were no people there at that time, the whole area was bush and wild animals, no tribes lived in the whole area just the Luo in the west. They settled here and established Shungwaya, somewhere on the present Kenya/Somali border north of Kiunga.108 When they reached this area they put hooks into the baobab trees that grew there and on these they hung their possessions—each person had his tree. They were so happy that they began to dance and the land they were on sank by six feet as a result. However, the king still had authority over them and it was one of his laws that led to the exodus from Shungwaya. He decreed that he or his sons had the right and duty to deflower every bride on her wedding night before the husband took over. One husband refused this and the people left. They became eighteen tribes. Eight went in the direction of the sea and became: Kiwaiyu, Mwomwe, Ngamwe, Takwa, Vipingoni, Ngaziga, Koiyama and Chovai (all of which now belong to the Bajun confederation). Ten went inland and became: Somali, Boni, Abutila (now called the Katwa), Amishiri, Mrisilimali, Mfrado, Nyika (now called the Mijikenda), Pokomo, Sanya and Orma.109 107

Stiles, Historical, 42–43. Asman Mohamed Mafu, of Ngine, claims that Shungwaya was at the place presently called Burukabo in Somalia. He said that he had actually been taken there by his grandfather in 1962 and seen the ruins of what was explicitly said to be Shungwaya. Conversation in Ngine, 5 October 1997. 109 Composite account taken from conversations with Boni men in Bargoni (24 September 1997) and Ngine (5 October 1997). 108

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This account is significant in many ways. Firstly, it traces the origin of the Boni back to Arabia and thus establishes Islamic roots for the community. When asked if the Boni were Muslims at Shungwaya it was explained that this was the case but that after their dispersal they went into the bush and became isolated from other Muslim communities and the offspring of the fathers who were present in Shungwaya began to develop their own religious practices. Thus there was the need for the re-conversion that happened of late. On another occasion, Bobitu Kololo sought to establish his Arabic roots by offering an explanation for the origin of the Aweersafaree section110 to which he belongs. He said that long ago an Arab dhow was shipwrecked on the shore and some of the Arabs survived. They were taken in by the local Boni and married Boni women and had children who had children . . . These became the Aweersafaree [playing on the kiSwahili wasafiri = travellers] since his group originated with the Arab travellers.111 One should not be tempted to regard these two accounts as historical and endeavour to integrate the two into some seamless whole. Rather, the accounts manifest the pervading political and religious atmosphere where rigorous genealogical integrity necessary to support such a claim matters less than the creating or augmenting of an ancestry that accurately reflects the self-perceived or projected socio/religious status. Indeed, this is a common enough feature, as Middleton notes about Lamu: “An important way by which Swahili can raise their social position and redefine their identity is to lay claim to particular categories of ancestry . . . the claims made by a particular group with regard to historical events are by no means consistent, and indeed may change at different periods: claims to origins are used to validate the actual social situation at a given time, whether or not they are supported by historical evidence.”112 Secondly, the inclusion of the Somali amongst the communities listed as emanating from Shungwaya serves to establish a common

110 The Boni community is comprised of a number of sections that originally corresponded with set geographical and territorial areas although, these days, there is considerable intermixing, Cf. Bernd Heine ‘Language and History of the Boni’ in Recent German Research on Africa: Language and Culture (Bonn: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, 1982), 106–114. 111 Conversation with Bobitu Kololo, Bargoni, 18 October 1997. 112 Middleton, World, 186.

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ancestry and equal status between the two major communities in Bargoni. It clearly suggests that the Somali have no grounds upon which to fabricate an image of superiority over the Boni. It should be noted that the Somali themselves have no tradition of having been in Shungwaya and, historically, their incursion into this area of the East African coast is much more recent than the dating of the Shungwaya story would have it. Finally, the story of the deflowering of Boni brides seems to be a uniquely Boni feature and is certainly not to be found in Bajun accounts which are considered to be the closest tradition. This detail perhaps serves to establish the moral fortitude of the Boni who have, as has been demonstrated, experienced defamatory assertions originating with the Somali. In Chapter 3, it was seen that the Somali ascribe to the Boni a myth of origin that features pre-marital pregnancy and, later, incestuous relations between the mother and son of the story—activities abhorrent to Islamic, and hence Somali, sensibilities. Similarly, Prins asserts that Somali men had right of access to Boni wives.113 This element of the Shungwaya story thus acknowledges the wrongs inflicted on the Boni but demonstrates the courageous steps taken to escape the indignity. An anecdote that is, nevertheless, revealing of the changing selfperception of the Boni and the adopting of an Arab persona concerns an elder of the village who had asked me to take his old watch for repair when I went to Nairobi—he had had a jua kali114 fundi (expert) work on it in Mpeketoni, but to no avail. Upon my return I handed back the watch, with the admonition from the horologist in the capital not to trust the timepiece to amateurs. He had said that the jua kali repairer had taken good bits out of his watch and I came back to this, implying that the repairs costs were high because of the damage done by the Mpeketoni fundi. Bobitu stoically accepted that this was likely, saying, “I have no faith in Africans!” One can but recall Naipaul’s observation, after his visit to Lamu, that “ ‘Arab’ here was a state of mind.”115

113

Prins, Didemic, 177. Jua Kali is kiSwahili for ‘hot sun’ and refers to the informal sector or craftsman and technicians. 115 Naipaul, North, 178. 114

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This chapter has sought to demonstrate that Islam is a fundamental component in the process of the domestication of the Boni undertaken by their Swahili neighbours. It has been suggested that the commercial sphere, into which the former hunter/gatherers are inexorably drawn, uses the Islamic credentials that the Boni profess as a means to protect and extend political and economic control that foreign sources seek to bring to bear over the area. Likewise, other important moments of life-transition have been radically altered and robbed of their relationship with the spiritual entities that are so fundamental to the regeneration of Boni society. Education, both secular and religious, has been seen to preclude the involvement of young men in the moro camps and their exposure to the world of the ithai that play such a pivotal role in Boni age-sets. Marriage has lost its association with the ancestors and the funeral rite reflects an attempt to promote a notion of individual salvation against continued involvement in the life of the community albeit in a different guise. It has also been shown that behind these changes has been a vilification of the bush. The mosque and its immediate environs are seen as the places of prayer, learning and civility whereas the bush is base and carries with it the threat of contamination by the malevolent forces that abide there. The notion that the bush brings blessings is disparaged but cannot be completely eradicated—it is no longer confessed that the young men who take part in the moro return with accrued blessings for the community, no more is the horrop tree brought into the village to mark a wedding, the notion that a member of the community is perpetuated as an ancestor has to be surreptitiously affirmed. The perception that the bush is life-enhancing is truncated. Food now comes in from outside the community and has to be purchased in the village shops—no more are the fruits of the tielle tree collected and pounded with a mortar and pestle fashioned from the horrop tree to produce bore or kikoch116 which is like maize-meal and formerly constituted a staple in the diet of the Boni.117 Now the attitude being promoted reflects the Swahili perception that such produce is tainted,

116 117

Depending on the manner of preparation. Harvey, Hunting, 87–90.

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“this food is the food of the ‘bush’, it is the food of the WaShenzi.”118 Similarly, blessings for young men now come from the study of the Qur’an in the mosque rather than going into the bush to meet the ithai in the moro. The ancestors are no longer brought into the village from the bush to bless the union between a man and a woman instead the Imam offers the blessing, and the Muslim graveyard cuts off the dead in an enclosure that isolates them from the bush. So, there is a radical shift. Instead of looking out to the bush, to the place where the ancestors live, bringing in the horrop to bless and legitimise a marriage, now the emphasis is towards looking in to the foreign structures of a settled village community. The mosque serves to epitomise this change—rather than encountering ancestors and spirits in the bush, the traditional world of the Boni, one is invited to withdraw from that world and to lose sight of its numinosity. However, the Boni are nothing if not resilient and even in this sphere, where Islam exerts its most powerful influence, traditional ways are still respected and constitute a world in the background, an alternate memory to that of Islam but one that still exerts a powerful hold over the Boni imagination. Moros do take place, albeit of a shorter duration than in the past and deeper in the bush, branches from the wahari are planted at the grave as a way of ‘ancestorising’ the deceased while women and children are buried in the homesteads to ensure the reproduction dimension of life remains there.

118

El Zein, Sacred, 320.

CHAPTER SIX

RELIGIOUS ACTIVITY AT THE HOMESTEAD LEVEL Introduction Chapters 4 and 5 have examined the two extreme ends of religious practice in Bargoni: that which is centred around the mosque and promotes a more ‘orthodox’ understanding of Islamic praxis, and the activities that took place in the bush and, while performed by adherents of Islam, nevertheless hark back to pre-Islamic Boni religious practices. It was observed how these two ‘memories’ compete with each other, with Islam being employed to differing degrees as a means of domestication, control and, indeed, oppression (“They want to keep us as their slaves!”)1 which evokes a discourse of resistance from the Boni community. Their response to the incursion of outsiders is to develop a sense of self-identity that addresses their contemporary condition by drawing inspiration from memories of the past. Religious activities associated with the bush are revised to instil in the participants a sense of political identity through their taking part in ‘traditional’ rites that assert their Boni-ness. The voice of the mosque enters into dialogue with the evolving voice from under the horrop tree. However, as Mzee Bobitu Kololo observed (see Introduction), there are three areas of religious activity in Bargoni, with the third revolving around the homestead, and it is here that one witnesses the daily encounter between these two memories. It is here that the Boni identify their ‘oppressors’, with the ‘Arabs’, Somali and even the Bajun being singled out as having secret agendas that rest on the exploitation of the Boni. “The others all became rich because of the trust (imani ) of the Boni.” Indeed, Bobitu Kololo goes on to assert that “Without the British, we would all be the boys of the ‘Arabs’.”2 Although the Boni are inextricably a part of the contemporary coastal scene, they still witness exploitation at the hands of outsiders (the Maalim clan have decimated the hardwood stands,

1 2

Mzee Bobitu Kololo and Ali Sani, Bargoni, 3 March 1998. Conversation with Mzee Bobitu Kololo and Ali Sani, Bargoni, 1 February 1998.

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Somali poachers have eradicated the elephant herds) that they feel powerless to arrest. They perceive their identity as being under threat and religious activity at the homestead level serves to bolster their self-perception. A whole plethora of rites is to be observed in this domain and I have divided such practices into two spheres: the first might be said to be traditional practices that are the preserve of women and their role in the home, the second, practices introduced in the last twenty years or so, for example divination, the activity of Islamic experts, healing and practitioners of medicine and spirit possession, all of which lie more within the domain of men. Women’s Religious Activity in the Home The assertion running through this work, that the Boni have experienced enormous socio-cultural and religious upheavals within the last century, can be argued to represent the dominant male view— the male model of society expressed at a metalevel3—and that the role of women in the society, as expressed through their albeit ‘muted voice’,4 represents a far greater degree of continuity with the past. Women are indeed largely housebound, responsible for all the tasks normally associated with such a role in traditional Africa—childbearing and care, cooking, cleaning. Thus it is that in this bastion of tradition, religious activity remains which reaches back into the past and strikes a chord of Boni identity in the present. While the majority of men might be said to have experienced varying degrees of alienation and to have absorbed rites from other communities that they see as commensurate with their changed identity, women demonstrate a relative inverse proportion whereby they have preserved religious practices that reflect the essential stability of their world.

3 See Edwin Ardener, ‘Belief and the Problem of Women’, in Shirley Ardener (ed.), Perceiving Women (London: J.M. Dent and Sons, 1975), 14. Also see Susan R. Whyte, ‘Men, Women and Misfortune in Bunyole’, in P. Holden (ed.), Women’s Religious Experience, (London: Croom Helm, 1983). 4 To use the term coined by Edwin Ardener in the paper ‘Belief and the Problem of Women’ in Ardener (ed.), Perceiving, 1–17.

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One area that reflects this is the arena of divination. Zuesse identifies amongst the Fon of Dahomey several kinds of divination and believes that “they differ so much between them that we must suspect not only different histories behind them, but also different religious intentionalities and roles.” 5 The same is true amongst the Boni and Zuesse’s division of divinatory practice into two camps, ‘possession’ and ‘wisdom’ types, is equally applicable. In the ‘possession’ strand, “external objects are believed to express directly a spirit’s will. The vehicle is ‘possessed’ by a divine being.”6 The wisdom variety, on the other hand, sees “the personality of the human clients, and even the spirits and gods, [as] all subordinated to a profound cosmic order.” Such a form of divination “ends in the affirmation of the direct control of the supreme being over every aspect of life, for the classificatory system is his hidden plan for the universe and flows directly from him.”7 As will be examined later, the male world of divination is dominated by a ‘wisdom’ system that emanates from the predominantly Somali populated area to the north of Boniland and is practised by the individual who introduced it to Bargoni. The ‘possession’ system employed by Mama Habole, on the other hand, is deeply rooted in the preIslamic experience. The technique, called Fal, belongs to a family line and was passed down to Mama Habole by her mother. This is the usual mode of transmission, from mother to eldest daughter, although only married women are allowed to practise even if a younger woman might have the required knowledge. This accords with the observation that spirits and husbands exercise analogous roles with regard to women’s bodies, that the penetration by the husband during intercourse is echoed in the manner in which a spirit relates to a woman. As Boddy notes, “possession is associated with the loss of virginity”8 and there is a similar understanding at work when the practitioners of Fal facilitate the possession of their divining ropes by spiritual entities. Only women practice Fal although their clients can be of either sex.

5

Zuesse, Ritual, 206. Ibid., 212. 7 Ibid., 213. 8 Janice Boddy Wombs and Alien Spirits: Women, Men, and the Zar Cult in Northern Sudan (Madison, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press, 1989), 166. 6

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The technique uses a length of cord, some one to one-and-a-half metres in length and half a centimetre in width, which is woven from the bark of the baobab tree ( Jah in kiBoni). Since the tree belongs in the bush, the domain of men, it is the woman’s husband who cuts and prepares the bark (see photo 7) but the woman herself will weave the cord and practise the divinatory art with it. Prior to its first use, the diviner approaches the mutongo shrub and, taking a handful of soil from near the base of this plant, she proceeds to pour it in a circle, just once, around the shrub. Then, after spitting onto her hands, she removes a handful of leaves and pulls the rope a few times through her clenched fist containing these leaves. She then repeats this process. Subsequently, the diviner seeks out the wahari tree and uses its leaves in the same manner to impregnate the cord with the juices contained in the leaves. As has already been observed, the wahari is one of the three trees that are understood by the Boni to be particularly imbued with religious significance (the others being the horrop and the balambale), being the tree used to mark graves, and is considered particularly appropriate for, and associated with, women although certainly not uniquely so. Subsequently the rope is kept supple through the application of coconut oil and the running of the cord through a clenched fist containing wahari leaves. When the diviner is sought out and prevailed upon to perform her art, she undertakes careful preparation. Firstly, she sits down on the ground with her back straight and her legs stretched out in front of her pointing “in the direction of the sea, where the wind comes from”.9 It was explained that this is because the pepo spirits that supply the answers come upon the winds from the sea. However, while pepo are certainly a feature of contemporary Boni religious thought, this explanation might be a more recent gloss to a traditional practice. As was noted in chapter 4, the air has been considered in Boni thought as a spiritual medium and this view has been co-opted by Islamic belief with the imposition of spiritual entities such as pepo, jinn and shetani forces. However, birds are considered to be imbued with spiritual gifts and insights because they occupy this realm. EvansPritchard records similar significance being attached to birds amongst the Nuer.10

9 10

Mama Habole, Muswakini, 10 April 1998. E.E. Evans-Pritchard Nuer Religion (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1956), 3.

Photo 7. Preparing bark from the baobab (Adansonia Digitata) prior to plaiting a divining rope.

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Likewise the horrop tree chosen for the prayers was down-wind of Bargoni so that the evil force could be cast upon the wind and spirited away from the area. Thus the positioning of Mama Habole reflects a traditional practice that has been imbued with a new gloss in the face of the encroachment of Islamic thought and practice over the last half century. Previously, the posture adopted was one of facing the prevailing wind and this constituted a receptive openness to the spiritual forces that were carried on the breeze. Now the pepo appellation has been ascribed to these entities that have thus been domesticated within the Islamic milieu. Similarly, it might be tempting to assume that the use of the baobab tree suggests a strong Swahili influence, since this community frequently assumes this particular tree to be a favourite haunt of spirits. However, the older cultural influence of the Orma might well be evident here since, as Werner records, the baobab occupied a significant place in Orma religious thought before their conversion to Islam, going so far as to suggest the existence of a ‘tree cult’.11 Again, it is suggested that what one is witnessing is the infusing with new meaning, reflecting Swahili culture in which Islam is now couched, of a religious sensibility that pre-dates the schema into which it has now been incorporated. Once positioned, the diviner grasps the rope which is folded in half, with her right hand holding the two ends of the rope while her left hand holds the rope where it doubles back on itself. She runs the cord through her hands a number of times, stretching it and making it soft and pliable as well as straightening out any kinks. Finally, she spits on each hand/end of rope. This action of spitting is frequently encountered in Boni religious rites involving men and older women and represents the embodiment of the prayer of the individual and the transfer of that prayer onto the object that is being prayed over. So, in the case of a sick person, the elders of the community might be called to pray and spit on the patient—the spittle absorbs and embodies the prayers of their lips and is propelled onto the body of the sick person. In the present case, Mama Habole spat her prayers for successful divination onto her hands and the cord that is central to the performance—it is this that is ‘possessed’ and through it the spirit communicates to the human clients. She then

11

Werner, Galla, 286. See also Ancestor section in chapter 4.

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releases the end of the rope held in her left hand and flicks her right wrist so that the rope swings in an anti-clockwise motion and strikes the top of her left hand, which is held open with the fingers aligned vertically, and wraps around it. As the rope comes round to encircle the left hand the diviner clenches her fist shut and a 10–12 cm length of the folded back end of the rope is left protruding out of the top of her fist. This process is repeated many times, fifty or sixty cycles, while all the time the diviner repeats under her breath the question that is posed. It is the stance adopted by the protruding end of the rope that conveys the answer to the question. In the case of any problem demanding a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’, if the cord stands erect this is taken as an affirmative whereas if it falls to one side this is interpreted as a negative. In all cases, as has been said, the question is repeated numerous times and the stance of the rope that dominates is taken as the definitive answer. However, the questions are often more complicated and demand a more nuanced reply. So, for example, a question concerning which day of the week to do something sees the days of the week placed on a one hundred and eighty degree arc in front of the diviner. If the points of a clock are used, with the feet of the diviner representing 12 o’clock then: 9 10 11 12 1 2 3

o’clock o’clock o’clock o’clock o’clock o’clock o’clock

= = = = = = =

Jumanne (Tuesday) Jumatano (Wednesday) Alhamisi (Thursday) Ijumaa (Friday) Jumamosi (Saturday) Jumapili (Sunday) Jumatatu (Monday)

When a particular time is sought, for example, when to offer a sacrifice, then the answer is dependent on where the cord points to in the sky and the corresponding time at which the sun is at that position. So, when a man consults the diviner as to what is the most propitious time to marry and the cord points towards a place low on the eastern skyline then a time of 8 a.m. is deduced. The stance of the cord can only be interpreted within the context of the particular consultation since the lie of the cord can be explained differently depending on the question posed. Thus, the cord standing erect can signify ‘yes’ or it can be interpreted as mean-

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ing a sick person will recover (“The cord stands erect showing that the person will also stand up again,”12 the cord leaning to one side would indicate death), it can mean that prayers/sacrifices to God are required (pointing towards the heavens), or it can point to ‘midday’. Similarly, a cord lying to one side can indicate a particular day of the week, it can point to a direction in which something might be found, on one occasion it pointed in the direction of the local dispensary and showed that the desired healing would be found there. Pointing to the ground can indicate death (being laid in the soil) but in another context and with a different combination of results in answer to the question, it can indicate that herbal medicine (in the ground, i.e. roots) offer the solution. In Boni thought there is the consistent understanding that men are ‘right-handed’ and women ‘left-handed’. This is said to be apparent in the performance of daily tasks but is also to be seen in the ritual sphere—women circulate in an anti-clockwise direction around the wahari tree when praying so that their left arm is towards the tree, men go round clockwise so that their right arm faces the tree; amulets are attached to the left arm of women, the right of men. So also in the divinatory technique under discussion, the cord pointing to the diviner’s right arm can indicate a man, and towards the left, a woman. This divinatory technique does not prescribe medicines and Mama Habole explained that if the cord indicated treatment using traditional herbs (pointing at the ground) or advised going to the hospital (indicating the direction of the dispensary) then she would refer her client to the relevant specialist. The male counterpart of this divinatory system, Dod, is now obsolete. Instead of a chord, Dod used animal skin shoes, the answers being obtained from the way they fell when thrown on the ground. I was assured of the reliability of this technique. It was explained that such practices have now died out through lack of practitioners or because alternative methods from neighbouring ethnic communities are either seen as more efficacious or conform more readily to their Islamic culture and identity, even if these new techniques are condemned or viewed as contrary to the new faith position by others with different views on Islamic orthodoxy. It is almost as if, just as Islam is sometimes perceived as a superior mode of religious activity, so too those practices

12

Conversation with Mama Habole, Muswakini, 5 May 1998.

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that are understood in a less than positive light by some Islamic luminaries but which accompanied the introduction of the new faith, are seen as altogether more powerful than what preceded them. Blessings Associated with Hunting Despite the fact that hunting, the traditional way of life for the Boni, has now been reclassified as poaching by the authorities and is therefore illegal, the activity continues, albeit with prudence.13 Elephants have been exterminated by gun-toting Somali but smaller game is evident and much desired, along with wild honey that is legally collected and either consumed locally or sold in Lamu. Despite the fact that the attitude being projected by the religious authorities in Lamu sees all ‘bush’ food as tainted and ‘of the WaShenzi’,14 such a posture is inimical to Boni thought. The bringing of food in from the bush to nourish the community was a fundamental activity in Boni life and it comes as no surprise that women, who have such a pivotal role in the perpetuation of the community, are deeply conservative in respect to maintaining this way of life. It is incumbent upon them to bear and nourish the future generation and they keep the traditional hunting prayers alive. Also, as women, they experience a degree of marginalisation in the new Islamic milieu (being excluded, for example, from prayers in the mosque) with little in the way of religious structures into which they might be expected to channel their fervour. Thus it is that they maintain and perpetuate pre-Islamic religious practices in the home. This situation is akin to that described by Boddy in the village of ‘Hofriyat’ where she notes that “if men are central and women peripheral with respect to Islam and external relations, women are 13 Interestingly, one of the first activities ascribed to me by the local population upon arrival in Bargoni was that of an undercover official, working for the Game Department, planted in the area to ascertain the extent of poaching. 14 El Zein, Sacred, 320. Such apparently derogatory terminology might seem offensive to modern ears, El Zein having recorded the use of such an appellation more than twenty five years ago. However, the use of this term to describe nonSwahili has a long history and Glassman records the use of washenzi in the nineteenth century to describe a barbarian or bumpkin from upcountry ( Jonathon Glassman, Feasts and Riot: Revelry, Rebellion, and Popular Consciousness on the Swahili Coast, 1856–1888. [London: James Currey, 1995] 62). Also, as was recorded in chapter 3, the present Deputy District Education Officer on Lamu Island suggested that such an attitude is still prevalent even if he did not actually use the term.

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central and men peripheral when it comes to physical, social, and cultural reproduction: the worldliness of village life.”15 An example of this might be the case of Ali Sani who had been experiencing a very lean period in his hunting, which, he explained, was because, some while back, he had promised an old woman to supply her with meat after his next foray into the bush but had forgotten to do this and thus incurred her displeasure. This anger, coming from such a senior woman, was enough to throw Ali’s hunting abilities off kilter. The old woman readily accepted that she was responsible for Ali’s misfortune but asserted that the blame rested on Ali’s shoulders for not having supplied the meat he had promised. Ali conceded his guilt but the old woman was unable to lift the curse and so the community of women had to be called to bless him. Ali performed the divinatory technique called bao16 to discern the most propitious day for the blessing and then arranged to have women come and pray over him so that he might enjoy success again. The blessing took place in the evening, at Ali’s homestead. He had purchased some sugar and tea and, when a neighbour arrived with firewood, Ali set about chopping it up into manageable lengths with his axe. Mama Habole arrived bearing water and Ali’s wife collected a large sufuria and cleaned this before beginning to make tea with the assembled ingredients. Ali sat on a mat at one side of the house, away from the arena where the women began to gather, and busied himself with sharpening the axe that he was to take into the bush the following day for dismembering animals or opening beehives. Meanwhile the women continued to arrive and singing and dancing commenced with much vigour. Tea was eventually ready and served to the women who, by this time, numbered some forty adults, some with infants, with the first cups being given to the eldest women and so down in order of age. In the midst of this festive gathering, an old woman called the assembly to order and another started to beat out a rhythm on an empty plastic jerrycan with singers slowly taking up the refrain and clapping along. Mats were laid in the clearing at the centre of the arena and women danced around them, sometimes singly but more often in synchronised pairs. Much dancing

15 16

Boddy, Wombs, 140. See Divination and Healing in this section, page 215.

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ensued, with heat and sweat being generated in copious quantities. Ali was eventually called by one of the older women and, after removing his shirt and kofia, taken by the hand by the old woman and led into the midst of the dancing women before being sat down on the mat in the middle of the dance-floor. His young son followed and was permitted to sit between Ali’s legs on the mat (see photo 8). As Ali sat there, his legs out before him and his back straight, the women sang and danced around him. The young women wiped the sweat from their faces and underarms and smeared this on Ali’s head and face as he sat impassively, with eyes downcast, on the mat, with the older women spitting on him. Suddenly the women grabbed the edges of the mat and lifted it up to shoulder height before carrying it, with Ali still wrapped inside, into his home.

Photo 8. Blessing the hunter: Ali Sani sits on a mat in the midst of the women.

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Once Ali was in the house, the singing died away and before long he reappeared with his shirt and hat in place. A few of the older women approached and spat on him as a final blessing but already the crowd was beginning to dissipate. That night, Ali did not bathe but rested early so as to wake before dawn and make an early start into the bush. This rite is not merely a harking back to the past, a reaffirmation of the traditional way of life that had served the Boni well in years gone by. Much more, it is a celebration of regeneration—“We must give life to the hunter,” said one woman17—a holding on to the people’s fertility in the face of foreign forces seeking their emasculation and the wrenching of self-identity and self-determination out of the hands of the traditional bush-dwellers. “This is what it means to be a Boni,” explained a beaming Ali Sani afterwards, “We Boni are hunters and we will die if we are not successful when looking for honey or hunting in the bush.”18 It is essential to recognise that, while the bush is the domain of men, the homestead epitomises what it means to be a woman in the society. There have been efforts to usurp this balance and the ‘main street’ through Bargoni sub-village is replete with ‘Swahilistyle’ houses—rectangular, wattle and daub dwellings with the ubiquitous makuti roof. Yet this is the domain of Islam, it is the world of men and of commerce. The women that live in this environment are normally mature, past childbearing age and considered ‘honorary men’. However, as one moves outwards, away from the centre of the village, there is a marked change in architectural practice and the ‘Swahili-style’ house gives way to the beehive homes that are composed of a grass-covered wicker frame. These are built by women— they are the ones who weave the frame using supple branches, they cover the skeletal construction with the grass that keeps out the oppressive heat, the mosquitoes and the rain. And not only does one notice a change in habitat design, but there is actually a conscious reversal to the traditional form—in the more outlying plots of Bargoni, ‘Swahili-style’ houses were being abandoned in favour of the traditional construction techniques.

17 18

Comment from one of the women present, Muswakini, 5 March 1998. Ali Sani, Muswakini, 5 March 1998.

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Thus a dialogue is still seen to be going on between what Mudimbe would call the ‘recent text’19 characterised by the rectangular, makutiroofed dwellings which epitomise houses at the village centre and constitute an extension of the Swahili model, and the traditional grass beehive structures found on the periphery of the village and reproduced as a ‘typical’ Boni house in Lamu museum. It is a dialogue that is dynamic as the Boni seek to negotiate their future between the calls of the mosque and the horrop tree. The house and compound is the domain of women and, in a polygamous household, each wife has her own dwelling and plot. But the domicile also symbolises the woman whose dwelling it is, acting as an extension of that woman. This is illustrated by a rite to remove the pollution from a man who has had sexual relations with a menstruating woman.20 As Ali Sani explained: A man must not sleep with his wife when she is menstruating [adha ya wanawake]. If, however, the woman forgets or does not tell him then, when she remembers, the following rite must be performed. Immediately the man must collect the roots of the laishita shrub. These he will soak in water in a gourd, leaving it overnight. Early next morning, the man will place the gourd at the threshold of the house and step over it many times, back and forth—the first time forward, the second time back, the third time forward—like that. Then he will anoint himself with the liquid in the gourd, he will put the liquid on the tops of his feet, his ankles, his knees, his hips, his wrists, his elbows, his shoulders, his stomach, the hollow below his Adam’s-apple, the base of his back, the back of his neck and, finally, on his forehead. One the anointing is complete then he must throw the water away. If a man does not do all this, then he will get the shakes and lose all his energy. This is a Boni tradition from the past which continues now in the present!21

It is apparent from this that the house acts as a sympathetic representation of the woman’s body—pollution has been incurred and is now removed as the man goes back and forth through the opening 19

Mudimbe, Idea, 140. Transgressing sexual mores constitutes a serious threat to the Boni community. Mzee Bobitu Kololo pointed out a Somali youth with disfiguring white patches on his body and explained this (and cases of albinism) by saying that the parents had had sexual relations while the woman was menstruating (Bobitu Kololo, Bargoni, 2 November 1997). Similarly, if a mature person suddenly develops such a condition then this is interpreted as revealing that the individual had involved him/herself in an incestuous relationship. 21 Conversation with Ali Sani, Muswakini, 26 March 1998. 20

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of the house. The blood that defiled him is now washed off in the cleansing liquid that results in the soaking of the roots of the laishita shrub. The home continues to denote the feminine characteristic in other areas of life—it is in warm, dark interior of the house that sexual activity takes place, conception occurs and where the heat of the fire prepares food for ongoing nourishment. It is in this context of female sexuality that the blessing of Ali Sani took place and it is in this context that it must be understood. Ali is impotent in the sense that he is unsuccessful in the quintessentially masculine activity of hunting and providing for the community. His virility is restored within a rite that celebrates the generative power of women in particular but is also a statement of independence on the part of the Boni community as a whole. The first necessity of the women in this rite is to become ‘hot’ and ‘moist’ and this is achieved through the medium of dance and song. The dancing frequently sees the women pairing off and the synchronised movement of their bodies, the thrusting of their hips as they beat out the rhythm, has clearly sexual overtones. The sweat that the dancing evokes is redolent of the ‘liquid’ that is understood to course through a mature woman’s body and nurture the unborn child that the male implants within her22—an understanding not dissimilar from the female ‘generative moisture’ that Boddy speaks of,23 the wetness that nourishes and sustains life in the womb. It is this life-giving wetness that is contained in the sweat of the mature women and used to smear the body of the hunter, but it is only women of child-bearing potential that anoint in this way. In the last chapter, when addressing funerals, it was noted that post-menopausal women— those who have ‘dried up’—assume the condition of ‘honorary men’ in the manner of burial and this aspect finds expression in this rite also. While women of child-bearing potential anoint the man with their body sweat, old women spit on the hunter in a way that suggests the male form of conveying blessing. This spitting is more ejaculatory whereas that of the younger women is more nurturing and enveloping. Finally, the sweat-smeared Ali Sani is hoisted up and carried by the women through the narrow door and into the hut. Once again the generative dimension comes to the fore as the man penetrates 22 23

Conversation with a heavily pregnant Zahara Bobitu, Bargoni, 18 January 1998. Boddy, Wombs, 180.

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the house through the narrow door, his reconstituted virility entering this womb-imbued space. What is significant in this rite is that it refers to the generative dimension of the community as a whole, rather than one element within it.24 Indeed, as will become clear when the area of spirit possession is examined, it is the impotence of the community as a whole, and the need for the Boni to give vent to their frustrations and reclaim their identity, that constitutes the underlying strata as the women bless the hunter. There are other rites intended to foster the prowess of the hunter and involving recourse to the ancestors but none was witnessed in the course of the fieldwork. However, from the accounts received, these rites of prayer and blessing appear to address the immediate issue, i.e., the paucity of game meat, whereas it is held that the rite witnessed and analysed above is saying much more about the community and its perception of itself. Rites Around Young Children It could be argued that since Islam offers no specific rite for hunting, then the Boni continue to rely on traditional formulas that satisfy their needs in this area of their lives. However, as has been demonstrated, the Islamic attitude to the bush, and to activities associated with it, is far from one of benign indifference but, rather, the proponents of Islam on Lamu display a thinly veiled hostility to the bush which is understood to harbour all manner of malevolent forces—both physical and spiritual—and which exists only at the margins of Islamic sensibility. For the Boni, on the other hand, the ‘blessing of the hunter’ rite described above can be understood as a Boni celebration of who they are and a statement of resistance in the face of the emasculatory forces being brought to bear on the community from outside. Within such a context, it comes as no surprise to see statements of identity being made in rites surrounding the children who represent the future. While the importance of Islamic ritual was asserted—the whispering of the shahada in the ear of a new-born child, for example—

24 Boddy, in her account of life in a village in the Sudan, would equate similar rites as an assertion by women of their fertility and associated issues. It was an expression of their identity in a male dominated world.

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this is performed because it is the law; greater significance is attached to rites that insert the child into the Boni community of the living and the dead rather than the Islamic world. An example of this is the rituals surrounding the disposal of the umbilical cord, with variations for boys and girls. When a child is born, the umbilical cord is tied close to the navel and a length is allowed to extend beyond the knot. This extension is threaded with cotton, which is then looped around the child’s neck to prevent the cord from flopping around. After three days or so the cord dries up, detaches itself from the navel, is collected and, using the cotton that was formerly around the child’s neck, is hung from the highest point of the inside of the house, out of the way of inquisitive children. After a 40-day period, the grandmother cuts the child’s hair, since it is haramu, it was ‘inside the stomach of the mother’. The hair is collected and stuffed inside the dried length of umbilical cord and then, in the case of girls, the child’s mother takes this and places (not buries) it at the base of the wahari tree. In the case of boys, the cord is collected, dried and stuffed with the child’s hair when he is shaved after 40 days but then the child’s mother passes the cord and contents to the father, who wraps it in a cloth and then attaches it to the rear end of his quiver where it hangs. The father then goes hunting and, upon meeting with success, he returns to the settlement via a horrop tree which he circles three times before taking some leaves from the tree, spitting on them and circling them around his head as he prays that the child will grow up strong and be a successful hunter like his father and with the courage of a lion. The leaves and the cloth containing the umbilical cord and the hair are then deposited at the base of the horrop tree and the father continues on his way without looking back. Clearly these rituals serve to establish an incontrovertible link with the ancestors, the life of the dead nourishes the living just as the umbilical cord allows the child to draw nourishment from the mother. The rites also define gender roles, with the activity surrounding the cord of the male child seeking the blessing of the ancestors in the male preserve of hunting. In the case of a girl, it is the reproductive, regenerative dimension that is accentuated through the placing of the umbilical cord at the base of the wahari tree which is used to mark graves and to suggest new life arising out of death. Not only do these rituals establish a link with the ancestors but they also serve to place the Boni very much within their landscape. V.S. Naipaul

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suggests “To the convert [to Islam] his land is of no religious or historical importance; its relics are of no account; only the sands of Arabia are sacred,”25 but such an extreme attitude, even if extant in Pakistan as Naipaul claims, is not shared by the Boni, who continually look to the bush for affirmation of who they are as a people. In the light of such resistance, orthodox Islam seeks to stake a claim, and circumcision26 becomes a point of tension between forces seeking to draw the life of the child in the direction of the village environment that stands for learning, civility and religiosity, and the beckoning of the bush. The picture painted by Harvey27 of the situation in Pandanguo is markedly at variance with the practice in Bargoni and one is tempted—given the extremely short duration of his stay in that village—to assume that he relied on second-hand accounts that were inadvertently glossed to bring out clearly the Islamic dimension. The circumcision ceremony for boys in Bargoni was composed of two distinct elements that took place in the evening and then the following morning. At dusk, after evening prayers at the mosque, the congregation was invited to the home of the boy who was to be circumcised and these men sat on mats in the centre of the compound while the women formed a group some distance removed. The boy was cradled in the arms of his father who sat in the midst of the gathered men-folk. The men removed their shoes and conversed in whispered voices before a thurible containing hot coals was placed before the mwalimu who added incense and intoned prayers with the assembly joining in when appropriate. Once the prayers were completed, the child was passed into the care of his mother and the focus changed to the distribution of tea and mandazis, which fostered a congenial atmosphere. Mzee Habole, the senior Beretima elder, who was to perform the circumcision the next morning, sat at a distance from the rest and received his tea 25 V.S. Naipaul, Beyond Belief: Islamic Excursions among the Converted Peoples (New York: Random House, 1998), 256. 26 In the course of fieldwork, only circumcision of boys was witnessed. While it was acknowledged that girls were also ritually cut, no such ceremony was performed during the year that I was present in Bargoni. According to Harvey, ‘girls are circumcised by infibulation and clitoridectomy’ (Harvey, Hunting, 176) and this appears to be in keeping with the practice of their neighbouring communities. See Kelly, Gada, 19 for the case of the Orma, and Dorkenoo (Efua Dorkenoo, Cutting the Rose: Female Genital Mutilation, The Practice and its Prevention [London: Minority Rights Publications, 1995]), 118–20 for the Somali. 27 Harvey, Hunting, 174–177.

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last. When the food and drink were consumed the men were given permission to leave and, before long, all had drifted away. At dawn the following day, the men and women of the close family gathered in the compound of the child to be circumcised with Mzee Habole again sitting separate from the rest. He produced the knife that was to be used and this was passed around the group to be spat on by way of a blessing—the women first, starting with the senior, followed by the men present. The separation of the circumciser, in this case Mzee Habole, from the rest of the assembly was explained to be most important as he had to be in a state of purity in order to perform the operation successfully. If you give him tea and bread he must have these alone. That is the rule, that is respect. You don’t mix him with other people. He does not eat with other people because he is the one who holds the knife to cut the child. If he is associated with someone who slept badly [not bathing after sexual relations], or whose hand is bad [guilty of theft], or who has engaged in witchcraft, then he will become contaminated. It is not allowed that anyone share anything with him on that day. What he eats, he eats alone. . . . [Before circumcising] he bathes and prays and then comes with the knife. He prays for the knife and all spit on it since many people are looking at it with their eyes. If it is not blessed like this then when it cuts it will cause a lot of bleeding. After he and the others have spat on it then it is ready for the cutting.28

Mama Habole then went into the grass, beehive hut and came out with the boy who was naked and sluggish with sleep. The child was taken around the back of the hut, facing into the bush, and was placed on the knee of one of the men, his obaa (sponsor), while Mzee Habole prepared himself. Chewing some leaves from the jaffare shrub, Mzee Habole then put his knife down on his right side and, taking a length of nylon thread from his pocket, proceeded to pull out the foreskin and tie the thread around it. He then cut the foreskin while the boy, yelling in pain, was held by his obaa (see photo 9). All, men and women, gathered round to observe the operation and once completed they spat on the spread-eagled boy by way of a blessing. Mzee Habole then removed the leaves from his mouth and, holding them above the bleeding penis, squeezed some of the liquid onto 28

Conversation with Ali Sani, 29 May 1998.

Photo 9. Circumcision Ceremony: With the child sitting on the knee of his obaa, Mzee Habole performs the cut.

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the wound as this was said to stop the bleeding and ease the pain— the boy urinated during the application of this balm. The child was then taken back inside the house while Mzee Habole cleaned the circumcision knife. The father was proud of his son for not having made too much of a fuss. “He is brave, like me!” was his boast. This ceremony clearly reflected the pull in two directions that is exerted over the circumcision rite. On the one hand there was the call of the mosque, represented by the community which had attended evening prayer and the presence of the Imam to lead the prayers. On the other hand, the circumcision proper was performed at the rear of the house, hence facing the bush, and conducted by the senior elder of the Beretima moiety, Mzee Habole, who had also led the prayers at the horrop tree recorded at the start of chapter 4. There is also a contrast between those involved in the two aspects of the rite. In the prayers that took place in the evening, it was very much an all male affair with those women who were present relegated to the role of preparing and distributing the tea and mandazis to the men who had come from the mosque. In the morning, it is the Boni community as a whole that constituted the correct environment for the rite. Mama Habole, the maternal grandmother, collected the boy from inside the hut and carried him to where his obaa and the circumciser waited. Men and women alike witnessed the cut, as did the spiritual community who are known to be present in the bush and hence the rite was performed within their ‘sight’, at the rear of the domestic dwelling. Men’s Religious Activities in the Home External influence on Boni religious activity can be said to come from three main sources, coinciding with three historical periods. From the sixteenth century onwards29 it was their close interaction with the Orma that introduced important cultural and religious influences to the Boni and, earlier in this work, similarities were noted between some Boni practices and pre-Islamic Orma religious activities recorded by Alice Werner nearly a century ago. More recently, from the nineteenth century and into the first part of the twentieth, it was the 29

Stiles, Historical, 42–44, also Heine, Language, 112.

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turn of the Somali30 to exert a strong cultural and religious ascendancy over the forest dwellers of the hinterland of Lamu District. Then from the mid-twentieth century until the present, it has been the turn of the Swahili of Lamu to attempt to exert their brand of religious hegemony over the Boni. Loosely, these three historical periods of influence coincide with the three spheres of religious activity identified by Mzee Bobitu Kololo. In the bush it is the legacy of the Orma influence, which the Boni have very much made their own, that colours their rites and practices. In the village centre, the mosque and the ‘orthodox’ face of Islam attempt to dominate the community, reflecting the contemporary Swahili pull. In the homestead, among the men, it is largely borrowings from their Somali neighbours that the Boni not only consider efficacious but that they have assimilated into their body of tradition. Such an assertion contradicts Stiles’s view that “The Somalis replaced the Orma economically but not socio-culturally. Even today the Boni feel closer culturally to the Orma than to the Somalis.”31 Rather, the religious void that was created by colonial efforts to encourage a process of villagisation, and the necessary withdrawal from a bush-centred existence, was filled by the assuming of elements of Somali religious practice. While the latter were not necessarily orthodox according to the Swahili yardstick of correct Islamic orthopraxis, they did, nevertheless, go some way towards satisfying the needs of the Boni community as they sought to adjust to their new social environment. Just as Farouk Topan32 would argue that elements of pre-Islamic customs were incorporated into the new system of beliefs and practices on the Swahili coast to fulfil the needs not met by orthodox, ‘fixed’ Islam, the same might be true of the Somali version and it was these elements that similarly appealed to the Boni in their particular socio-economic setting. Thus, one can say that the initial pattern of Islamic integration came from the Somalis with whom the Boni shared a cultural affinity and who were the dominant community in the area at the time when conversion began. However, the more recent influence belongs to the Swahili whose ascendancy has ensured that their model is now the yardstick by which ‘orthodoxy’ and ‘orthopraxis’ are gauged. 30 31 32

Stiles, Historical, 44–45, also Salkeld, Notes, 168. Stiles, Historical, 45. Topan, Pepo, 4.

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Rohan Possession A clear case of such borrowing, reworking and incorporation is that of rohan possession. In this case, the southern migration33 of this activity can actually be witnessed since, at the start of the period of fieldwork covered by this study, Abdi Doza (the fundi ) was resident in Milimani but circumstances conspired to encourage him to take up residence in the Berabothei quarter of greater Bargoni. The conditions that precipitated the move included the hardships imposed by the El Niño flooding and the deterioration in the security situation in the area north of Bargoni but, perhaps most important of all, was the demand for his services in the area around Bargoni. Even prior to his settling in Berabothei, he had a small home built here which he used on the occasions when he visited the region and hence his moving in was but another step in the process. Abdi Doza claims to have been a practitioner of rohan seances for more than twenty years, having learnt the art in Kiunga, a village near the Somali border, where his teacher was an Ethiopian. Thus there is a clear pattern of southern migration from Kiunga, via Milimani, to Bargoni. Abdi’s claim that he acquired the art in Kiunga but that his teacher was an Ethiopian simultaneously acknowledges that his body of knowledge comes from Somalia and denies that it originated with that people under whom the Boni had, within living memory, suffered. Instead, Ethiopia is identified as the source, the “ ‘traditional’ Christian adversary”34 and so his activity is an act of rejection of both Somali attempts at coercion and control from the north and efforts by the Swahili to establish their version of Islam as the standard. The treatment of rohan possession is, indeed, a recent innovation in Boni religious practice although Abdi Doza claims that such spirits have long existed in the community but were not recognised as such, hence their presence was not addressed. The response that his public sessions evoke among the Boni population is always laced with enthusiasm and the numbers drawn attest to the attraction that his séances hold in the collective mind of the community. ‘There is a video tonight!’ was how one participant announced a forthcoming 33 As Ali Sani reports, ‘I’m not sure where the rohan come from but they seem to be usually associated with Somalia.’ Muswakini, 3 December 1997. 34 I.M. Lewis, Saints and Somalis: Popular Islam in a Clan-Based Society, (London: HAAN Associates, 1998) 45.

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séance and Ali Sani dismissed it as ‘just a play’, arguing that rohan “are a matter of your own interest but it is like a disease, if you want it, it ends up making you an addict.”35 Having said this, there is no doubt that, although frequently amusing and eminently entertaining, they are also deeply therapeutic to the soul of the community. Prior to a reflection on the sessions Abdi Doza conducted at night in various homesteads around Bargoni, it is first necessary to locate his activity within a wide body of writing and opinion on the role of possession cults along the East African coast. Various scholars have researched possession cults along the Swahili coast of East Africa, one of the most influential being I.M. Lewis36 who, after examining the saar cult of Somalia and others, came to the conclusion, as articulated by Giles, that “persons in ‘peripheral situations’ (i.e. women in male dominated societies, as well as other subordinate groups) are afflicted by ‘peripheral’ spirits, i.e. spirits that are not central to the maintenance of the society’s system of morality and are, in fact, often of extraneous origin.”37 According to his frame of thinking, spirit possession is a means by which these marginalised individuals or groups call attention to themselves, assuming a status based on cult membership and exerting power in an effort to redress the balance of a society that is otherwise weighed against them. In her reappraisal of Lewis’s position, Giles cites a number of examples of scholars who have challenged his stance, for example Ardener, who contends that “the cult is not a protest against male domination but a positive assertion of female value.”38 Her position is particularly bolstered by the earlier writings of Michael Lambek39 who notes the large number of women who are attracted to possession and contends that this is “due to the inappropriateness of possessive behaviour to conceptions of maleness and the male role in society and Islam. . . . Thus, in addition to viewing participation in possession activities by women as a product of deprivation or ill feeling resulting from exclusion from Islam, we may consider the

35

Conversation with Ali Sani, Muswakini, 3 December 1997. I.M. Lewis, Ecstatic Religion: A Study of Shamanism and Spirit Possession (2nd edn. London: Routledge. 1989). 37 Linda L. Giles ‘Possession Cults on the Swahili Coast: A Re-examination of Theories of Marginality’ Africa 57, 1987, 234. 38 Cited by Giles, Possession, 236. 39 Michael Lambek, Human Spirits: A Cultural Account of Trance in Mayotte (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981). 36

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absence of possession among men as a deprivation resulting from their inclusion in Islam.”40 On the strength of her research—and it is necessary to bear in mind that Giles is writing about the very specific context of the Swahili coast (albeit highly pertinent to this study) and not about possession in general—she asserts that spirit possession is a wider phenomenon than had hitherto been supposed, involving more people than is normally assumed. While many more women than men are involved, these are far from being all ‘peripheral’ and she cites example of women coming from a diversity of economic, social and cultural backgrounds. This appears to fly in the face of Lewis’ assertions. The limited number of men involved also belies the important role that many of them assume although this is not to say that they dominate the women, but that spirit possession is one of the few areas of Swahili life where men and women can stand on an equal footing. Along with Lambek, Giles demonstrates that possession is far from peripheral to Islamic society but is, instead, another strand in the wider Swahili religious world. Adherence to the tenets of Islam and involvement in spirit possession are not mutually exclusive. However, it is the contention of this work that the manifestation of rohan possession in Bargoni, and the associated manner of appeasement and control, reflects a response to a situation on the ground. The apparently same, or similar, ritual activity can be ascribed different interpretations and shades of meaning according to the context in which it is performed. Thus it is not a case of a foreign religious activity being adopted wholesale by the Boni population of Bargoni so much as an external practice being adopted, reworked and infused with new meaning in such a way that it offers a nuanced response to concrete forces that the Boni perceive as threatening to overpower them. Thus, in the case of the Boni, it would be erroneous to conclude, as Giles does with reference to the Swahili, that possession cults offer “a legitimate avenue to higher status and authority, not just within the context of the cult itself but also within the wider society”.41 Similarly, this was certainly not a dominant issue in the case of the relatively egalitarian communities studied by Lambek on Mayotte. Such

40 41

Cited by Giles, Possession, 236. Giles, Possession, 247.

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an explanation might very well be appropriate for the highly structured society that is the focus of Giles’s work but it cannot be accepted as a universally applicable characteristic of possession cults. A number of features surrounding the activities performed by Abdi Doza distinguish this form from the differing analysis proffered by Lewis and Giles. Firstly, it is difficult to ascribe the appellation ‘cult’ to the performance. While Abdi Doza is himself in possession of the knowledge and expertise necessary to lead the séance, the actual rite is open to all without restriction. There is no process of initiation, no induction into a secret society. Rather it is an occasion for all members of the Boni community to gather for a ritual activity which, as will be demonstrated, is essentially about them. Secondly, but related, is the fact that the rite is not the preserve of those within the community who entertain a sense of being marginalised or who endeavour, through the aura conferred by cult membership or possession, to heighten their status in the wider society. Rather, the rite as witnessed in Bargoni is a community-wide event and the onus is not so much on those who want to be part of it as on those who, for one reason or another, wish to exclude themselves. Thirdly, and this is a consequence of the previous observation, the rohan sessions are not solely, or even largely, the preserve of women— either as observers or amongst those who become possessed. Such a stance might appear to be contradicted by events which, admittedly, normally see more women present but this is simply because women, in the village environment, constitute a majority of the adult population. The adult male population of the Boni community is necessarily diminished at any one time by absentees who might be employed outside the area, who are in the bush hunting or gathering honey. A fact that, perhaps, best refutes some of the conclusions drawn by Lewis and Giles is that, on a number of occasions, the rohan sessions were held on the compound of the sub-chief in Bargoni—the senior government representative in the village—and that he himself frequently became possessed. So, if the rohan sessions are not merely the opportunity for the marginalised to call attention to themselves, not solely a remnant from the pre-Islamic past, not primarily a quest for sexual equality, what then are they? As in the case of the prayers performed around the horrop tree, examined in chapter 4, and the ‘blessing of the hunter’ rite examined earlier in this chapter, there are layers of meaning and significance.

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On the one hand there are, inevitably, similarities with the saar rites among the Somali population and Lewis’s description and analysis find a strong resonance in the activities and commentary of Abdi Doza in the homesteads of Bargoni. Indeed, Abdi Doza himself readily subscribes to the view that sexual frustration lies behind a number of cases of rohan possession, If you fall in love with someone, you have deep love in your heart. If, for example, you fall in love with a girl and you really need that girl but she doesn’t feel anything for you. Even when you talk to her she shows no interest in you. After that your head will be full of thoughts, then you start saying, “Why is this girl disturbing me? I love her, I want her!” So, in your heart a rohan will develop, a rohan will be formed. So the rohan comes through the thoughts of a person.42

This clearly echoes Lewis’s assertion that unrequited love lay behind some cases of possession amongst the Somali43 and the stricter sexual mores that accompanied Islam would be expected to give rise to more cases of frustration, to which rohan séances would offer an outlet. Thus, as gender roles and relations have changed under Islam, the more egalitarian structure of a hunter-gatherer lifestyle has given way to an Islamic model where women are perceived as being more dependent on men and where the prevalence of divorce renders life more insecure for wives and mothers, rohan seances can be used to address such issues. There is the demand by possessed women for perfumes and coffee (a particular predilection amongst the rohan of Bargoni) as they seek to give voice, within the ritual setting, to their sense of neglect. Once again, such uses have been noted by others.44 So, rohan possession is an established avenue to address unexpressed and unarticulated grievances within the community—a purpose it serves elsewhere. But there is another stratum that encompasses not so much the hurts of an individual or a marginal group, but the whole of the Boni community. Here the frustration that Abdi Doza describes as precipitating rohan possession in an individual can be extended to the frustration experienced by the community. The Boni have, as has been illustrated earlier, long laboured under an ascribed inferior status and today that attitude is manifest in the sense that their destiny is, to a large 42 43 44

Conversation with Abdi Doza, Berabothei, 15 March 1998. Lewis, Ecstatic, 65–66. Ibid., 67–68.

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extent, outside their control. The séances can be interpreted as offering an outlet and expression for the suppressed sense of impotence of the community, a way of naming and owning their empowerment within an environment that seeks to stifle this. In this light it comes as no surprise that the sub-chief is an important participant in the rites, since his position within the society is flush with frustration. At 30 years of age his position rests, in part, on his literacy but this fails to underpin his authority.45 In a society which is, in mental perception if nothing else, stratified according to age-sets, he fails to enjoy the seniority within the Boni community necessary to confer the respect that should accompany his office. He is also answerable to his immediate superiors who are non-Boni, with the area chief, living in Hindi, being a Somali. At the local level he is perceived by his fellow members of the Boni community (although he would never admit to this himself ) as the representative of those forces of change and oppression, commanding respect (as the civil authority) and contempt (as an agent of ‘foreigners’). Circumstances conspire against him, he is impotent in championing the cause of the Boni and he regularly seeks to hide his sense of inadequacy in heavy drinking. The rohan sessions present him with an alternative to the escapism of alcohol by empowering him to articulate his personal sense of inadequacy, and the obsequiousness of his community, through this public and communal act of releasing the tensions that have been repressed in the daily life of the community. Also, the rite contains elements of resistance. Despite a veneer of Islam, Abdi Doza identifies the ‘true’ spiritual entity behind the phenomena as a ‘Christian’ (i.e., non-Islamic) jinn that is superior to the rohan, and this is associated with three trees that harbour its power. He argues that these three—the coffee bush, the baobab and the afzelia—contain all the medicine needed to combat rohan, although he himself is in sole possession of the knowledge of how exactly they should be used. Such an assertion echoes the traditional belief amongst the Boni of spiritual entities residing in trees. Likewise the use and understanding of blood is significant and again reflects pre-Islamic Boni thought. Thus the way Abdi Doza had himself cut and drank his own blood in the course of possession is clearly against all rules 45 Early in the period of fieldwork, Abdi Khalif confided that the sub-chief was young and weak and lacked the power and stature of Chief Abdulla (a Somali) in Hindi (conversation with Abdi Khalif, Bargoni, 15 September 1997).

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of Islamic propriety but makes sense when it is recalled how, on killing an animal, the Boni first drank the blood as a means of acquiring the strength and spirit of that beast.46 Now Abdi’s spiritpossessed body is cut and he drinks the blood, assuming the power of the rohan. Likewise, in the case of the private séances carried out in homes, Abdi Doza explained the use of the chicken in terms of transferring the rohan from the woman onto himself: “All these things concerning the slaughter of the chicken achieved the transfer of the rohan from the mother to me . . . that is why I took the blood of the chicken. When I was anointing myself with the blood of the chicken, I was taking the rohans of the mother. I took them into my body.”47 The manner in which the blood of the ithai splattered the trees and achieved the transfer of their spirit immediately come to mind. Divination and Healing It would be easy to dismiss such an analysis and interpretation of the rites surrounding rohan possession and to brush aside the words and actions of Abdi Doza as an idiosyncratic stance adopted by one individual within the Boni community. However, such sentiments are to be discerned in other practitioners of religious activity within the homestead sphere. Just as Mzee Bobitu Kololo can be credited for the significant role he played in the introduction and spread of Islam in Bargoni in particular and Boniland in general, so too can another individual be 46 “The Boni drink the blood of the animals we kill in the bush. If we kill something then we slit the throat and drink the warm blood. If you kill a lion and drink its blood then you get the strength of the lion, you get plenty of energy. After that we open the stomach and remove the liver. We cut four pieces from this and throw one piece in the direction of north, a second to the south, the third to the east and the forth to the west. As we do so we pray, ‘Ancestors, this is your gift, help us!’ This is the gift to the ancestors, they share the meat with us.” Conversation with Ali Sani, Muswakini, 26 March 1998. 47 Conversation with Abdi Doza, Muswakini, 15 March 1998. Indeed, the ‘taking into the body’ is a major feature of rohan possession and sets it apart from the pepo and shetani spirits that Ali Sani addresses. Abdi Khalif explained from a local Somali perspective, “Ali deals with spirits that exist outside of people although they bring sickness and misfortune, Abdi Dozo deals with rohan that live in people.” He went on to say “all people have rohan but most live in harmony with them, never being troubled by them. However, others are troubled by them and these are the ones that are addressed by Abdi Doza.” (Conversation with Abdi Khalif, after séance in Muswakini, 26 September 1997).

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ascribed recognition for promulgating a divinatory technique and healing regimen originating outside the Boni community but now firmly established within Bargoni. Ali Sani is himself something of an outsider since his original home area was around the village of Milimani but he is also distinguished by the fact that he has been exposed to the world outside the immediate environs of Boniland to an extent that is rare amongst people of his generation. In some ways one can see elements here that he shares with Mzee Bobitu. His enrolment in the National Youth Service in his younger days saw him visiting the cosmopolitan capital of Kenya, Nairobi, undergoing training in Gilgil, near Nakuru, as well as travelling around various parts of western Kenya. Subsequently, he secured casual employment with the Kenya Wildlife Service in the recently created Dodori National Reserve and it was while stationed there that he was exposed to a method of divination that he was to make his own and that was to mark him out in Bargoni as a mganga, a diviner and healer, par excellence. His involvement follows something akin to the classic pattern48 and saw a case of sickness (on the part of his brother) followed by a cure and the ensuing enrolment of Ali as a disciple of the mganga who had effected the healing. Ali tells it thus: In February 1969, while I was working as a ranger with the Kenya Wildlife Service in Dodori National Reserve, my brother, Abdi Sani, became very sick with a head that boiled and erupted beneath the surface, and also with stomach pains. I was told to send for a Bajun mganga who tried to treat my brother by writing suras of the Qur’an on paper, tearing them in half and placing them on a fire along with incense. My brother was told to put a towel over his head and the fire and breathed in the smoke and the fumes but there was no improvement. After this failed attempt, a Gosha healer was employed. He utilised the technique of bao to identify the enemy who had done this; he said this enemy had gone to a dereto who had mixed a potion which he had buried in the path along which Abdi passed. As soon as Abdi did so, then he became sick with the symptoms now being manifested. The mganga went into the forest and collected the following herbal medicines: areri, tomor and papora.

48 See John M. Janzen, Ngoma: Discourses of Healing in Central and Southern Africa, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992), 87.

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These were mixed and placed in the mouth, nose, ears, palms of the hands, soles of the feet and the top of the head. The patient then recovered. After seeing all this I borrowed K.sh.700/= from my Wildlife Service boss to pay for my being trained as a mganga by the Gosha healer. He told me all the secrets and shared with me all about the medicines that can be used and, as I approached graduation, he told me to bring him a sheep which he slaughtered and, taking the blood, he went with me into the bush. There the mganga collected the various medicinal herbs, barks, plants etc. and told me to write down their names and uses on a sheet of paper. Then the mganga sucked up some of the sheep’s blood and, blowing it out, sprayed it over the herbs/dawa. Then he smeared me with the blood. He then took me by the hand and spat on me, thus giving me his medicine. From now on I was a mganga and my teacher continued to guide me in the use and practice of this new skill and expertise. The first case the mganga/teacher gave me was to get a girl to love me. For this I chewed some dawa, spat on the palm of my right hand and then went up to the girl and greeted her. She fell for me immediately, expressing her love with tears. After a while I chewed some more dawa, spat on my hand and greeted her again to undo the spell. From there on I learnt more and more, and became more proficient, through practice under my mentor. The mganga taught me to do bao and today, for K.sh.20/=, I will perform bao for people. Although I started to learn the art of a mganga in 1969, I only became an independent practitioner in 1981.49

He explained that he was able to cure all manner of illnesses and listed excessive menstrual flow, problems with the ears, eyes, teeth, testicles, deep cuts on the legs, as all lying within the competence of his healing regimen. He said that people came to him often after first attending a hospital or dispensary and achieving no satisfaction, which Ali put down to the fact that such sicknesses are frequently

49

Conversation with Ali Sani in Muswakini, 18 September 1997. Ali subsequently explained that the period between 1969 and 1981 was essentially one of apprenticeship. Initially, his teacher was somewhat reticent, seeking to discern Ali’s commitment in the face of his own aloofness and apparent indifference. Once Ali’s resolve had been established and his mettle demonstrated, the impartation of the mganga’s knowledge, and training in the arts of divination and healing, continued, with Ali operating under the auspices of his tutor. This continued until 1981 when, with the blessing of his mentor, Ali was able to strike out on his own.

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caused by sorcery or spirit possession and this cannot be diagnosed in a conventional hospital. Ali Sani calls his divining technique bao, using the kiSwahili term although the names of the tetragrams bear little resemblance to the appellations used in Lamu.50 It represents a form of the ‘wisdom’ divination strand identified by Zuesse,51 which is common throughout many parts of sub-Saharan Africa. It is not intended here to offer a detailed analysis of the technique but a description of the process sets the scene for an understanding of the role it plays in Boni society. Table 2 Bao Tetragrams I I I I

I I

I I I I

I I I I I I I

Darek

Dayat

Bariale

Afyuf

I I I I I I I

I I I I I I

I I I I I I

Jama

Marawina (Kubwa)

Marawina (Ndogo)

Bayaath

I I I I I I

I I I I I

I I I I I

I I I I I

Dergene

Garbaraa

Gontane

Hemri

I I I I I I

I I I I I I I

I I I I I I I

I I I I I I

Dorhane

Kokoble

Enkismodobe

Yulkut

I I I I

50 51

I I I

I I I I

El Zein, Sacred, 286–291. Zuesse, Ritual, 206 ff.

I I

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The performance of the bao divinatory technique sees the client approaching the mganga and describing his particular problem. Money is exchanged, K.sh.20/= being the usual sum, but this is not passed directly to the mganga. Rather the client places the money on the ground before the mganga who retrieves and pockets the note. The mganga then takes a sheet of paper and, at the top, writes the name of the client and the name of the client’s mother. It is always the mother’s name that is included, not the father’s, and this finds an echo in the work of Mama Habole who also required the same two names to clearly identify the client and begin the divinatory process. It was explained that one can never be absolutely sure who one’s father is but about the identity of a person’s mother there is never any doubt. Such a practice might also substantiate Prins’s analysis of Boni culture as being based on a matrilineal or, perhaps, double-unilineal, family model.52 Beneath this one marks out four rows of lines taking no notice at this stage of how many strokes there are in each line. Thus an initial appearance may be as follows: Mohamed

Fatuma

I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I

Starting with the top row of strokes, on the right hand side, one starts by connecting pairs of strokes until one is left (at the left hand end of the row) with either a sole stroke or two strokes (which one does not connect, one cannot be left with no stroke) at the end of the row. e.g. I I—I I—I I—I I—I I—I I—I I—I I I I—I I—I I—I I—I I—I I—I I—I

or

This is done for all four lines and the results tabulated, e.g.: I I I I

52

I I—I I—I I—I I—I I—I I—I I—I I—I I—I I—I I—I I—I I—I I—I I—I I—I I—I I—I I—I I—I I—I I—I I—I I—I I—I I—I I—I I—I I I—I I—I I—I I—I I—I I—I I—I I—I I—I I—I

Prins, Didemic, 173–186.

I I I I I I (a)

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This process is repeated with another set of four rows of strokes: I I I I

I—I I—I I—I I—I I—I I—I I—I I—I I I—I I—I I—I I—I I—I I—I I—I I—I I—I I I—I I—I I—I I—I I—I I—I I—I I—I I—I I—I I—I I—I I—I I—I I—I I—I I—I I—I I—I I—I I—I

I I I I I I (b)

The resulting two columns (a) and (b) are now put side by side and the rules governing connections repeated so that, after connecting the pairs, there is either a single or two strokes remaining, never zero. Thus, for the case we have here: I I I I I I (a)

I I I I I I (b)

When paired we get

I I I I (c)

Column (a) is now discarded and the new column (c) is placed along side column (b) and the total number of strokes is calculated: I I I I I I Total Strokes: 10

I I I I

Each column of strokes, and the combination they form, has a name which is given in Table 2, Bao Tetragrams. The combination of numbers and figures allows the diviner to discern the solution or course of action that his client is enquiring after. So, by way of example, Ali Sani sought to determine when was the best day for the women to pray over him to dispel his lack of success while hunting. The results of performing bao were as follows: I I I I I I I (Afyuf )

I I I I I I (Dergene)

I I I I I I I (Marawina Kubwa)

The number of strokes in the second and third columns is 13. The interpretation is thus: Afyuf—This has to do with the mouth, with the spitting associated with blessing. Dergene —‘You will be full!’ (of blessings). Marawina Kubwa—You will have great success.

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Thus, Thursday (thirteen days from Juma mosi ) will be the most propitious day for the prayers. This process is heavily dependent on the particular situation and circumstances but some possible explanations are contained in appendix 3. Ali Sani does not possess any literature that indicates how the numbers and figures are to be interpreted but depends on the memory of his instruction by his Gosha teacher. In his masterly analysis of the history, development and influence of the khatt ar-raml divinatory system, of which the form used by Ai Sani is clearly a variation, Brenner53 notes the vacillating opinion surrounding the place of this art within the wider body of Islamic knowledge. At various times and in diverse places it has enjoyed either wholesale endorsement or blanket condemnation (and all the shades in between), sometimes a respected science worthy of serious study and scholarship, on other occasions little more than the superstitious practices of the ‘common people’.54 Its understanding in Bargoni is significant in this regard. Despite the fact that such divinatory techniques are to be found throughout Islamic sub-Saharan Africa,55 Ali Sani, its chief proponent in Bargoni, emphasises that it is a ‘traditional’ belief and the antithesis of orthodox Islamic practice. So he learnt the technique not from a Swahili master—with Swahili culture, in Bargoni and its environs, being considered as the champion of Islamic orthodoxy—nor from the Somali but, instead, from the Gosha, a small hunting and fishing community living amongst the reeds at the edge of the Jubba River in Somalia. Thus the technique belongs not as an element in the wider Islamic body of knowledge but as something ‘original’, something over and against Islam. As Brenner observes at the conclusion of his paper on Muslim divination, Perhaps the one firm conclusion which might be gleaned from this evidence is that the priests and experts of endogenous African religions were quite prepared to cross religious and cultural boundaries in their search to expand and deepen their esoteric knowledge and

53 Louis Brenner, ‘Muslim Divination and the History of Religion in Sub-Saharan Africa’, in J. Pemberton (ed.), Insight and Artistry: A Cross-Cultural Study of Divination in Central and West Africa (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2000). 54 Brenner, Muslim, 8. 55 See, for example, Pierre Vérin and Narivelo Rajaonarimanana, ‘Divination in Madagascar: The Antemoro Case and the Diffusion of Divination’ in Philip M. Peek (ed.), African Divination Systems: Ways of Knowing (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1991), 53–68; also, Brenner, Muslim.

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chapter six powers. But then, perhaps they never conceptualized this kind of knowledge as being contained within ‘cultural’ boundaries in the first place!56

Ali Sani’s understanding of the divinatory technique he employs would certainly appear to concur with Brenner’s conclusion, happily identifying the source of his knowledge. However, as a Muslim, he inevitably thinks in terms of boundaries and hence distinguishes whether knowledge lies within the influence of Islam or, rather, as a traditional element of ‘African’ religious and cultural lore. In his case, he is keen to assert that, despite his own professed religious affinities, his techniques lie firmly in the latter camp and serve to establish the veracity of non-Islamic knowledge. During those times when we experience problems, then we use our traditional ways because we believe in that. From the time of our ancestors until now we use our cultural means to address problems— if you leave the traditional ways it is bad! When we use our traditional means then our needs are answered. We don’t get any problem because God assists us.57

This distinction is drawn out by the fact that, while Ali is at pains to stress his own personal Islamic credentials, this is never seen as automatically extending, and giving legitimacy, to bao. So, when Ali reports that he does not perform bao on Fridays,58 this both attests to his own adherence to Islamic principles and accentuates the incongruity of bao. Similarly, in the account of the healing of Hadija reported at the beginning of chapter 7, it is noted that the day of her treatment was brought forward so that it did not impinge on Ramadan. So an element of Islamic religious practice, khatt ar-raml, stripped of the Muslim milieu in which it developed, is reworked to such an extent that it now becomes a counterpoint to beliefs and activities emanating from Lamu and over which the Boni have no control. Ali Sani is empowered by the knowledge that is presented and accepted, even by the representatives of ‘orthodox’ Islam, as standing on a distinct but equal footing with those techniques legitimately employed by the imams. This essential ‘otherness’ is similarly endorsed by the adherents of

56 57 58

Brenner, Muslim, 23. Conversation with Ali Sani, Muswakini, 18 December 1997. Ibid.

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Islam outside the immediate Boni community. Abdi Khalif recounted the following story from the life of the Prophet in order to bolster his condemnation of the art as practised by Ali Sani: The Prophet Mohammed was out walking near his home one day when he saw a man divining using bao and went to watch. ‘What are you doing?’, the prophet asked, ‘I am seeing if I am going to go to bed hungry!’, the man replied. ‘And what is the prognosis?’, enquired the Prophet ‘That I will, indeed, end the day hungry’, said the man. To disprove this prediction, the Prophet decided to take the man to his house for food but the man stopped outside the mosque under a tree and said that he was going to camp there, whereupon the Prophet assured him that he was going to send his wife with the food. When he got home, he instructed his wife accordingly. However, meanwhile, another man had arrived and set up camp under another, similar tree near the mosque, but this time slightly closer to the Prophet’s home and thus when the wife came by with the food it was to this second arrival that she supplied the food. After morning prayer, the Prophet sought out the man he had seen doing bao the previous day and asked: ‘So the prediction was wrong, you received food.’ ‘No, sir,’ was the reply, ‘I received nothing and went to bed hungry.’ So the Prophet summoned his wife who explained that she had given the food to the other poor man, who had already left but the embers of his fire could still be seen.59

As a result of this incident, the Prophet then imposed a proscription on performing bao. Indeed, Abdi likened the performance of bao with an outbreak of ‘devil worship’, news of which had received sensational coverage in the Kenyan papers a few years earlier. Similarly, Mzee Bobitu Kololo was able to say, “Mganga na Mchawi ni moja! ” (“The mganga and the sorcerer are one!”).60 Despite this criticism, Abdi Khalif and others admit to consulting such mediums and assenting to the revelations imparted. Nevertheless, he is sure that the essential ‘wrongness’ eventually catches up with the practitioner and asserted that all who practise bao end up living a miserable life. He told of one such mganga whom he had consulted and who eventually “became paralysed in one leg which became so 59 60

Account given by Abdi Khalif, Bargoni, 21 September 1997. Comment by Mzee Bobitu Kololo, Bargoni, 1 April 1998.

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infected that the skin fell off in strips. He ended his days begging on the streets.”61 Indeed, an important element in causing unease is the coalescing of this divinatory technique with medicines used to treat illnesses induced by spiritual entities that are the cause of affliction. It appears a small step between addressing misfortune understood to have been brought about by spirits and sorcery and actually harnessing these powers and using one’s knowledge to engage in such malignant activities. Ali Sani admits that he possesses the knowledge and ability to kill people. However, he claims to refrain from such practices because of his Islamic faith and the proscriptions that this imposes62 (and, indeed, no accusations of witchcraft were levelled at him). Nevertheless, in the eyes of others, this ability calls forth both respect and fear. It is remembered that Mama Habole, in her practice of divination using the cord, did not prescribe medicines for treatment but, rather, referred her clients to the relevant competent authority in this sphere of the healing. If the technique of bao used by Ali Sani is perceived by him and others as external to Islamic orthodoxy, as ‘traditional’, then the spiritual entities that cause sickness and misfortune are very clearly Islamic and understood as such. It is shetani spirits and jinn that are behind the suffering of the community, although they tend to inhabit a world that reflects a Boni cosmology of the past. In this, as recorded in chapter 4, the fundamental contrast is between the air/sky on the one hand, and the earth on the other—the former being the preserve of spirits while human beings occupy the latter domain. Just as Mama Habole’s contemporary gloss argues that she sits, when divining, facing the Indian Ocean, so with Ali Sani there is the belief that the sea is the great repository of spirits and that these entities travel inland on breezes that emanate from the ocean. In the same way as spittle encapsulates the ‘spirit’ of a person’s prayer and transfers it to another, so too does rain embody the spiritual entities from the ocean that sail on the wind, and therefore the stream that flows through Bargoni, containing water that originates in the sky and, by extension the sea, also possesses spirits. “Where the water passes is a pathway for the shetani. They do not ideally stay where water per-

61 62

Conversation with Abdi Khalif, Bargoni, 21 September 1997. Conversation with Ali Sani, Muswakini, 18 September 1997.

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manently passes [rivers] but prefer places where the water flows on and off, for example, during the rainy season only. They like such places—not rivers but seasonal streams and waterholes.”63 Such a view is shared by other ethnic communities resident in Bargoni. When crossing the swollen lugga during the height of the El Niño flooding, when a 10–meter section of the bridge had been washed away and a replacement section constructed of tree trunks and branches had been erected, Abdi Khalif prayed ‘Bismilai al utha bilai mina shetan ra jinn’, that is ‘In the name of God, God protect me from devils and spirits.’64 Another commensurate manifestation of the spiritual reality is the mist and water vapour that rises from the paths and vegetation when the sun begins to burn off the dew or residual rainfall at the start of the day. Such vapours are easily inhaled and thus afford an avenue for spirits to enter the body. So, as has been observed in other Muslim cultures along the East African coast, there is a clear co-existing of Islamic and pre-Islamic spiritual entities: Lambek, for example, contrasts trumba with patros (shetwan) spirits65 amongst the people of Mayotte, while amongst the Swahili there are pepo, mzuka, mzimu and koma on the one hand, and jini, shaitani, rohani on the other.66 So too, amongst Bargoni’s Boni population, there appears to be this same division. On the one hand there are the Ithai spirits that reside in the bush and clearly hark back to the pre-Islamic era. These were never described as malevolent, although potentially dangerous, and were harnessed to address issues pertinent to the individual or community. On the other hand there are spirits that clearly have an Islamic gloss and are the source of misfortune and sickness. The rohan spirits have already been examined and then there is another group that might be understood as comprising two camps, shetani and jinn, and these can be said to have the following properties although, in practice, the distinctions become somewhat blurred. Shetani spirits manifest themselves in the form of madness, trembling and so on, and have to be treated with the relevant herbal medicine that contains the power to undo the work of these spirits. Diagnosis begins with the performance of bao to determine the nature 63 64 65 66

Conversation with Ali Sani, Bargoni 1 December 1997. Abdi Khalif, 23 November 1997. Lambek, Knowledge, 63–4. Middleton, World, 171 ff.

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of the spirit and the sickness and once this knowledge has been secured then the mganga will go into the bush to obtain the medicine, making whatever sacrifice might be necessary. He will then administer the medicine in one of a number of ways and often instructs the patient to wear similar dawa in a pouch around one or other part of his/her body to obtain further protection. Shetani spirits can be divided into various categories, they can belong to either sex (although the female are the more powerful and troublesome) and can attack people of either sex. They are also divided according to religion:—some are Islamic and are treated with methods that usually require the reading of the Qur’an, while others are ‘Christian’ (a term loosely applied to all non-Islamic spirits). Some, as has already been suggested, live in, or are particularly associated with, water while others prefer the land and are fond of baobab and bombax trees. Both these trees possess unusual properties that lend themselves to being associated with spirits, the baobab with its highly unorthodox shape and the bombax with a bark that exudes a red, blood-like liquid. Shetani spirits live in the same world as human beings, “There is only one world,” said Ali Sani “and although we don’t see them, they see us!”67—there is no sense that there is a separate world that might overlap with the physical world. However, contrary to the ability of ordinary men, a mganga is able to see shetani spirits and Ali Sani described them as being tall and basically anthropomorphic although possessing an additional set of eyes on the back of their heads so that they are able to travel backwards and forwards with ease. They are said to have their own pathways in the air and can sometimes be heard ‘like the rumbling of a distant car—but there isn’t a car’68 or like the fluttering sound of a bird’s wings, which represents the sound of the shetani returning to their baobabs. Their most likely time to attack a human being, i.e. when the shetani are most active, is when the person is least active. So early mornings and in the evening and also at noon (mealtime) as well as during the night when a person might be asleep. Nights are particularly fraught with shetani manifestations and, as well as the various noises that are ascribed to these spirits, there is also the phenomenon, when

67 68

Conversation with Ali Sani, Muswakini, 7 October 1997. Ibid.

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walking along a path, of suddenly encountering a pocket of warm air—this is a place where shetani spirits have recently been and hurriedly left. The effect of a jinn spirit on a person is to render the individual tense, rigid and silent and, again, bao is employed to discern the cause of the ailment and diagnose a jinn as being at the root of the infirmity. Again, the correct herbal treatment is found amongst the plants and shrubs of the bush and the diviner removes all his clothes to collect this dawa since, in his naked state, he is less able to be ‘grabbed’ by a jinn. Some use the nakedness as evidence that this practice is nonIslamic since such immodesty would be eschewed by orthodox Muslims. Once the correct shrub to bring about a cure is located then an egg is sacrificed, and three pinches of sand and some incense poured over the top of the plant. This enables the diviner to enter into dialogue with the jinn and explore the predicament that brought him there. Subsequently, the medicinal herbs could be removed and these would be taken to the afflicted person where they would be rubbed and the dust blown into the ears, nose and mouth as well as being rubbed into the joints of the patient. After recovery, a pouch would be worn containing more of the medicine to protect the person from further illness of this nature. Unlike shetani spirits, jinn do not like human company but, instead, choose to live in the bush or sea, far away from human habitation. They are said by the mganga who alone can see them to be short with big bodies. Jinn are silent, whereas there are noises associated with shetani spirits. When they make a person sick they do not stay but “blow at or on them and then continue on their way, without waiting around, back into the bush.”69 Like shetani spirits, jinn can be of either sex and Muslims or ‘Christians’ (i.e. non-Muslims) with this latter distinction playing a large role in determining the treatment offered. As with shetani spirits, if the jinns are suspected of being Islamic then the Imam or Mwalimu from the madrasa school is summoned to read the Qur’an over the sick person. The mganga does not do this but has to summon the representative of legitimate Islamic religious authority. Jinn are considered to be most active in the late afternoon and early evening when people tend to be relaxing outside their homes and

69

Ibid.

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the jinn can pass and maliciously ‘blow’ on them. Similarly, the ideal time for healing is in the late afternoon since the presence of the dawa will ensure that the jinn will not pass that way but give the area a wide berth. As can be surmised, jinn are considered to be very much the enemy of human beings and they are much more powerful and dangerous than the shetani who, while prone to cause havoc, are more benign and are said only to want to ‘play’ with people. The alien spiritual entity that enters an individual’s body is understood to take up residence in the person’s head, in their brain, and from there exerts influence over the person. The means by which a shetani or jinn spirit enters a person are twofold. Firstly, there is the possibility of vaporous spirits entering the victim through one of the bodily orifices—particularly the ears, nose or mouth since these are closest to the brain. So, for example, the mist that rises from the ground (and the circuitous connection that this has with the sea, which is quintessentially the domain of spirits) is particularly dangerous since it enters the body and proceeds to the brain and from there goes out in the blood to infect other parts of the body: “The head and the spirit are supplied with the same blood.”70 The other route is via the individual’s shadow since this is also linked to the brain: The shetani like the shadow because your body picture is in the shadow— it is like an x-ray. When the sun is on you, your blood becomes hot and the blood goes into the shadow. Like taking an x-ray. When it captures your shadow, the shetani captures your body as a whole. The shadow is very important—if a person wants to bewitch you then he uses your shadow. A witch doctor will come near to a person where he is standing and engage him in conversation and if the person’s shadow is long (2 metres) then he will surreptitiously place medicine on the shadow. Then the two depart and when the victim gets home then he will suffer the effects of the witchcraft. Sometimes the witchdoctor uses the soil on which a person’s shadow fell and this is taken home and used with medicine to bewitch the intended victim! You take the soil with incense and go under a tree and light a fire and then start talking about how you want the person to be—if you want the person to have stomach problems, become paralysed etc. After a while you will come to hear that the person is seriously sick as you intended. The victim will go to hospital, get injections, go to Lamu, but the doctor who examines him will find nothing wrong after examining his blood etc. The victim will be discharged and has to come back and get local medicine. When he is at home the relatives will 70

Conversation with Ali Sani, Muswakini, 3 December 1997.

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go to the mganga and explain the problem and the mganga uses bao to make the diagnosis. After this the mganga will reveal that the shadow is captured by the shetani—the bao will reveal what has happened. The mganga will discern the right path for recovery—what dawa to use, when it is to be collected, on what day and at what time it should be administered etc. Whether to boil the medicine, wash in it, make a cut on the body and mix it in the blood. After a day or two the person will improve and the mganga will be paid.71

In the manner of treatment, there is a return to the realm that is considered ‘traditional’. Such practices are considered to be more efficacious than the ones that have accompanied the change in religious complexion in the area. Kirby would question whether such a movement constituted a ‘return’ to traditional religious practices or if, in fact, conversion (in this case to Islam, in the example Kirby analyses, to Christianity) is not more a cultural phenomenon, where one accepted Islam “without having to change anything about one’s traditional approach toward problem solving.”72 Thus, in the area of healing that Ali Sani addresses, one witnesses the use of ‘traditional’ means of divination—bao as understood in terms of its Gosha rather than Islamic origins—to discern the nature of the spirit that has brought the misfortune. The spirit is understood to belong to the Islamic pantheon but the means to address and effect a cure relies on reverting to the use of plants and other inanimate objects that again find their meaning and power in traditionally ascribed attributes. It is the spiritual powers imbuing these objects that confront, control or defeat the maleficent and hostile entities that have either accompanied the spread of Islam into the area or have only come to be identified and named since the advent of this new system of belief. Against a backdrop that perceives illness and misfortune as frequently having reference to the activity of spiritual entities, there is the understanding that not only can these various afflictions be cured, but also spiritual entities can be harnessed to ward off the deleterious influence of others. Spiritual forces can inflict harm either of their own malevolent volition or else because they are employed and manipulated by human activity (sorcery). On the other hand, spiritual entities can be gainfully utilised either to combat a sickness or misfortune or to protect an individual against the encroachment of such forces.

71 72

Ibid. Kirby, ‘Cultural’, 64.

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The coalescing of a divinatory technique with a widespread knowledge of healing practices in the person of Ali Sani might initially suggest an inextricable link between these two branches of religious activity, but this would be erroneous. While it is true to say that bao might reveal a particular line of treatment, for example using ‘black’ medicine, it is also correct to say that these two branches are often employed independently of each other. So, often a person will consult bao merely to discern the most suitable day for a particular activity, similarly medicines or therapeutic practices relevant to a particular situation might be proffered without any reference to divination. Mama Habole is a case in point here and we have seen how, after performing fal, she does not prescribe medicine but instead refers clients to the relevant authorities. However, in Ali Sani the distinction is not always clear and the boundary between bao and healing becomes blurred. Offering both services in one package is obviously attractive to clients. Indeed, of all religious activity pertinent to the homestead situation, one can say that the preventative/healing arts represent the most diffused of disciplines with all manner of individuals claiming to be, and being recognised as, fundis (experts) in a particular field. Included in such a list would be the various Imams who, to differing degrees (as will be seen) reflect the cross-section of Islamic practice in Bargoni. On the one hand, there are those who adhere to strict Islamic principles, at the other end of the scale one witnesses proponents whose veneer of Islamic orthodoxy is rather thin. The simplest form of healing is that of praying and spitting upon a person whereby the benediction of the healer is encapsulated in the spittle that is then transferred to the body of the patient (breathing over a person has a similar, if less powerful, effect). It can be seen how this method is employed in the treatment of Hadija (chapter 7) by the Islamic teacher, but it also appears to have a long tradition in Boni religious practice. For example, in the case of a hunter who experienced a singular lack of success in the chase, women spat upon him and smeared his body with their sweat as a means of transferring their prayerful blessing upon him. However, in addition to prayers, it is often necessary to collect various leaves or roots from the bush that are understood to be efficacious in the treatment of a given condition. The second part of Hadija’s treatment reflects this, with Ali Sani employing a method

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that is often to be observed in addressing complaints that are perceived to be spirit-induced. In such cases it is necessary for the ‘spirit’ of the healing medicine to enter the person and one of the most common methods is to boil the leaves and roots and have the sick person breathe in the vapours through his/her mouth and nose. Often the patient is also instructed to clean his/her body with the resultant liquid and this also contributes to further protection, since the smell of the medicine on the skin helps to ward off future attacks. Subsequently, a pouch (hirizi ) will be fabricated and worn containing the same medicine that resulted in the cure, to prevent any possibility of a recurrence. Indeed, frequently vegetative matter is employed either on its own or with other material objects either to cure an individual or else to ensure that a person is not the victim of illness and misfortune. In the following example, I was the client, which has the advantage in that I was involved in all that was going on, not as an observer but as participant, and Ali took pains to explain what was being done so that I could comprehend the ritual. However, this example is typical of other rites that were observed. The reason for my being provided with protective medicine was the deteriorating security situation in the area, where heavily armed groups of Somali bandits were roaming around, terrorising and looting homesteads. Ali Sani took it upon himself to provide me with dawa ‘to close me’. The medicine was to be obtained from the bush and Ali located a tomomi shrub and cleared the surrounding scrub—this plant, he explained, is the active ingredient of the medicine that he was to provide me with. Ali dug a small hole near the base of the plant and extracted some sand and also a length of root. The root constitutes the medicine but the sand he mixed with some leaves of the tomomi taken from the top of the plant and some of its flowers, and he placed all this in the hole from which the root had been taken. He then proceeded to dig four holes at the cardinal points around the shrub, with the trunk at the centre, and into these he placed a grain of incense and a one-shilling coin before filling them in (see photo 10). The root was cut into one-centimetre lengths, and with a lump of charcoal and a piece of incense was wrapped in a scrap of white cloth and bound with thread. I was then given instructions about how I should use this medicine. Ali instructed me to take it home and

Photo 10. Making an offering at the tomomi shrub (Watheria Indica) prior to extracting the root.

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in the evening, after dark, I was to use a knife to dig a hole in the ground in front of my door, about half a metre out and to the right as I stood facing it. Then, with my eyes tightly closed I was to bury the package in the hole and cover it over so that no one could see where it had been placed. It can be noted in passing that, although shifta attacked Bargoni on a number of occasions during my stay in the village, I was never troubled, despite the fact that the presence of a European would obviously have constituted an attractive proposition to anyone intent on such action. Ali’s medicine worked. The shrub used in this account is widely used to ‘prevent people from seeing’ and ensure secrecy. Ali Sani explained: If you are going on a long journey alone or with many people, if you are taking a lot of money and footing [undertaking a safari by foot], then you take tomomi, incense and charcoal and put it all in your pocket. You should carry these three things—the tomomi, incense and charcoal. Another example: If you are in danger, like you are engaged in smuggling which the government forbids, then you take and hide the goods somewhere. If you hear that there is an operation against smuggling going on then you hide what you are smuggling [with the medicine] and when they come to you they look for the things and it is right there! They step on it but cannot see it. If you use tomomi, it closes peoples eyes!73

This account vividly reveals the Boni understanding that the efficacious property of the medicine is not conferred so much as activated by the enactment of a rite. It is not a question of imparting a sanctified dimension onto the matter but instead the power derives from spiritual entities inherent in the plant itself: “You have to make a sacrifice since the power does not come from the plant automatically. There is a shetani in the plant that will release the power or not.”74 Thus the rituals that surround the extraction of a root or the gathering of leaves constitute the necessary sacrifice intended to satisfy the spirits and ensure they release their powers and do not direct them against the diviner. Echoes of the appeasement of ithai are evident here. Ali was at pains to stress that the power does not come from the plant automatically, they themselves do not contain pharmaceutical properties, but rather the power rests with the spirit in the plant 73 74

Conversation with Ali Sani, Muswakini, 28 December 1997. Conversation with Ali Sani, Muswakini, 18 September 1997.

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and this has to agree to the provision of their spiritual force that will, in turn, effect the healing.75 In keeping with the process of Swahili-ization that has accompanied the Islamization of this part of Boniland, Ali ascribes this power to the presence of shetani spirits within the various plants and shrubs, in much the same way as Mama Habole professed to using shetani spirits derived from the sea and the baobab tree. However, an older tradition, which is still kept alive in the rite around the horrop tree, is the notion that it is the spirits of the ancestors that are present in the plants and give their protection and vitality to the living community. There is the suggestion that trees such as the horrop, wahari, balambale and others are venues where the community can address the ancestors explicitly but more distant, lesser known or forgotten forefathers are still active in the various medicinal plants and shrubs and they allow their power and influence to be utilised. Indeed, the burial rite described in the previous chapter can be understood to contain surviving elements of this belief when branches are placed at each end of the grave with the hope that they will take root and grow. These do not merely serve as markers but rather there is the idea that the deceased will imbue these trees with his or her spirit. Similarly, it was described earlier how the divining rope employed by Mama Habole was rubbed with leaves of the wahari tree (one of the sacred ancestor-linked trees) before it was used. This suggests that it was the ancestors that were originally perceived to be speaking through the oracle prior to the Swahili-inspired shetani belief superseding it and offering a different gloss. The efficacious spiritual presence within the medicine can be seen in the manner in which it is utilised. Very often it is clearly the spiritual dimension that is being used in those cases where the healer blows over the medicine into the mouth, nose or ears of the patient, blowing the benevolent spirit into the person through those same orifices that formerly experienced the incursion of the malevolent forces. So too, in the case of fumigating a patient, it is the spiritual force released from the vegetative matter that is assumed into the body of the victim. In this respect, smell is important and many of the plants used possess a very strong scent so that not only does the ‘spirit’ of the medicine enter the person but the fragrance renders this process 75

Conversation with Ali Sani, Muswakini, 19 September 1997.

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experiential. So it was explained that jafare emits such a strong smell that it is only suitable for treating shetani in adults and that it would be potentially harmful if applied to children.76 Similarly, strong smelling bonanz is highly effective in the treatment of jinn.77 Sacrificing to the plant in order to appease the spirit and harness the forces within comes out strongly in the account relating to the protection of my house. Money is used as an offering (“The spirits like silver, they don’t want paper money, they like silver.”)78 and it was reported that “If you go back later to retrieve the money you will find that it has gone, it is nowhere to be seen! Even I don’t go back and look for [the coins].”79 The spirit has accepted the offering. The offering of incense must be understood in the same light: it is a great delicacy of the spirits, the scent is something that gives them joy. The burning of incense is intensely religious whereby the inanimate object gives off fumes, vapour, scent that belong to the spiritual realm and so incense is burnt to delight the spiritual entities as well as being breathed into the body of a sick person who is seen to be possessed by a spirit. Incense can be used in other ways as part of the healing regimen. Because it is so attractive to spirits it is a useful vehicle with which to carry prayers and petitions and so, before being burnt, it is often spat upon by the mganga and thus imbued with his prayerful wish, which is then carried into the spiritual realm through the medium of the smoke. Similarly, when a person is fumigated, incense (ubani—kiSwahili) is often added to the boiling brew of leaves and roots, to satisfy the spiritual entities, and frequently the grains are spat upon before being used, again, to infuse them with the wish of the healer and, by extension, all those involved in the rite. The burial of the coins and incense at the four cardinal points is intended as a means of protecting the diviner: You see, the sun sets over one hole and rises over the other, then there is closing [referring to the holes north and south]. When you close you should use this: . . . . 76 77 78 79

Conversation with Ali Sani, Muswakini, 26 January 1998. Ibid. Conversation with Ali Sani, Muswakini, 28 December 1997. Ibid.

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chapter six So you are in a place like this and you get no danger. The tree is between the four holes and you have put in the incense and the four one shilling coins . . . If you get the roots then you must close the holes. This is the law regarding closing, you have to understand it like that, you have closed it completely [because of the four holes].80

Thus one has to close the plant to prevent the spirit within taking revenge on the diviner for having extracted the medicine. This closing is accomplished by offering the necessary exchange—in this case the money and the incense—at the four cardinal points. These same points are also employed to mark the ‘closing’ of a person to the deleterious influence of outside forces—both human and spiritual (a woman experiencing nightmares was ‘closed’ in this way so that the shetani would no longer bother her).81 Ali explained that marking the four cardinal points around a sitting person renders him ‘like a wire’, with the person in the centre protected and insulated by the medicine surrounding him. Also, if you wish to insert such medicine into the body of the person then you have to cut “at four corners—forehead, base of back and shoulders, or shoulders and hips. You cut four corners! Such a person cannot be touched if he has this medicine in his body.”82 The medicine package in the illustration is full of significance. At its core is the root of the tomomi which encapsulates the spiritual force of the ancestors contained in the shrub from which it has been extracted. The incense is the ‘demand’, it constitutes the ongoing offering and sacrifice to appease the spirit in the tomomi. The charcoal signifies ‘blackness’, the inability to see, that the medicine is intended to inflict on any person who sought to enter my house with the intention of stealing my property. The package takes on the condition of a ‘sacrament’ when it is buried since the ‘blackness’ of the charcoal and the clenched shut eyes are intended to effect what they symbolise—“If you are sleeping and you close your eyes, can you see? No!”83 The eyes of a potential thief will be closed so that he is unable to see and the blackness surrounding him will have the same effect of rendering him blind—“when the enemy comes, he sees a dark thing. His mind and heart changes to be black.”84 In a simi80 81 82 83 84

Conversation with Ali Sani, Muswakini, 28 December 1997. Case witnessed in Bargoni, 27 January 1998. Conversation with Ali Sani, Muswakini, 28 December 1997. Ibid. Ibid.

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lar way, it is important that the medicine be buried in the evening “because enemies come in the evening and at night! So this is the time to do it.”85 In the case just examined, it was the protection of property that was ensured but similar rites surround the protection of a person and here the medicine is normally worn in a pouch (hirizi)—around the neck of a child, around the right arm in the case of a man and the left arm in the case of a woman. These contain the medicine needed to ward off harmful influences or ensure that the person recovering is not struck down again. Thus, there was the instance of the wife of a soldier (who was away up-country) who was suffering from nightmares featuring images of a shetani ‘coming to get her.’ Taking three large grains of incense from what the woman supplied, the mganga mixed these with some leaves of the msingo and kesibile and wrapped them in a knot in the middle of a length of cloth. Then placing some hot coals in front of him, Ali added incense to the fire and suspended the medicine in the resulting smoke, making small circular motions to ensure that the medicine was fully steeped in the fumes. This, Ali later explained, was to ensure that the cloth absorbs the smoke and the smell permeates the medicine and the body of the patient and, indeed, the very air around her, so that internally and externally, she is infused with the ‘spirit’ of the medicine and the incense and the troublesome shetani will be expelled. The hirizi was then circled a few times around the woman’s head (the place where spirits reside in an individual) before being tied round her left upper arm (“Men are right handed, women are left handed. . . . When walking, the man walks in front and the woman behind. Men and women are opposite”)86 with instructions that it should be left there for a week. In a similar vein, it has already been recorded how the son of Ali Sani wore a hirizi around his neck as a protection against the dreaded owl (huhu) which had previously rendered him sick with kwashiorkor. A similar pouch containing paper on which is written a few verses from the Qur’an is worn by children of parents who are more outwardly Muslim in their religiosity (especially members of the Somali community) but it served the same purpose, that of keeping harm away. Abdi Khalif ’s son wore a pouch containing

85 86

Ibid. Conversation with Ali Sani, Bargoni, 27 January 1998.

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Qur’anic texts, which Abdi had obtained from a sheikh in Mokowe.87 As well as having a preventative function, such hirizi can also have a proactive dimension. For example they were given to soldiers from the local army camp to ensure promotion, to a young man seeking to woo a certain girl (the hirizi here contained medicinal leaves from the banyor boye plant which has a very sweet smell), or to individuals to secure employment. Other Healers While Ali Sani is the most visible exponent of healing amongst the Boni population of Bargoni, this is not to deny the existence of other practitioners and numerous individuals count themselves as fundis in this branch of knowledge. Ali Sani himself expressed the situation thus: There are many different local doctors . . . Everyone knows different parts of the body and uses different medicines. There is someone called Abdulai Shee, a Bajun, and if you have back problems or stomach problems then he will give you medicine and you will immediately recover. He comes from Pate Island and brings his medical knowledge from there. Thus there are different people, from different tribes, using different medicines and having different knowledge. I use Gosha knowledge which no one else knows. Everyone has different medicine, everyone has his own knowledge and experience. All come to me if they want something beyond their particular field of competence.88

Indeed, settlers in the community from outside the area are valued for the knowledge that they bring with them. Abdulai Lugumba, for example, is a Malakoti from near Garissa in Tana River District who is renowned for treating stomach problems in children. His area of specialisation concerns children who have a hard bloated stomach and he uses a number of lengths of wood, about 8 cm long, which he takes from a secret plant in the bush. These are placed in a fire where they catch alight, they are removed, the flames are extinguished and then the still smouldering wood is used to prick a series of dots in a circle around the hard knot in the child’s stomach which is the focus of the treatment. Abdulai Lugumba explains that the medicine

87 88

Conversation with Abdi Khalif, Bargoni, 2 November 1997. Conversation with Ali Sani, Muswakini, 3 December 1997.

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is in the wood and that, by pricking the skin on the patient’s stomach, the dawa is injected into the victim’s body where it works to reduce the swelling. Walimu (Islamic Religious Teachers) While the previous chapter examined the very public role that Islam plays in the community of Bargoni, and the position of the Imam in this, one should not be tempted to conclude that this is the extent of the Mwalimu’s religious duties. Rather, an examination of religious activities and practices as carried out in the more circumscribed homesteads and settlements around Bargoni reveals a development that reflects the background, temperament and education of the two principle Imams as well as the hopes and needs of the community. Indeed, while one can be considered to represent a predetermined, pre-packaged version of Islam (emanating principally from the Riyadh mosque on Lamu Island) that outsiders are seeking to have the Boni population conform to—a version that also takes into account the economic and political interests of the alien forces—the other represents something akin to a ‘tradition of renewal’89 within Boni society and religion. The former can be characterised as more cerebral and literate with little obvious respect being acknowledged to previous religious practice, no discernible effort being made to incorporate or build upon what went before. Indeed, given the use that outside promoters are making of Islam as a means of subjugation and control, it might be said that it is in their best interests to foster an imposition of Islam that is as disconcerting as acceptability allows, so as to create an environment conducive to their manifold interests. In the case of the second Imam, there is less effort expended to create a tabula rasa on which to build an Islamic edifice, less of a propensity to ignore or ride roughshod over former religious practices, less of a distinction made between ‘orthodox’ and ‘non-orthodox’ elements. Indeed, Islamic beliefs are assumed as another stratum on the rich and varied bedrock of Boni religious activity and expression and are accepted with less discontinuity.

89

Janzen, Tradition, 69–115.

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The two walimu who best illustrate this dialectic and are most influential in the more private domain of religious practice are Mohamed Ali, of the mosque in Bargoni proper, and Ali Sumoi Bwana Parua, who lives in Muswakini. Both individuals were introduced in chapter 2 of this work. Mohamed Ali is very much the conduit for opinion emanating from the religious and political authorities in Lamu and bears much of the same kind of veiled hostility towards me as did the official from the Riyadh mosque on Lamu described in an earlier chapter, even going so far as to preach against me in the mosque in Bargoni during my initial few months of fieldwork, although relations improved when I was no longer seen as a threat. This is not altogether surprising, since his frequent trips to Lamu would have acquainted him with the party line regarding my purpose in the village. At a wider level and within the Bargoni community, his Islamic knowledge is respected but his personal ‘holiness’ and religious commitment are frequently called into question, with accusations being levelled that his business ventures take up considerably more of his time and interest than the work in the mosque that initially brought him to Bargoni. The standard of instruction in the madrasa school is a constant object of criticism (“After all the years, the students are still in Standard 1.”)90 In the context of the homesteads, his activity is limited and largely confined to the non-Boni community, in part because of his being accused of fathering the illegitimate child of Mzee Bobitu Kololo’s teenaged daughter. His advice and Qur’anic admonitions are revered and an occasion of conflict between Abdi Khalif and his wife saw the Imam being brought in to effect mediation. It was explained that he was ideally placed to use the relevant verses of the Qur’an to inspire the warring parties to get the correct perspective on the conflict. He would use texts to enlighten the belligerents on their Islamic duties as husband and wife, calling on them to seek to live up to their ideals. Indeed, his advanced study in a bastion of Islamic learning results almost universally in the recitation, or other employment, of Qur’anic texts in addressing issues that are brought to him. The Qur’an itself says that the Qur’an is medicine and can assist people with problems. If anyone comes with a problem then there is a verse which is given by God and I read this. I do not treat the dis-

90

Conversation with Mzee Bobitu Kololo and Ali Sani, Bargoni, 7 March 1998.

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ease but it is God himself. After reading the Qur’an and saying prayers then if God agrees then the person recovers. But I cannot treat anyone unless God agrees to my prayers. With luck, if God agrees, the person will recover.91

So prayers from the Qur’an are used as treatment for illness and misfortune and at other times it is reported that suras from the Qur’an are written on paper and this is placed in water which the patient/client is then invited to drink. With Mohamed Ali we again see evidence of a small enclave of non-Boni, within the larger Bargoni community, who adhere to a self-ascribed Islamic orthodoxy as a means of fostering identity and affirmation. In contrast, the work of the other Imam in greater Bargoni reflects his Boni roots and reveals not so much efforts to impose Islam in the area as to allow the Boni religious experience to accommodate Islam. Ali Sumoi also employs Qur’anic texts in his repertoire of healing methods, although on his lips the words can take on an almost magical property whereby it is the performance that is important irrespective of any display of focused attention. In the course of a treatment involving such recitation, he can quite comfortably be directing household tasks with his hands and body language while uttering the Arabic words of the sura under his breath. Another use of a text involved the case of a mother who brought to him a child that continually cried and was suspected of having a shetani in his body. Ali Sumoi explains that treatment consists of writing the name of God (‘Mwenyezi mungu’) on six different slips of paper. He then places embers from a fire into half a coconut shell and adds these slips of paper. Meanwhile the child, with his torso bare, sits on the ground with his face towards Mecca and, as the slips of paper begin to burn, the Mwalimu proceeds to move the coconut around to bathe the child’s body in the smoke. Particular care is taken to ensure that the child also inhales some of the smoke. While doing this, the Mwalimu prays ‘Bismillahi’ seven times, ‘Audhu billahi mina shaytani rajiim’ seven times, ‘minkuli shetwan wahamati mwamin kul aini lamati’ seven times. This rite is performed three times—in the morning, at noon and in the evening—to ensure a cure. Ali Sumoi enjoys great respect in the locality since “His heart is pure”,92 in contrast with Ali Mohamed who is said to have been 91 92

Conversation with Mohamed Ali, Bargoni, 2 December 1997. Conversation with Abdi Khalif, 6 May 1998.

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corrupted by his business ventures as well as ‘streeting’93 (engaging in casual sexual relations) with young women. Indeed, Ali Sumoi is credited with being a happy man with a lot of faith and is much liked by the Boni community for these qualities. However, there is also a sense that Ali Sumoi addresses the needs of his clients in a manner that resonates with their religious past and does not constitute such a jarring break with tradition. Pre-Islamic Boni religious belief envisaged a rather distant God but a plethora of spirits and ancestors who assisted the human community in their day-to-day struggle to survive. So, in Ali Sumoi’s work there is less emphasis on Allah and a greater role ascribed to the angels who appear to have assumed the place vacated by the ancestors when the community espoused Islam.94 Indeed, at times there is confusion over shetani spirits and angels. One woman was being treated for a shetani spirit which manifested itself in lethargy, lack of interest in food and emotional/psychological disorder. With the woman sitting on the floor facing Mecca, and while the Mwalimu was chanting the Yasin (Sura 36), the latter placed a brazier containing hot coals to which incense was added, first on her right hand side and then on her left. This, he later explained, was to satisfy the two angels that stood there—Munkari on the right, who always writes a good report on the person for God, and on her left Nakiri, whose reports are negative. Ali Sumoi argued that both these spiritual entities had to be appeased and there was a sense that it was these angels that were involved in the distress inflicted on the woman. The characteristics of the shetani spirits had been transferred to these angels who had to be treated with smoke— the typical way of curing sicknesses induced by shetani. A further example might be the method he employed to identify whether a young man in the village was guilty of the theft of some poles that another individual had cut with the intention of using them to build a new house. In this case, the midribs of four palm

93

This word constitutes part of an ever expanding lexicon of an evolving language that the Kenyan newspapers refer to as ‘sheng’—a fusing of Swahili, English and other local languages and dialects. ‘Streeting’, as given above, refers to soliciting, or seeking to be solicited by prostitutes on the streets; ‘tarmacing’ is the word used to describe job hunting. 94 El Zein, Sacred, 323, identifies a similar process taking place in Lamu where, in the Maulid celebration, the Prophet Mohamed is seen to assume the place formerly occupied by the ancestors in pre-Islamic religious activity.

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fronds were taken and trimmed to about half a metre in length (a point being made to ensure that they were all of the same length) with one end of each being trimmed flat. Onto this flat area were inscribed, in Arabic, the names of four angels—Jibril, Mikail, Israfil, Israel—one name onto each stick. At the end of the stick bearing the inscription, a small notch was cut. The Mwalimu held two of these sticks, the one bearing the name of ‘Jibril’ in his right hand and the one inscribed ‘Israel’ in his left, while his assistant, sitting facing the Mwalimu, held the other two: ‘Israfil’ in his right and ‘Mikail’ in his left. The notch at the end of each stick then fits at right angles into the notch of the stick held by the person opposite, so that the two sticks are joined. Thus, the Mwalimu and his assistant sat on the ground facing each other with the stick in the right hand of the Mwalimu dovetailing into the stick held in the left hand of his assistant and vice versa (see photos 11 and 12). The accused placed his hand into the space created by the sticks, his wrist between the notches, and the Mwalimu recited the sura ‘Yasin’. If, in the course of the reading of the text, the parallel sticks converged to hold, ‘trap’, the wrist of the accused then he was pronounced guilty of the charge of theft. If, on the other hand, they moved outwards and away from the wrist of the accused then he was clearly innocent. While this example exhibits strongly Islamic overtones, Ali Sumoi readily admits that the Qur’an is not adequate in all situations and circumstances. Some things are not contained within the pages of the Qur’an, and then it is necessary to draw on traditional sources.95 For example, if a person came to him who was sick then he would first consult the pages of the Qur’an for guidance but if these failed to offer a satisfactory solution then he would have no compunction about employing traditional methods of treatment. Ali Sumoi claims to use up to seventy various herbal remedies and that he was taught these by Mwalimu Hussein of Mokowe. An example is the length of root taken from the Mtchunda-kula shrub (interestingly, Ali gave me the Bajun name for this plant which might reflect his own Bajuni roots or attest to the source of his knowledge being Mwalimu Hussein), a five-centimetre length of which is placed under the pillow of a pregnant woman to ensure that she does not

95

Conversation with Ali Sumoi Bwana Parua, Muswakini, 4 May 1998.

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Photos 11 and 12. Ali Sumoi Bwana Parua ‘thief-hunting’. Open indicates innocence, closed reveals guilt.

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experience excessive pain during childbirth. After delivery, the length of root must be thrown far away, since the root absorbs the suffering, it contains the pain, and thus is potentially harmful. Ali said that the root has a demand that must be met before the root is extracted from the ground: that a chicken must be sacrificed and some of the blood left at the place whence the root is taken. This reflects a similar practice and underlying belief that is to be seen in the study of the activity of the mganga. Ali Sumoi went on to explain that the Mtchunda-kula bears leaves that are used to treat toothache. The leaves are boiled in water and then the liquid strained into a coconut shell which is held close to the mouth of the patient who then breathes in the fumes through his mouth. In these cases we see elements that are held in common with the mganga. There is the sense that the toothache is caused by a malevolent spirit that has entered the body through one or other orifice and that it is necessary to inhale the ‘spirit’ of the medicine so as to purge this force. Similarly, as was seen in the examination of the work of Ali Sani, the mganga, there is the inherent belief that the medicinal plants that provide the herbal medicines are imbued with a spirit that effects the cure and that these spirits have to be acknowledged and placated by sacrifice before the necessary roots or leaves can be removed. Ali Sumoi readily agrees that his work and that of the mganga frequently overlap, often employing the same herbal remedies to address similar conditions, using smoke to drive out shetanis, spitting saliva as an embodiment of the prayer expressed by an individual (see the divination account of Mama Habole). Similarly, the issues that he addresses are indistinguishable from those taken to the mganga. As well as treating various sicknesses and cases of illness inflicted by spirits, the most frequently made demand is for medicine ‘to close oneself ’96 (as a protection against thieves and witchcraft). What serves to distinguish the two, according to Mwalimu Ali Sumoi Bwana Parua,97 is that the Imam operates within an overtly Islamic context, always praying the formula Bismillahi (which he freely translated as meaning ‘God assist me in the medicine to help the person recover from the disease’) as a preface to any treatment. For the rest, he

96 97

Ibid. Ibid.

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asserts, their work often overlaps with the same medicine being used—it is because his ministrations are proffered through intercession to Allah that his branch of knowledge is marked as separate from that of the mganga.98 The contrast between the work of the two Imams, Mohamed Ali and Ali Sumoi, can be seen in the manner that they go about finding something that is lost. While the former recites texts in invocation, Ali Sumoi’s approach to lost children or lost animals sees him taking up soil from the foot/hoof print left by the lost child or animal and then reciting the Yasin over the soil. This is then placed in the animal kraal and the beast will return or, in the case of a lost child, he will return to his house or else be in a place where he can be easily found. To find lost money you recite the Alamnashrah and you will retrieve your lost property. The two Imams in Bargoni encapsulate the essential dynamic at work within Islam in the context of this particular village. On the one hand there is Mohamed Ali, a Bajun who has come into the settlement and who propounds a version of Islam that uses his home community as the yardstick for orthodoxy. On the other hand there is Ali Sumoi who seeks to weave Islam into the tapestry of Boni religious practice and experience. Conclusion At the homestead level, one witnesses most strongly the competing pulls of the village/bush, Islam/‘tradition’. Just as, architecturally, there is a transition from the block-built mosque and the square, makuti-thatched dwellings of the urban environment to the grasscovered, beehive-style abode that occupies the margins of the community, close to the bush, so there is a range of religious activity that reflects the ebb and flow of the disparate memories within the community. Within this environment the composition of the multi-

98 Such an understanding is not limited to this Imam. On another occasion it was said that ‘a devout Muslim will never go to an mganga but he will rely on Allah and his prayers. It is the weaker Muslim who will seek out the mganga. However, even the Imam has medicinal herbs and uses these in cures but these have a Qur’anic basis and are not derived from local knowledge. But both work, both are efficacious and address the same sicknesses but from different directions.’ (Conversation with Abdi Khalif, Bargoni, 18 September 1997).

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farious ritual congregations is in a continual state of flux, with ongoing attempts to identify the most appropriate and efficacious way of addressing issues of religious import. Nevertheless, there is a sense in which each individual adopts a stance within the rich spectrum of religious activity and this offers the initial framework in which to act. Thus an individual such as Bobitu Kololo would be expected to invoke the assistance of the Imam, whereas individuals who are less drawn to ‘orthodox’ solutions might first turn to the mganga. Within the more ‘closed’ Islamic mindset, the conceptualisation of boundaries is more apparent and there is a very clear impression given that a number of practices that others might resort to in the face of misfortune and affliction now lie beyond the pale. However, condemnation of such techniques does not discount their perceived efficacy and an individual might surreptitiously seek to enjoy the benefits bestowed by engaging in rites and practices that he would publicly condemn. So, for example, while Mzee Bobitu could be contemptuous of the activities of the mganga, Ali Sani, he nevertheless engaged his services when amorously pursuing a divorcee living in the neighbouring settlement. Likewise, his slaughtering of a chicken and the smearing of his wife’s body with its blood as a means of removing illness was a rite performed privately and never talked about or even alluded to. However, on a deeper level, there is the process of negotiating and renegotiating the place of the Boni community within the wider population of the village and the Islamic world of which they now constitute a part. Traditional ceremonies are employed as a means of empowerment, used to address the contemporary situation and the sense of alienation that is prevalent within the Boni community as they find their environment, in the widest understanding of the term—their forest home, religion, culture—under threat as never before. In addition to these traditional elements, even those forms of religious expression that, while not central tenets of Islamic orthodoxy still accompanied the incursion of this religion, are appropriated by the Boni and afforded shades of meaning that allow them to bolster the evolving self-identity of the community. The dialogue continues as accommodation is sought and one witnesses a tension between the pressure on the part of some to have the Boni conform to a measure of Islamic orthodoxy that accords with an external model and yardstick, and those who seek to incorporate the new religious beliefs and practices within a renewal of Boni religious activity.

CHAPTER SEVEN

CONCLUSION Sunday, 28 December 1997 Abdi Khalif and I sat on the bridge over the Mkondo Farjala lugga and discussed the case of Hadija Haj, his wife’s younger sister, who stayed with his family in Bargoni, and who had been experiencing illhealth for a while. The previous day, in my house, Ali Sani, the local Boni mganga, had performed bao and in a long conversation with Abdi had alluded to events that Abdi is convinced he could have had no prior knowledge of. According to what Abdi had to say, Ali reported that there was a man, not resident in Bargoni but living ‘south’, who wanted to marry the young woman, Hadija. Abdi confirmed this to be true—a relative named Warsame, who owns a large shop in Mokowe, had expressed this desire since his only wife had born him five children all of whom had died in infancy, and so he was looking for a second wife to enhance his chance of producing offspring. Although the girl (Hadija Haj) was in agreement, the issue was complicated by the need for legitimate approval from her elder brother who worked in a bank in Nairobi. Abdi and Hadija then travelled to the capital to see her brother who, while in basic agreement with the marriage proposal, refused to countenance the possibility until the young woman had completed her secondary level education (she was then enrolled in Form 2 out of a four-year secondary education system). While Warsame initially accepted these conditions with equanimity, he had recently decided to marry another bride and this change had coincided with the onset of Hadija’s sickness which saw her now occupying a bed in the army dispensary nearby. Hadija’s condition oscillated between a period of normality, the development of a headache followed by deep rapid breathing and the onset of complaints of a ball in her lower stomach which was trying to force its way out through her lower abdomen. This ball caused her pain as it sought to force its way out of her. The medicine prescribed in the dispensary was a sedative, which calmed her down, and when she awoke she was normal again before the cycle repeated. This sickness had debilitated her to such an extent that she had to be assisted with even the most basic of bodily functions. Suggestions for a cure varied. Some opined that the young woman was possessed by a rohan spirit and required treatment by a daktari

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skilled in such matters, others that she had been attacked by a shetani spirit and that a Qur’anic teacher should be called to read some of the sacred texts to exorcise the effects of this spirit or else a local mganga might be able to offset the influence of the shetani. Thus, the previous day, Abdi had consulted Ali who had discerned that the problem had started when Hadija had been given money by Warsame’s first wife. The latter had taken this money to some sheikhs who had prayed over it, the girl had then accepted the money and since then the pepo had attached itself to her. Based on his reading of bao, Ali instructed that the best day to treat this uchawi (sorcery and witchcraft) was the coming Thursday and told Abdi to buy some coffee beans for making buni and invite some elders to come to his house to read the Qur’an, after which he would supply the medicine. Abdi reported that he was now making the necessary preparations: incense, sugar and coffee beans had been purchased and he was in the process of drawing up a list of people to invite to his house. Abdi also told me that he had been in contact with a famous mganga in Lamu who was an expert in treating rohan. He informed me that some time before he had been summoned to treat a female cousin of his and, while engaged in this, had also used his diagnostic technique to discern whether Hadija was possessed by a rohan. It was discovered that she did, indeed, have such a spirit, which spoke to the mganga through the girl. The mganga had spoken to the rohans in the two girls and told them not to disturb their hosts until they were married since, without a husband, there was no one to take responsibility for the demands that the rohans might make. Further, the mganga had told Hadija that she was not to venture near the sea and that if she did plan to undertake such a safari then he should be summoned to give her more medicine. The mganga had explained that the rohan had followed her from the sea and that if she returned there then the rohan would disturb her. However, Hadija had broken this injunction and gone to Lamu to obtain an Identity Card, so possibly she was troubled by the rohan who would have to be addressed by an expert to discover what demands it might have. So there were many possible causes and treatments available for the treatment of Hadija but Abdi was particularly confident about Ali Sani, since, subsequent to his doing bao, Abdi had visited Hadija in the dispensary where she responded to his investigation by admitting that she had, indeed, accepted some K.sh.500/= from Warsame’s wife, which confirmed Ali’s insight. However, after consultation with Ali, the date for treatment had been brought forward to ensure that it was performed before the onset of Ramadan, which was imminent. Thus Tuesday was chosen as the fateful day.

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chapter seven Tuesday, 30 December 1997 Early in the morning Abdi went to the dispensary to collect Hadija who was later spotted making her way through the village, supported by another young woman and in the company of relatives and friends. Prayers for healing were to be offered at Abdi’s house and a gathering of a dozen or so elders assembled at about noon in the sitting room and were served rice and beans, and copious quantities of tea, as they sat in two circles on the floor. Once the food had been cleared away, there was some idle talk before a bowl was brought in containing the coffee beans, fizzing in hot fat, and this was placed before Mzee Bobitu Kololo, the eldest man present, who took some of the fat in a small ladle and poured a few drops onto his hand before rubbing it onto his hands, face and forehead. The bowl was then passed around the room and all anointed themselves in this manner, some pouring the fat from the ladle over their heads. When all had done so, the bowl was removed and cups were soon brought in containing buni—a base of hot sugar water with some milk into which has been poured some of the fat and beans— and distributed, again according to seniority. They now formed a circle and a brazier containing hot coals was brought in and placed before Athani Vai, a trained Imam but only a farmer at that time. Next to the brazier was placed a brown paper bag containing incense and the elder next to the Imam leant across and took a pinch of incense which he added to the coals and uttered a prayer. Others present repeated this action. Hadija was then brought into the room and seated on the floor facing Mecca and Mzee Bobitu addressed the group and explained that the reason for their presence was to offer prayers to God on behalf of the young woman. At this they all started to pray, but this took the form of a babble of voices since there was no sense of voicing a common prayer. Each prayed what he chose and appeared indifferent to the others in the room. As they prayed, the men repeatedly spat onto Hadija. Incense was added, when necessary, to the fire so that smoke filled the room and enveloped Hadija, who was sitting next to the brazier. The recitation of Qur’anic texts and the spitting upon Hadija continued for some ten minutes before the voices subsided and the Imam offered a final litany to which all respond ‘Amina’ after each stanza. With the prayers over, Abdi helped Hadija to stand and took her out of the room while the men departed with little ado. Soon, only Abdi remained with Ali Sani and the spotlight now turned on the latter. He left the house and went into the bush seeking the necessary flora to concoct medication to cure Hadija. After some searching, he found the mchamadi plant in the shade of a tree. Taking some sand from the base of the plant he threw this over the shrub before removing some of the leaves. This ritual sprinkling of soil from the base of the shrub

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over the top of the plant and the removal of leaves was repeated in the case of three other plants—the orpepo, the dedeti and the domful. The mchamadi is the principal ingredient and the others beneficial extras. Returning to the house of Abdi Khalif, Ali spotted some of the yellow flowers on the msingino shrub, which he added to his collection of leaves. Upon his return he gave the leaves he had collected to Abdi and instructed him to place a brazier with lighted coals before Hadija three times a day—in the morning, at noon and in the evening. Incense should be added and then some of the leaves that he had collected. Hadija should place her face near to the brazier and cover her head with a cloth to contain the smoke so that she could breathe deeply and absorb it. With this, Ali left for home.

Although the ritual activities described above took place barely two weeks after the prayers under the horrop tree (see chapter 4), they might at first glance be taken as representing a contrasting facet of religious activity in Bargoni. Rather, it is the contention that the healing of Hadija Haj represents the coalescing of many of the strands that have been identified in this work as constituent elements in the religious practice in the community. Indeed, while it has been necessary for the sake of clarity to dissect religious practice1—albeit along the lines suggested by Mzee Bobitu Kololo—it is acknowledged that such neat divisions are artificial and there is considerable overlap; religious activity is ‘messy’ and any attempt to introduce distinct boundaries will inevitably fail to reflect the situation as it is. The rite represents an essential corrective to much that has been written on the ‘Swahili coast’ to date where, as was argued in chapter 1, a great deal of the research adopts a stance endorsing the ‘lost island’ perspective that seeks to identify the various communities as clear and distinct entities. The situation in Bargoni debunks such a myth. While the content of this work has deliberately sought to understand religious practice amongst the Boni, the truth is that this ethnic community no longer lives in splendid isolation in its forest retreat (in fact, it never did). Instead, and on a daily basis, the lives of its members are lived out in the company of their Somali, Bajuni, Giriama, Luo and Digo neighbours and one witnesses a considerable exchange of religious and cultural knowledge. Thus Brenner’s

1 ‘Categorization, which looks for similarities and differences in the things we experience, has always been central to the development of human knowledge.’, Bourdillon, Anthropological, 145.

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assertion,2 referred to earlier, is corroborated by evidence on the ground in Bargoni. There is an ongoing movement across boundaries of religious activity which is reworked in such a way as to accord with the needs of those who articulate the various rites. Thus, in the healing rite of Hadija Haj one sees the interplay of various ethnic communities and ritual congregations as they all seek to address the sickness that has beset the young woman. Although the victim is a member of the Somali community, within the context of the Qur’anic rite it is one’s Islamic credentials rather than ethnic origin that offer a basis for being invited to attend and participate. However, even though Abdi Khalif, Hadija Haj’s brother-in-law, has previously put himself forward as a champion of Islamic orthodoxy, it is to Ali Sani that he now turns with greater confidence in this situation. Thus while it has been made clear in this work that the Boni are being increasingly influenced by religious thought and activity originating outside their community, this is also a two-way process. The interlopers in the forest environment are engaged in a dialogue with their hunter-gatherer hosts and in this exchange both parties are necessarily converted though their contact with the other.3 The village of Bargoni represents something of a microcosmic melting pot in terms of religious activity. Associated with this observation is another feature that this work has sought to demonstrate, namely, that some forty years after Prins could report conversion en masse, the dynamic of this process still continues. This constitutes an addition to the otherwise static, historical

2 ‘Perhaps the one firm conclusion which might be gleaned from this evidence is that the priests and experts of endogenous African religions were quite prepared to cross religious and cultural boundaries in their search to expand and deepen their esoteric knowledge and powers. But then, perhaps, they never conceptualised this kind of knowledge as being contained within ‘cultural’ boundaries in the first place.’ Brenner, Muslim Divination, 23. 3 It is interesting to note, in reference to hunter-gatherer communities elsewhere in Africa, that their healing powers are often highly respected by their agriculturalist neighbours. Writing of the Kung of southern Africa, Katz notes: “Moreover, the neighbouring blacks turn to the Kung healing dances for help, coming to the healing dance with an attitude of respect uncharacteristic of their general domineering attitude toward the Kung. The Hereros in the Dobe area say that num [healing energy] is strong and powerful. In the Ghanzi area, where several black groups live in close proximity to the Kung, their respective healing systems are often in direct competition. The Kung approach to healing is valued and sought after by these black groups.” Richard Katz, Boiling Energy: Community Healing Among the Kalahari Kung. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982, 56.

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accounts that surround the conversion of neighbouring communities: Sperling’s account of the Digo, Ensminger’s and Kelly’s work on the Orma, Bunger on the Pokomo and even Harvey on the Boni of Pandanguo. In all the cases just cited, the implication is that the process of movement from ‘paganism’ into the ranks of Islam is complete. However, this work has revealed that, beneath the veneer of Islamic orthodoxy, the dialogue continues and memories of the past are reworked to inform the present. Islam is understood to be alternately liberating and oppressing, a creative tension existing between the competing calls of religious allegiance. The ability to reveal this dynamic is one of the strengths inherent in adopting a phenomenological approach to the study of religious activity in Bargoni. All too often, theoretical explanations fall into conceptual systematising, “the fallacy of thinking that what is conjecturally possible must be actually the case, . . . falling into the belief that what is conceived in the mind must perforce exist in the world.”4 In the light of such theorising, Jackson notes, “What makes the phenomenologist uneasy is the assumption that beliefs and ideas have to have some kind of ahistorical, supraempirical validity if they are to be workable.”5 The studies he criticises are often synchronic with little respect or attention being paid to what brought a community to that point in time. Yet, as Lambek writes, “The first avenue for understanding the diversity of knowledge forms locates them within the traditions from which they come and it necessitates a historical argument.”6 However, historical studies that have sought to establish exact chronologies, objective facts and linear chains of cause and effect serve to bolster the western academic understanding of truth. Phenomenology, on the other hand, “is less concerned with establishing what actually happened in the past than in exploring the past as a mode of present experience.”7 Indeed, while in chapter 3 an attempt was made to locate historically the forces that led to the conversion of the Boni to Islam some fifty years or so ago, for the rest the focus is on how that event is invoked, activated, put to work and realised in the present. It is a matter of how that process is perceived and experienced 4 5 6 7

Jackson, Things, 8. Ibid., 13. Lambek, Knowledge, 40. Jackson, Things, 38.

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now rather than affording a historical event an intrinsic and immutable property. Given such an understanding of history and truth, it has been asserted within these pages that for the Boni, living in the quasiurban situation that is Bargoni, the memories of the bush still exert a considerable hold over their unconscious and greatly influence their religious sensibilities. Although the rite that addressed Hadija Haj’s misfortune is more representative of religious practice in the village environment as a whole, and although the horrop tree prayers are essentially a rare occurrence, the latter nevertheless constitute the religious backdrop against which the majority of Boni live out the rest of their lives. One readily repudiates an overtly deterministic property to the physical environment,8 concurring with Croll and Parkin who point out that “this idea of the exteriority of the environment has an epistemological consequence. It presupposes that ultimately persons are passive in the face of environmental menace. Here the environment is a capricious or intentionally controlling agent and the human the object, who may nevertheless seek mastery over it.”9 Rather, in seeking to understand the power of the memory of the bush in the collective mind of the Boni population, one is more inclined to assent to Simon Schama’s view that “before it can ever be a repose for the senses, landscape is the work of the mind. Its scenery is built up as much from strata of memory as from layers of rock.”10 For the hunter-gatherer population of Boniland the bush, that has for so long been their home, is “a text on which generations write their recurring obsessions.”11 8 An illustration of such a stance might be that of Carl Jung who, in conversation with Laurens van der Post, asserted that “the nature of the earth itself had a profound influence on the character of the people born and raised on it . . . [ Jung] maintained that, for instance, the German national character could not have developed as it did had it not also been an expression of the nature of the dark soil of Germany. He believed that any other race who migrated to Germany, even without any definite cultural process to encourage them, would have acquired, in time, some of the fundamental aspects of the German character just because of their nourishment and participation in the nature of the earth of Germany . . . [ Jung] declared himself thus without doubt because nature in all its forms was not a cold, impersonal objective reality but was rather an expression of symbolic form, evocative of all that was symbolic within the spirit of man.” [Laurens van der Post, Jung and the Story of Our Time (London: Penguin Books, 1976), 65] 9 Elisabeth Croll & David Parkin, Chapter 2, ‘Cultural Understandings of the Environment’ in Elisabeth Croll & David Parkin (eds.), Bush Base: Forest Farm— Culture, Environment and Development (London: Routledge, 1992), 13. 10 Simon Schama, Landscape and Memory (London: Fontana Press, 1996), 6–7. 11 Ibid., 12.

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It is thus a competition of memories, memories intrinsically associated with the physical environment, that one witnesses in Bargoni. The male Boni population as a whole were seen to resort to the horrop tree in time of need, the ithai reside in the bush and the moro camps are similarly associated with the forest glades. Ali Sani collects his leaves and roots from the bush and uses them to effect healing in the settled community. At the same time another memory makes its presence felt, one that has moved up the D568 and where the mosque can be understood as akin to a base camp, an oasis of utamaduni na ustaarabu (urbanity and civilisation) that seeks to radiate out and permeate the homesteads in the vicinity. Yet, as this work has sought to demonstrate, religious practice cannot exist in a vacuum and in Bargoni such activities are often inextricably associated with political manoeuvring. As van Beek and Blakely point out, “religion is seen as a sensitive instrument through which tensions, changes, and problems of human beings in society came to the fore . . . In religion the substrate of existential problems and interpersonal tensions emerge.”12 Thus it has been demonstrated how Islam has been employed as a tool by powerful individuals and elites who have keen interests in expanding their influence over the Boni for their own political and economic purposes. On the other hand, pre-Islamic rites are reworked by the Boni as a means of determining who they are in a rapidly changing world. One calls to mind Schama’s statement on another people in another age: “In Germany . . . the forest primeval was the site of tribal self-assertion against the Roman empire of stone and law.”13 The Germans succumbed to the imperial power, what of the fate of the Boni? Fifty years after accepting Islam, the traditional memory of the Boni is still a powerful presence in their lives. As the healing rite of Hadija Haj is seen to demonstrate, it is something that is crossing cultural and ethnic boundaries in Bargoni where, in the case cited, members of the Somali community are not averse to accepting its premises. Indeed, ethnographic literature is not without examples of the respect afforded hunter-gatherer healing rites by their agricultural or pastoralist neighbours. Katz, writing of the Kung of the Kalahari, notes the resilience of their healing regimen and records that “neighbouring blacks turn to the Kung healing dances for help, coming to

12 13

van Beek and Blakely, Religion, 12. Schama, Landscape, 15.

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the dance with an attitude of respect uncharacteristic of their general domineering attitude toward the Kung.”14 A similar change in attitude is apparent in Bargoni. The tide of Islam is not entirely one way but there is an ebb and flow in the fortunes of the various traditions, even if the waves of religious practice that flow in from Lamu are witnessing the gradual retreat of overt Boni religious activity. Indeed, predicting the demise of the Boni is a tenuous exercise—one recalls Prins’s talk of ‘genocide’ (written more than forty years ago) being a case of presupposition that was not to be borne out by immediate events. However, at this time, pressure for change on both language15 and religion sees these two foundational pillars of Boni society under siege to an unprecedented extent as inroads continue to be made into the forests of the north Kenya coast. As has been demonstrated earlier, the number of people professing to be Boni is exhibiting a rapid decline and the plea of Prins that someone considers “studying these ‘vanishing hunters’ ere it is too late”16 is ever more poignant. At this juncture, it is perhaps appropriate to suggest directions for further research. The most attractive, in my view, would be to go deeper into Boniland, up the D568 in the direction of Kiunga, to uncover religious activity in the smaller and more isolated hamlets like Milimani, Mangai and Mararani. It is thought that these villages will differ quite markedly from Bargoni—in contrast with the latter’s heterogeneity with various ethnic communities making up the whole, these others are likely to display a clear homogeneity in favour of the Boni. This will obviously limit exposure to ‘foreign’ religious activity, as will the remoteness and isolation, with access limited to those prepared to walk in and out of this region. The increased distance of these communities from Lamu will also diminish the influence of this cultural and religious centre which has exerted, and is continuing to exert, considerable hold over Bargoni which is, as noted earlier, the first ‘Boni’ village encountered as one moves from Lamu up the D568. Bargoni is in many senses a border town. What might be expected of these other settlements is a decline in Swahili influence in favour of more Somali pressure—something akin to what Heine17 14 15 16 17

Katz, Boiling, 56. Heine, Language, 106–114. Prins, Didemic, 184. Heine, Language, 111.

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discerns in the case of second-language knowledge where there is a gradual but clear shift away from Swahili and towards Somali as one travels north. It would be fascinating to compare religious activity in Mararani or Mangai, at the other end of Boniland, with that of Bargoni. Attractive as this is, the inhibiting factor is the desperate security situation that holds sway over most of Boniland. The quotation that opened chapter 3 of this work was not an exaggeration. On three occasions in the year that this research was being conducted in Bargoni, bands of shifta attacked the community, inflicting physical harm on the populace as well as plundering and looting their meagre resources. My own plan was to visit Milimani but this scheme was vehemently opposed by the elders of Bargoni on security grounds. Thus it would appear that research in this direction is not practicable at the moment, but it would certainly constitute an attractive proposition if and when some semblance of order and protection imposed. Another area conducive to further research would be the women of Bargoni. Despite the fact that the women were apparently more open and welcoming than is the reported case amongst some other Muslim societies, there was an inherent disadvantage in being a single, male researcher. While such a status was often treated with mirth, there was an undercurrent that ensured that close and prolonged interaction with women was restricted. Certainly there was a rite involving exclusively women from the different ethnic communities and this was inaccessible as far as this research is concerned. A woman researcher, or the female partner of a male fieldworker, might be in a better position to go deeper into this area of religious activity. Finally, it would be a matter of interest to explore religious perceptions and activity amongst the members of the other ethnic communities who have moved into Bargoni in particular and Boniland in general. This work has consciously focused on the Boni, seeking to understand religious activity amongst this group particularly in the light of their conversion to Islam and the process of Swahiliisation. However, as the account of the healing of Hadija Haj illustrates, the other communities are also influenced by the religious practices they encounter amongst their Boni hosts. It would be worthwhile to discern and comprehend the dynamic tension involved in these communities between the religious memory they carry with them from their areas of origin, and the impact of the dialogue between this and the religious activity they encounter amongst the Boni.

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Thus it is apparent that there is plenty of scope for further research involving the Boni, who constitute a warm and welcoming community. It has been a pleasure to listen to the warbling or roaring of the ithai in the deep forest glades before ranches are established and the lowing of Somali cattle drowns out the message of these spirits. It has been a wonderful experience to sit beside Mama Habole as she divined with her rope made of baobab bark, to scour the bush for medicines with Ali Sani, or follow the honey-guide bird with him. To sit in the shade of a tree and have Mzee Bobitu Kololo recall times past. To have had the veil lifted for a moment to catch a glimpse of the world-in-the-background against which the Boni continue to live out their lives and make sense of what is going on around them.

EPILOGUE In Chapter 1 I declared that this work must be understood as a glimpse of a people ‘on the move’, recorded at a particular time in the history of this community. I went on to announce that the Boni “are very much engaged in a process of seeking to establish their cultural and religious identity, in the wake of concrete circumstances.”1 In August 2005, I was fortunate enough to return to Bargoni after an absence of eight years and I was afforded a brief insight into some of the changes that had occurred while I was away. A number of my more elderly friends had died but children I had known were now teenagers, and teenagers in 1998 were now parents. The house that had been my home, and which had sheltered me from the worst of the El Niño rains, was now nothing but a grass-covered pile of earth next to the mosque. The village proudly displayed a brand new primary school, built of concrete and featuring wooden doors and a corrugated iron roof. A plaque announced that this was a gift of the United States military which had provided both material and labour to construct this building. A manifestation of military philanthropy or, perhaps, an effort to win the minds and hearts of this Muslim community as part of a global ‘war on terror’ strategy. On the issue of Boni identity, two developments would appear to corroborate the findings of my earlier research and the intuitions I carried away with me at the end of my period in the field. A highly significant evolvement has been the reclaiming of ‘Aweer’ as the selfascribed name for this hunter-gatherer people. During my period of fieldwork I had explored the use of this label but was assured that it was redundant and that the community referred to themselves as ‘Boni’ despite the fact that this was a foreign appellation. Now, as an apparent assertion of a more confident sense of identity and corporate selfesteem, the community is declaring pride in its history and wrestling determination of its future out of the hands of its neighbours. The second development is contiguous with what has just been said. In another act of what can be seen as commensurate with the 1

See Chapter 1, page 13.

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new confidence and right to self-determination, the elders of the Boni/Aweer community (not just Bargoni but including representatives from Pandanguo, Milimani, Basuba, Kiangwe, Mararani and Dununi) have established the “Aweer Trust” as “the sole body to manage all affairs of the Aweer community.”2 The Trust declares its determination to “stand firm against any interference of interests, which will not first and foremost serve the sound protection and development of the Aweer community and/or the safeguarding of our ethnic community, homeland, culture, language, natural heritage and resources and serve the sound and sustainable economic development for the benefit of the whole community.”3 A Nairobi lawyer has been instructed to act on behalf of the Aweer Trust. It is to be hoped that these developments will afford the Aweer community the opportunity to confidently chart a self-determining future in the twenty-first century.

2 3

Declaration and Mandate of the Aweer Trust, dated 30 May 2005. Ibid.

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APPENDIX ONE

Documentation and Map Pertaining to Land Allocation in the Bargoni Area

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Map 2. From map, dated 1992, Emanating from Lamu District, Detailing Proposed Demarcation of Land in the Area Around Bargoni.

APPENDIX TWO

Trees, Shrubs and Plants used for Religious/Medicinal Purposes Boni Name (Latin Use or Nature Appellation) of Treatment

Method of Preparation and Application

Ababio (Grewia Hexamita)

This is to ‘capture’ someone involved in adultery e.g. your wife, ‘dawa ya tego’.

If you suspect your wife of adultery then you take three thin roots of the ababio and tie them together with some incense and bury this at the door of your house. Then, if in your absence your wife misbehaves, she will become sick. This should be done on Jumatano (Wednesday).

Akikari (Vernonia Hildebrandii )

Used to treat flu and heavy colds.

Take the top leaves of the akikiri shrub and crunch them up in water to produce a bitter, green liquid which you strain and drink early in the morning before you take anything else, and last thing in the evening before going to rest. The flu will leave you.

Areri (Elaeodendron Schweinfurthianum)

a) To treat a child who is bruised and swollen as a result of shetani. b) To treat the disease kifurafura which is due to the action of shetani.

a) Take the outer layer of the root and boil it in water and use the resulting liquid to wash the child. b) Remove and cut up the outer layer of the root and dry it. Then pound it and mix it with any type of oil and use it to anoint the head of the child.

Ashako (Abutilon Mauritianum)

To ensure success when hunting.

On Jumanne (Tuesday) you cut some of the root of the ashako and on Jumatano (Wednesday) morning put inside a white cloth and tie this onto your bow. When you shoot an animal then you must also throw this pouch at it to make sure it falls down. This will ensure success.

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Table (cont.)

Boni Name (Latin Use or Nature Appellation) of Treatment

Method of Preparation and Application

Balambale (Thespesia Danis)

a) Takes some of the roots and bark of the balambale and place on the fire at the horrop or wahari trees as you utter your petitions. It constitutes incense to accompany one’s prayers. b) The root of the balambale is removed and ground on a rough stone to produce a mush which is daubed on the boil. Then you take the wing bones of a chicken and puncture the edge of the boil after which recovery will be speedy.

a) This is a shrub used when one prays.

b) Used to treat a particular kind of boil called a chambazi.

Banyor boye or Ban-Yorboi (Abrus Precatorius)

Bonanz (Carpodiptera Africana Tiliaceae)

a) Used to treat sicknesses of the stomach—if you are afflicted by diarrhoea, vomiting, blood in the stool etc. b) Used by a young man to win over the affections of a girl. a) This treats a person afflicted by a jinn. The person sleeps a lot and cannot be roused. The eyes are dry and their opening and closing is the only response of the patient.

a) Some of the roots of this shrub are cut into pieces and boiled in water and then mixed together with some of the leaves in a cup. One cup full of this concoction will effect a cure. b) Some leaves are placed in a hirizi and then bathed in incense before being tied onto the right upper arm of the young man.

a) Some of the roots (only) of the bonanz are taken and ground with a rough stone to produce a mush which is used to anoint the whole body of the patient. Some of the medicine is also blown into the mouth, nose and ears of the patient who is then allowed to sleep. Eventually he/ she will suddenly wake up because the jinn had departed. b) Another affliction b) Bonanz leaves, with their induced by jinn sees characteristically strong smell, the patient running are crushed in the hands of amok. the healer and then blown over so that the breath enters the ears of the person. The leaves are then rubbed on the

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Table (cont.)

Boni Name (Latin Use or Nature Appellation) of Treatment

Method of Preparation and Application forehead, top of the head and elbows (to close the person). Roots of the bonanz are then soaked in water and the liquid used to wash the body of the patient.

Chope (Cissus Rotundiforia)

Used in the manufacture of Mate ya Ithai (“The Spittle of the Ithai”).

See chapter 4.

Darap (Sterculia Africana)

Used to fabricate the Ithai, Enkishaa.

See chapter 4.

Dedeti (Cenchus Setigerus)

Used to treat a person afflicted by shetani.

Used together with domful and orpepo. The three are boiled together in water and the sick person covers him/herself with a blanket and breathes in the steam. This is done three times a day for three days.

Domful (Vernonia Hildebrandtii)

Used to treat a person afflicted by shetani.

Used together with orpepo and dedeti. The three are boiled together in water and the sick person covers him/herself with a blanket and breathes in the steam. This is done three times a day for three days.

Gololi

A plant of shetani, If a person has experienced used to hurt people. theft, for example, and there is a footprint remaining, then sand from that footprint is taken and poured into the hollowed out fruit of the gololi. Then the fruit will be impaled on a thorn and this will have the effect of causing the thief intense pain in the foot.

Hamesi (Allophylus Rubiforius)

Used to treat a person who is unsuccessful in hunting.

Hamesi leaves are mixed with those of the tomor shrub and rubbed on the string of the hunter’s bow three times, up

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Table (cont.)

Boni Name (Latin Use or Nature Appellation) of Treatment

Method of Preparation and Application and down. The leaves are then thrown under the hamesi plant and the hunter departs with bow and arrows sure of success that very day.

Horrop (Dobera Glabra)

Used as a place of prayer to the ancestors and also the wood is used in the traditional marriage ceremony etc.

Howocho (Albizia Anthelmintica)

a) Used to fabricate a) See chapter 4. the Ithai, Hartawini. b) To treat b) Take some of the bark, constipation. boil in water and drink the resultant liquid.

Ina-eh-leh or Kiafare (Lonchocarpus Bussei )

a) Treats diseases caused by pepo which manifests itself by the body becoming rigid and unresponsive. There might also be swelling. b) If you eat food and get an upset stomach—it becomes hard and full. This is brought on by the action of shetani.

See rite described in Chapter 4 and other references to the horrop throughout the text.

a) The leaves of the ina-eh-leh are cut and boiled in water and the patient drapes a blanket over his/her head and breathes in the steam and fumes until the body of the patient sweats profusely. This must be done for three days, in the morning, noon and evening, to bring about a full recovery. b) Take some of the bark of the ina-eh-leh and chew it, swallowing the saliva. You will burp up gas and be well again.

Jafare (Zanthoxylum Chalybeum)

Used to treat the same cases as areri.

Prepared and used as described for areri.

Jah (Adansonia Digitata)

Used to make the Fal divining cord.

The bark of the tree is collected and then woven into a cord— see Chapter 6.

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Table (cont.)

Boni Name (Latin Use or Nature Appellation) of Treatment

Method of Preparation and Application

Jowo’o

a) This is used to afflict a person involved in adultery (tego).

a) The roots are tied with incense and buried at the door of the house and if anyone enters and commits adultery then their penis will swell and become very painful. b) Can be used if b) The root is cut and rubbed your penis becomes on the affected penis and the swollen due to your person will recover. having engaged in adultery with someone protected by dawa.

Kekuke (Boivinia Jalbertii)

Used to treat heart The root of the kekuke is cut conditions. into small pieces and boiled and the resultant liquid is drunk for three days. Then the heart of an animal is eaten but, after this, you can never eat meat of that animal again.

Keshamire (Indigofera Arrecta)

Used to facilitate the healing of wounds.

Some of the leaves of the keshamire are taken and chewed and the resulting saliva/juice mix is applied to the wound which will speedily heal.

Kesibile

a) Used as a medicine against shetani.

a) Together with kiafare, kewinie, tomor, and mchamadi the leaves of kesibile were boiled in a pot and the sick person fumigated after which he/she would wash his/her body with the liquid. This would be done on the first evening and then the next day at morning, noon and evening. b) The leaves are mixed with msingo and three grains of incense and wrapped in a hirizi which is then fumigated with the smoke of incense before

b) Used to treat shetani that cause nightmares.

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Table (cont.)

Boni Name (Latin Use or Nature Appellation) of Treatment

Method of Preparation and Application being tied around the victim’s upper arm where it must remain for a seven day period.

Kesuile (Hoslundia Opposita)

Used to treat open sores on the body.

The leaves are pounded into a paste in the shell of a coconut to which some water is added and then the resultant paste is smeared liberally on the wound.

Kewinie (Hunteria Zeylanica)

Used to treat heart conditions.

Used in the manner described for kekuke.

Kiaweere (Bridelia Cathartica)

To ensure success in looking for honey.

On Jumatano (Wednesday) a small piece of leaf is cut from the kiaweere shrub and this is folded tightly and placed inside the gourd for collecting honey and then the lid is put firmly on. That very day the gourd will be filled with honey.

Kikonyi (Canthium Mombazensis Robynsianum)

Used in the treatment of gonorrhoea (kisonono).

Some of the root and bark of the kikonyi are taken and put in water in a small pot. Using a stick, the mixture is whisked to produce a foam which is then drunk. One refrains from urinating for a whole day and then, when you can take it no more and finally relieve yourself, you also flush out all the dirt of the disease as well.

Kokach

Used to treat flu in children.

The black berries of this bush turn the lips and the mouth of children red. The berries treat flu when eaten.

Kore (Strychnos Madagascariensis)

This is used as part of the moro rite.

Long’i (Monanthotaxis a) Used as the a) See chapter 4. Fornicata) handle for some of the ithai instruments.

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Table (cont.)

Boni Name (Latin Use or Nature Appellation) of Treatment b) Can be used as a substitute for tomomi in prayers.

Method of Preparation and Application b) See tomomi.

Mafurar (Triumfetta Rhomboidea)

Used to fabricate See chapter 4. the Ithai, Gunyigunyi.

Malamoti (Annona Senegalensis)

Used to treat a swelling of the testicles and penis.

Cut the root of the malamoti and boil. The resultant liquid is drunk for seven days and a cure is effected.

Mchamadi (Flueggea Virosa)

Treats the sort of disease that turns the victims body white and the lips become dry. Also various fevers.

The root of this shrub is taken and boiled and the liquid drunk for three days after which the victim recovers.

Mkoloshote or Makulatorche (Vitex Furruginea)

Used to fabricate the Ithai, Yei.

See chapter 4.

Mlange (Carpodiptera Africana)

Used to fabricate the Ithai, Forfori.

See chapter 4.

Monga (Acacia Rovumae Mimosaceae)

This treats a person All onlookers should be sent who is afflicted by away so that only the patient shetani. and the mganga remain. The root of the monga is used to anoint the body of the victim— not too much should be used— and some of the dawa should also be blown into the ear and nose. Recovery will then take place.

Morongole (Ekebergia Used to fabricate Capensis) the Ithai, Yei.

See chapter 4.

Msema Kweli (Sida Cordifalia Malvaceae)

You cut some of the root on Jumamosi (Saturday) and put one piece in your pocket and another, with incense, in your mouth, in your cheek. When you arrive at the place where

To win an argument or settle a ‘case’ in your favour.

274

appendix two

Table (cont.)

Boni Name (Latin Use or Nature Appellation) of Treatment

Method of Preparation and Application the ‘case’ is to be heard, then you spit around the area. Then, when you sit down to address the issue in hand, those with you will see that you have no case to answer and it will be dismissed.

Msingino (Dichrostachys Cinerea)

This treats sickness brought by the nyuni bird which is an agent of the shetani and causes a child to become rigid and to hyperventilate. The mouth of the child will be twisted as a result of the shetani ’s actions.

Mutongo (Thylachium A shetani medicine Africanum) used to imbue a divining cord with the necessary properties to allow the performance of divination.

Leaves of the msingino are taken and combined with the leaves of the keshamire before being boiled in water. The resulting liquid is used to wash the body of the child. Bark of the msingino and the keshamire is taken and folded before the healer blows over this medicine and into the nose and ears of the patient. It is essential that both plants be used so as to effect a cure. The leaves are clenched in the fist and the cord is run through them a number of times.

Nyamaothei Used to fabricate See chapter 4. (Tabermontana Elegans) the Ithai, Hartawini. Oromathop

A special medicine for prayers.

Burnt together with balambale wood at the prayers at the horrop tree. It acts as a form of incense that, imbued with the prayers of an individual, is burnt as an offering to the ancestors who will hear the prayer contained in this wood.

Ororomochothie (Ocimum Gratissimum var Zacrophyllii )

Used in the manufacture of Mate ya Ithai (“The Spittle of the Ithai”).

See chapter 4.

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275

Table (cont.)

Boni Name (Latin Use or Nature Appellation) of Treatment

Method of Preparation and Application

Orpepo (Crotalaria Laburnifolia)

Used to treat a person afflicted by shetani.

Used together with domful and dedeti. The three are boiled together in water and the sick person covers him/herself with a blanket and breathes in the steam. This is done three times a day for three days.

Oumboye (Trema Orientalis)

Used to treat a child who is all the time vomiting.

Leaves of the oumboye are taken and, using one’s hands, crunched up in cold water which is then strained and given to the child to drink in the morning and evening.

Papora (Harrisonia Abyssinica)

a) Treats diseases that manifest themselves by aches and pains due to veins in the stomach. This is very painful. b) To treat a bad chest.

a) Take the skin of the roots of the papora and boil in water and drink a full cup of the resultant liquid. This will induce vomiting so as to eject the shetani causing the problem.

Samach (Dalbergia Melanoxylon)

Used to treat bere kishiri, a children’s sickness of the stomach which shows itself as green diarrhoea.

With the child watching, the root of this shrub is cut from the side of the plant “where the sun sets”. The root is cut up and boiled together with some incense and then the child is given two or three spoonfuls of the liquid. Sounds will emanate from his stomach and, after a few days, his faeces will become yellow.

Sena (Ximenia Caffra)

Used to treat prolonged (one or

The roots are collected and boiled in water and the

b) Take the liquid that has been prepared in the above manner and mix with the local alcoholic beverage (maratina) and drink the concoction. The medicine will attach itself to the bad things in you and you will vomit it up after which you will be cured.

276

appendix two

Table (cont.)

Boni Name (Latin Use or Nature Appellation) of Treatment

Method of Preparation and Application

two weeks) flow of menstrual blood (the disease of the ‘red’).

woman has to drink the resultant liquid each morning and evening for three days after which she will fully recover.

Shongorori (Grewia Fallax Tiliaceae)

Used in the manufacture of Mate ya Ithai (“The Spittle of the Ithai”).

See chapter 4.

Tenith (Diospyros Cornii Ebenaceae)

Used to bring success when hunting in the bush.

When on a hunting safari it is good to pray and camp under this tree. There is no medicine derived from this tree, it merely brings blessings to the hunt when you sleep under it.

Tomomi (Watheria Indica)

a) If you want to go on a journey that is potentially dangerous.

a) Cut some tomomi and mix with charcoal and put this mix, together with some incense, in your pocket. You can set forth without fear. b) You take what you want to hide and place some tomomi nearby. Anyone who passes by will not notice what has been concealed.

b) If you want to hide something.

Tomor (Uvaria Acuminata)

A traditional wood used to offer prayers. Also used in the treatment of shetani spirits that cause stomach problems.

The roots are used together with the wood of this shrub. One goes to the horrop or wahari trees and, if there is no balambale or oromothop available, then tomor is used. Slivers of it will be placed on the fire as incense and one utters one’s prayers.

Ukumu

Used to treat injury/wounds of the testicles.

The root can either be applied directly to the wound or else it can be chewed and the resultant liquid enters the

appendix two

277

Table (cont.)

Boni Name (Latin Use or Nature Appellation) of Treatment

Method of Preparation and Application body, you feel it circulating and it effects a cure in the injured region.

Wahari (Lannea Schweinfurthii )

Waraile (Turraea Nilotica)

a) A special tree for prayers (particularly associated, but not exclusively, with women). b) Used to ‘sanctify’ the divining cord.

a) One utters one’s prayers under this tree. By taking the leaves and smearing one’s face with them, one is blessed.

Used to protect a camp in the bush.

After circling the campsite with a thorn bush, wood of the waraile tree is cut and placed at the entrance. No enemy can now enter because of the dawa contained in this wood and hence you can sleep in peace.

b) The leaves are clenched in the fist and the cord is passed through them a number of times so that the cord becomes imbued with the juices.

APPENDIX THREE

a) Various meanings ascribed to Bao numerology Number 9

10

11

12

13

Description This number is likened to the blessing (razli, baraka) one receives from one’s parents when they spit upon you. Anything you undertake when the performance of bao reveals this number will be a success—a journey, marriage, job application etc. When one is seeking a propitious day, then this number singles out Sunday ( Jumapili—nine days from Ijumaa) This number singles out Monday as a propitious day (ten days from Ijumaa = Jumatatu). If a person is sick then this number indicates that the best time to take medicines is either at 6a.m. or 6 p.m. (saa kumi na mbili za ashubuhi, or saa kumi na mbili za jioni). This number is also described as a “brake” (“Inafanana brake! ”) This number indicates disappointment—if a person is going on a journey then all will start well but nothing planned will be achieved. However, it is a good number for a woman wishing to conceive. Jumanne (Tuesday) is the propitious day for this number (eleven days from Ijumaaa) and is the day on which to carry out one’s plans so as to avoid the disappointment inherent in this number. This is a number of perplexity and disquiet (“Ni wasiwasi”). The only way to avoid this is to undertake whatever is causing the unease at saa sita (Midday). So, if you are to undertake a journey—go at noon; if you are to collect medicines from the bush, collect them at midday. It was also explained that this number can indicate that shetani are playing with you and you should abandon bao and return at saa sita (noon) and do bao again and you will obtain a different, and correct, number. Indicates that the most propitious day for an undertaking is Thursday (Alhamisi—thirteen days from Ijumaa). For a married man it is a sign that he should divorce his wife and marry another—the wife should be sent to collect the necessary medication from the mganga. A good number for a woman wishing to conceive. If this number surfaces then you must go and buy a red hen. On Jumatano (Wednesday), saa moja za asubuhi (7 a.m. in the morning), slaughter it ( funga sadaka). Invite some people to

appendix three

14

279

eat the hen with you together with vegetables (mboga). After eating, let everyone wash their hands as usual but then use that water to bathe yourself. Sleep that night and the next day you will acquire the money to buy what you have been looking for. This number can also refer to money in general. This is a very bad number—all the blessings one might have accrued will disappear. You have to close yourself from maleficent influences by marking the four cardinal points with the individual in the centre:Kibula (North)

Lakutwa (West)

The Individual

Lukwawa (East)

Shanga (South)

15

In order to reverse or treat this misfortune one must take seven coffee beans and roast them and boil them to make coffee (buni ). Then four wazee must be invited to sit around you at the cardinal points ( pembe inne) and after being given the buni to drink they must pray and spit upon the individual seven times. This is the best number. When bao reveals this then you can do whatever you were planning or had in mind with total confidence of success.

b) Various meanings attached to Bao tetragrams “The process has begun. It is on the way” a) If you are going on safari and receive this sign after doing bao then it reveals that you will go but that you have to do bao again to determine the success or otherwise of the journey Darek b) It shows that a person is on the way—e.g. if you are expecting a visitor then the person is on the way. I I I I

I I I I I Dayat

This sign as two meaning: a) This means “exactly”, the exact truth (kweli kabisa) b) “A white thing” (kitu neupe), “Something completely clear and open” (Kitu wazi kabisa)

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280

It is similar to darek but refers, in particular to women or female things I I a) If a woman is sick and this sign comes up then it I I shows that medicine will cure the woman b) If one is waiting for a woman to return from a journey Bariale then this shows that she is on the way c) Take and slaughter a female chicken I I

I I I I I I I Afyuf

“This sign indicates the mouth” and has a variety of meanings depending on context: a) A lot of hot, harsh, scolding words b) It shows you will eat something—e.g. if you have no money to buy food this sign indicates that you will still get food to eat c) “The mouth is shut”—if a person is sick and this sign reveals itself then if shows that the person will die but if prayers are spat upon the patient then he will recover d) Refers to the spitting to impart a blessing Afyuf controls the speaking of bao. It is the primary sign and is behind all that goes on in bao.

I I I I

I I I I

Jama I I I I I I I

a) “Things will go on and on apparently endlessly.” So, if you have a case or business that involves travelling then it will go on and on, you will travel back and forth endlessly. b) There will be a big meeting of many people—e.g. a wedding or funeral “You will succeed in everything” e.g. if you are on safari then you will succeed and get all that you want

Marawina (Kubwa) I I I I I I

You will succeed but not as spectacularly as in the case of Marawina (kubwa)

Marawina (Ndogo)

appendix three I I I I I

281

“This has to do with the eyes”—you will see something if this sign comes up, e.g. if you want something then you will see it.

Bayaath I I I I I I

This has two meanings: a) To have a full stomach b) To die

Dergene I I I I I

“You will get things” i.e. if on safari you will return “carrying things”, if at home visitors will arrive “carrying things”, etc.

Garbaraa I I I I I

“Something unexpected or sudden”—e.g. You might have to undertake an unexpected safari that you had not planned expecting, instead, to remain peacefully at home. Or else you will get into a fight of some sort

Gontane I I I I I I

“This is the sign of water or blood” Also associated with the colour “red”. Can also refer to the killing of an animal and performing a sacrifice (“shedding blood”).

Hemri I I I I I I

This has three meanings: a) To cut open an animal (Kupasua tumbo) b) A grave c) A road

Dorhane I I I I I I I Kokoble

“Something is sleeping” So if a person as not returned from safari and you wonder what has happened, this sign shows he/she is resting because of sickness. Also, if you have lost something, this sign reveals where it is ‘resting’, you will find what you are looking for.

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“A black sign” So, if you are planning a safari and get this sign, it indicates that you will encounter severe problems. If a person is sick then you must use black medicine or sacrifice a black chicken on jumatano (Tuesday). Then call some elders and Enkis- invite them to eat the chicken and then to pray by spitting modobe over the person. I I I I I I I

I I I I I I Yulkut

“Closed hands”—you will get what you want

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INDEX

Adamson, George and Joy 40, 40 n. 2, 59, 59 n. 5 age-sets 27, 89 n. 103, 118 n. 61, 124–125, 165, 186, 214 Ali, Mohamed 53–54, 71, 159–160, 162, 240–241, 241 n. 91, 246 Allen, James de Vere 3 n. 7, 9 n. 8 ancestors 26, 96, 99, 104, 104 n. 19, 106, 111–116, 118, 120, 128, 130, 132–133, 173–176, 179–180, 186–187, 202–203, 215 n. 46, 222, 234, 236, 242 n. 94, 270, 274 angels 175, 242–243 Arab 15, 21, 51, 67–68, 83, 85, 149, 182, 182 n. 105, 184–185 Arabia 21, 143, 155, 182–184, 204 Aruse 86–87, 96, 99 Aweer 43 n. 7, 110, 110 n. 40, 259–260, 260 n. 2 Bajun 32, 43, 53–54, 77, 81, 110, 146–147, 172, 181, 181 n. 100, 182–183, 185, 188, 216, 238, 243, 246 bao 167, 216–220, 222–225, 227, 229–230, 248–249, 278–280 baobab 20, 111, 183, 191–193, 214, 226, 234, 258 Beretima 53, 86–88, 91, 93, 95–96, 99, 204, 207 bird/s 98, 102, 107–109, 191, 258, 274 birth 43 n. 7, 51, 115, 176 blood 47, 119–120, 201, 214–215, 215 n. 46, 217, 226, 228–229, 245, 247, 269, 276, 281 Boddy, Janice 32 n. 102, 180, 180 n. 96, 190, 190 n. 8, 196, 197 n. 15, 201, 201 n. 23, 202 n. 24 boki 93 n. 3, 123 Brenner, Louis 11, 12 n. 18, 16 n. 35, 22, 22 n. 67, 23, 23 n. 73, 24, 24 n. 76, 93 n. 1, 152, 152 n. 42, 159 n. 48, 221, 221 nn. 53–55; 222 n. 56, 252 n. 2 Bujra, Janet 10, 10 n. 12, 15 n. 32, 16 Bunger, R.L. 16 n. 54, 21 n. 65, 88–89, 89 nn. 102, 104; 253

Catholic Relief Service 151 cemeteries 135, 176 children 9, 12, 64, 66, 69–70, 88, 96, 107–108, 118, 124, 127, 136, 140–141, 148 n. 35, 151, 157, 160, 162, 167, 176, 180, 184, 187, 202–203, 235, 237–238, 246, 248, 259, 272, 275 circumcision 18, 56, 204, 204 n. 26, 206–207 conversion external factors 60, 75 internal factors 75, 90 Cushitic language 9, 37, 46–47, 77–78, 87, 110, 110 n. 97, 178 D568 9, 134, 138, 146–147, 255–256 de Rosny, Eric 32, 32 n. 101 dini 14, 23–26, 47 n. 13, 156 divination 32, 53, 93 n. 1, 113, 167, 189–190, 193, 197 n. 16, 215–216, 217 n. 49, 218, 221, 221 nn. 53, 55; 224, 229–230, 245, 274 Dod 195 Doza, Abdi 56–57, 209–210, 212–213, 213 n. 42, 214–215, 215 n. 47 education 16, 20, 54, 63, 68–70, 74–75, 75 n. 52, 88, 139, 150–151, 159–166, 186, 196 n. 14, 239, 248 Eid Al-Fittr 157 El Niño 13, 13 n. 26, 14, 33, 40, 56, 91–92, 93 n. 2, 111, 129, 134, 150, 209, 225, 259 elephants 17, 42, 42 n. 6, 58–59, 81, 83, 98, 101, 115, 118, 140, 189, 196 El-Zein, A.H.M. 10, 10 n. 13 Ensminger, Jean 20, 20 n. 62 n. 76, 76 n. 33, 81 n. 75, 82, 82 n. 78, 84, 84 n. 85 Evans-Pritchard, E.E. 27, 29, 107, 107 n. 50, 191, 191 n. 10 Fal 113, 190, 230, 270 Fatar, Mwalimu Hussein Bin Omar 38, 64, 64 n. 19

290

index

food 80–81, 96, 100–102, 105, 114, 116, 148, 150–154, 157, 180, 186–187, 196, 201, 205, 223, 242, 250, 270, 280 funeral/s 19, 111, 113 n. 49, 138, 173, 175–176, 179–181, 186, 201, 280 Galla (see Orma) Geertz, Clifford 164, 165 n. 62 General Election (Kenya 1997) 97–98, 149–151 Giles, Linda 210, 210 nn. 37–38; 211, 211 nn. 40–41; 212 Giriama 12 n. 21, 21, 21 n. 66, 43–44, 167, 179, 251 goroba 88, 89 n. 103, 125, 127 Habib Swaleh (Seyyid Saleh ibn Alwy ibn Abdullah Jamal al-Layl) 63 Habole, Mama 51, 56, 93, 95, 99, 135–136, 136 n. 2, 158 n. 47, 173 n. 70, 176 n. 76, 177 n. 80, 181, 190, 191 n. 9, 193, 195, 195 n. 12, 197, 204–205, 207, 219, 224, 230, 234, 245, 258 Haj, Hadija 248, 251–252, 255, 257 Harvey, Steven 3 n. 6, 16, 16 n. 36, 17, 17 nn. 39, 49; 18 n. 50, 19, 19 nn. 54–55; 59 n. 6, 62, 62 n. 13, 72, 72 n. 45, 86, 86 nn. 90, 93; 87, 87 nn. 95, 100; 90, 90 n. 105, 101 101 nn. 7–9; 102, 102 n. 13, 117, 117 n. 59, 124–125, 125 n. 77, 139 n. 11, 166, 166 nn. 63, 65; 186 n. 117, 204, 204 nn. 26, 27; 253 healer/s 238, 216–217, 230, 234–235, 268, 274 healing 7, 53, 122, 124, 127, 189, 195, 197 n. 16, 216–217, 217 n. 49, 222, 224, 228–231, 234–235, 238, 241, 250–251, 252, 252 n. 3, 255, 257, 271 Heine, Bernd 18 n. 49, 37, 37 n. 110, 44, 44 n. 8, 63, 63 n. 17, 87 n. 93, 130 n. 88, 131, 131 n. 89, 181 n. 99 history 2, 4, 8, 13–14, 16, 18 n. 49, 20, 30, 46, 58, 60, 62, 76, 79–80, 84 n. 85, 137, 139, 149, 177, 182 n. 105, 184 n. 110, 196 n. 14, 221, 221 n. 53, 254, 259 Hollis, A.C. 144 horrop tree 13, 37–38, 53, 87, 91, 93, 93 n. 3, 95, 98–100, 103–104, 107, 112, 114–115, 119–120, 128,

130–131, 133, 149, 150 n. 37, 161, 166, 173–175, 186, 188, 193, 200, 203, 207, 212, 234, 251, 254–255, 274 hunting 17, 17 n. 39, 18, 18 n. 50, 19 nn. 54–55, 58–59, 59 n. 6, 62, 62 n. 13, 72 n. 45, 81, 83, 86 n. 90, 87 nn. 95, 100; 90 n. 105, 101, 101 nn. 7, 9; 102, 102 n. 13, 105 n. 24, 117 n. 59, 118, 120, 125 n. 77, 127, 130, 139 n. 11, 144, 166 nn. 63, 65; 186 n. 117, 196–197, 199, 201–203, 204 nn. 26, 27; 212, 221, 242 n. 93, 267, 269, 276 Imams (walimu) 53–54, 66, 68, 160, 222, 230, 239–240, 246 Islam 4–5, 16–17, 17 n. 49, 18, 18 n. 49, 19–26, 31, 50–52, 54–55, 57–60, 60 n. 8, 63–66, 68, 75–76, 79, 82–83, 85–90, 106–107, 109, 111, 117, 128–129, 131–136, 138–141, 147, 149–150, 152–153, 158–159, 159 n. 48, 160, 163–166, 175–176, 177 n. 84, 179–181, 186–187, 193, 195–196, 199, 202, 204, 208–211, 213–215, 221–223, 229, 239, 241–242, 246, 253, 255–257 Islamization 89, 234 ithai 119–128, 131–132, 186–187, 215, 225, 233, 255, 258, 269–270, 272–274, 276 jajable 88, 125 jinn 25, 106, 141, 191, 214, 224–225, 227–228, 235, 268 Kelly, Hilarie 20, 20 n. 61, 44 n. 10, 48 n. 22, 86 n. 89, 204 n. 26 kijoo 88–89, 116–117, 125–126 kijoo lub 116–117, 125 kijoo moro 125–126 Kiunga 2–3, 14, 40, 42–43, 56–57, 103, 134, 183, 209, 256 Kololo, Bobitu 1, 1 n. 1, 4, 4 n. 8, 6, 33, 34 n. 105, 38, 44, 51–52, 52 n. 30, 53, 66, 69 n. 35, 71, 71 n. 39, 73, 73 n. 48, 74, 76, 82, 83 n. 81, 84 n. 83, 85 n. 86, 87, 87 n. 101, 89–90, 95 n. 3, 104, 109–110, 110 n. 41, 114, 114 n. 51, 115, 116 n. 57, 119 n. 64, 120, 128, 129 nn. 84–86; 130, 130 n. 88, 131, 133, 137, 149, 150 n. 37, 153, 154

index n. 43, 157, 172, 176 n. 77, 181 n. 100, 184, 184 n. 111, 188, 188 nn. 1–2; 200 n. 20, 208, 215, 223, 223 n. 40, 240, 240 n. 90, 247, 250–251, 258 Lambek, Michael 8, 8 n. 6, 10, 13, 13 n. 23, 24, 24 n. 78, 25–26, 26 n. 87, 27–28, 28 n. 91, 29, 210, 210 n. 39, 211, 225, 225 n. 65, 253, 253 n. 6 Lamu District 14, 16, 34, 42, 48, 59, 145, 150, 164, 208 Lamu Island/Town 21, 54, 58, 70, 146, 155, 196 n. 14, 239 landscape 4, 6, 147, 203, 254 Leakey, Richard 146 Lewis, I.M. 209 n. 34, 210, 210 n. 36, 211–213, 213 n. 43 madrasa 58, 64–66, 69, 75, 88, 134, 150, 159–165, 172, 227, 240 Maalim, Abdi 43–44, 51, 55–56, 61, 71, 74, 97, 129, 129 n. 85, 130, 139, 145, 148–150, 156 n. 46, 157, 162, 174 n. 74, 188 marriage 1, 3 n. 7, 55, 65, 77, 116–118, 158, 164, 166–169, 171–173, 186–187, 248, 271, 279 mate ya ithai 269, 274, 276 Mbiti, John 23, 32 mchozi 88, 125–127 medicine 107–108, 123, 139, 189, 195, 214, 217, 225–231, 233–234, 236–238, 240, 245–246, 248–249, 268, 271, 274–276, 280, 282 methodology 32, 34 Middleton, John 2 n. 4, 10, 10 n. 13, 14–15, 15 nn. 28–29; 16, 23 n. 75, 25 n. 79, 60 n. 9, 63, 63 n. 18, 84 n. 84, 93 n. 2, 140, 140 n. 13, 142, 142 n. 21, 143, 143 n. 25, 168, 168 n. 67, 184, 184 n. 112, 225 n. 66 mila 15, 23–6 Mill Hill Missionary Society 30 Mokowe 37, 39–40, 49, 53–54, 62, 64, 64 n. 19, 65, 69, 74, 114, 130, 136, 160, 238, 243, 248 moro 88, 119, 125–127, 131, 165, 186–187, 255, 272 mosque 4, 6, 13, 26, 29, 39, 50, 52–56, 63–64, 66, 71, 74, 85, 90, 100, 103–104, 112, 115, 128, 134,

291

136, 141–142, 151, 155–159, 161–163, 171–173, 175–177, 180, 186–188, 196, 200, 204, 207–208, 223, 239–240, 246, 255, 259 Mudimbe, V.Y. 27, 27 n. 89, 79 n. 65, 160, 160 n. 51, 61, 164, 200, 200 n. 19 Mungai, Eddie 52 n. 29, 66, 66 n. 25, 72 n. 43, 73, 73 nn. 47, 49; 104 n. 22, 128 Muslim Welfare Association 155 obaa 118, 126, 205–207 Orma 11, 19–20, 43–44, 48–49, 59, 67, 76, 78, 80–82, 86, 89, 100, 106, 109, 111–113, 117, 125, 139, 179, 181, 183, 193, 204 n. 26, 207–208, 253 p’Bitek, Okot 23, 23 n. 72, 29, 29 n. 95 Pandanguo 17, 18 n. 49, 62, 72, 86 n. 93, 87, 90, 101–102, 117, 204, 253, 260 Parua, Ali Sumoi Bwana 54, 54 n. 31, 240, 243 n. 95, 245 Pate Island 32, 53, 67, 129, 172, 238 pepo 25–26, 106, 106 n. 29, 109, 119, 131, 179 n. 95, 191, 193, 208 n. 32, 215 n. 47, 225, 249, 270 phenomenology 27, 253 Pokomo 21, 43, 88–89, 89 n. 103, 131, 183, 253 possession 14–15, 26, 52, 145, 163, 167, 189–190, 202, 209–215, 215 n. 47, 218 Pouwels, Randall L. 22, 22 n. 68, 23, 23 n. 74, 25, 25 n. 81, 60 n. 8, 135 n. 1, 144, 144 n. 28 primary school 55, 69, 148, 150, 159, 162, 164, 259 Prins, A.H.J. 1 n. 3, 3 n. 5, 12, 12 n. 20, 16, 16 n. 37, 17 n. 49, 18, 18 nn. 49, 51; 44, 44 n. 9, 48, 48 n. 20, 49, 49 nn. 24, 26; 61, 62 n. 12, 63 n. 16, 68, 68 n. 33, 76, 77 n. 58, 80, 81 n. 73, 81 n. 73, 86, 86 n. 88, 87, 87 n. 94, 110, 110 n. 37, 112, 113 n. 48, 117, 117 n. 58, 166, 166 n. 64, 177, 177 n. 78, 178, 178 n. 86, 179, 179 n. 92, 182, 182 n. 103, 185, 185 n. 113, 219, 219 n. 52, 252, 256, 256 n. 16

292

index

Ramadan 65, 148, 150, 157, 164, 222, 249 religious education 163 Riyadh mosque 54, 63–64, 74, 90, 162, 239–240 rohan 56, 209, 209 n. 33, 210–215, 215 n. 47, 225, 248–249 Salkeld, R.E. 18 n. 52, 49, 49 n. 25, 58, 58 n. 2, 77, 77 n. 57, 101, 101 n. 8, 112, 112 n. 47, 123 n. 72, 177 n. 79, 208 n. 30 Samburu 11, 29 n. 94 Sani, Ali 12 n. 19, 38, 51–53, 56, 69 n. 34, 71 n. 41, 91, 93, 93 n. 1, 95–96, 98, 103, 103 n. 16, 105 n. 24, 106–107, 108 nn. 32, 34; 112, 112 n. 45, 113, 114 n. 50, 115, 115 nn. 53–54; 118, 118 n. 60, 119 n. 63, 123, 164, 180–181, 188 nn. 1–2; 197, 199, 199 n. 18, 200, 200 n. 21, 201, 205 n. 28, 209 n. 33, 210, 210 n. 35, 215 n. 46, 216, 217 n. 49, 218, 220–222, 222 n. 57, 223–224, 224 n. 62, 225 n. 63, 226, 226 n. 67, 228 n. 70, 229–231, 233 nn. 73–74; 234 n. 75, 235 nn. 76–78; 236 nn. 80, 82; 237, 237 n. 86, 238, 238 n. 88, 245, 247–250, 252, 255, 258 Schlee, G. 9–10, 10 n. 12, 11, 11 n. 16 sexuality 201 Seyyid Saleh ibn Alwy ibn Abdullah Jamal al-Layl see Habib Swaleh 63 shahada 65, 137, 202 shetani 107, 109, 168, 191, 215 n. 47, 224–229, 233–237, 241–242, 244, 267, 269–271, 273–276, 278 shifta 15, 15 n. 33, 31, 33, 39–40, 49, 62, 91, 102, 130, 160, 233, 257 Shifta War 37, 43, 62 Shirazi 182 Shungwaya 19, 110, 177, 178, 179, 183, 183 n. 108, 184–185 Shungwaya Welfare Association 145, 155 sickness 107, 123, 164, 167, 215 n. 47, 216, 224–226, 229, 248, 252, 274–275, 281 Somali 2, 4, 12, 15, 15 n. 33, 37, 39, 42–43, 47–49, 53, 55–56,

60–63, 63 n. 16, 68, 71, 77–79, 81, 83, 91, 97, 100–101, 106, 117, 133, 136–140, 148–149, 151–156, 159, 162, 180 n. 97, 183–185, 188–190, 196, 200 n. 20, 204 n. 26, 208–209, 213–214, 214 n. 45, 215 n. 47, 221, 231, 251–252, 255–258 sorcery 218, 224 Sperling, David 16, 16 n. 35, 48, 135 n. 1, 159 n. 48, 162, 162 n. 58, 178, 178 n. 87, 253 spirits 14–15, 19–20, 23, 25–26, 40, 51–52, 60, 82, 104, 106–107, 109, 111, 113, 119–120, 128, 131–132, 142–144, 147, 149, 163, 165, 167–168, 187, 189–190, 191, 193, 202, 210–211, 215, 215 n. 47, 218, 224–229, 233–237, 242, 245, 248–249, 254 n. 8, 258, 276 Stiles, Daniel 9, 9 n. 9, 16, 16 n. 38, 18, 18 n. 52, 19 nn. 53–54; 43 n. 7, 46, 46 nn. 11–12; 47 nn. 14–15, 17–18; 49 n. 24, 77, 77 nn. 55, 59; 80, 80 nn. 69–71; 102, 102 n. 15, 106, 106 n. 28, 178, 178 n. 88, 181, 181 nn. 98–99; 183, 183 n. 107, 207 n. 29, 208, 208 nn. 30–31 Swahili (people) 21, 25 Swahili Coast 1, 13–14, 21–22, 110, 138, 181, 208, 210, 210 n. 37, 211 Tahir Sheikh Said (T.S.S.) 97, 129–130, 148, 148 n. 35 Tana River 21, 47–48, 78, 89 n. 103, 164, 178, 238 Topan, Farouk 25, 25 n. 83, 26, 106, 106 n. 29, 179 n. 95, 208, 208 n. 32 tree/s 13, 18, 20, 37, 41, 53, 87, 93, 96, 98–99, 103–104, 106–107, 111–113, 113 n. 49, 114–116, 118–120, 122–123, 128, 142–143, 154, 157, 159, 183, 186, 191, 193, 195, 203, 214–215, 223, 225–226, 228, 234, 236, 250, 258, 268, 270, 276–277 Twaha, Fahim 149 usafi 60 ustaarabu 60, 141, 255 Vansina, Jan 13 n. 22, 14, 14 n. 27, 80, 80 n. 67

index wahari tree 113–114, 119, 121, 123, 176, 179, 187, 191, 195, 203, 234, 268, 276–277 Werner, Alice 19, 19 n. 57, 111 n. 43, 112, 113 n. 49, 125, 193, 193 n. 11, 207

293

witchcraft 205, 224, 228, 245, 249 women’s religious rites 131, 193 Ylvisaker, Marguerite 49 n. 23, 67, 67 n. 27, 77, 77 n. 56, 142, 142 n. 22

STUDIES OF RELIGION IN AFRICA SUPPLEMENTS TO THE JOURNAL OF RELIGION IN AFRICA

1. MOBLEY, H.W. The Ghanaian’s Image of the Missionary. An Analysis of the Published Critiques of Christian Missionaries by Ghanaians, 1897-1965. 1970. ISBN 90 04 01185 4 2. POBEE, J.S. (ed.). Religion in a Pluralistic Society. Essays Presented to Professor C.G. Baëta in Celebration of his Retirement from the Service of the University of Ghana, September 1971, by Friends and Colleagues Scattered over the Globe. 1976. ISBN 90 04 04556 2 3. TASIE, G.O.M. Christian Missionary Enterprise in the Niger Delta, 1864-1918. 1978. ISBN 90 04 05243 7 4. REECK,D. Deep Mende. Religious Interactions in a Changing African Rural Society. 1978. ISBN 90 04 04769 7 5. BUTSELAAR, J. VAN. Africains, missionnaires et colonialistes. Les origines de l’Église Presbytérienne de Mozambique (Mission Suisse), 1880-1896. 1984. ISBN 90 04 07481 3 6. OMENKA, N.I. The School in the Service of Evangelization. The Catholic Educational Impact in Eastern Nigeria 1886-1950. 1989. ISBN 90 04 08932 3 7. JE¸ DREJ, M.C. & SHAW, R. (eds.). Dreaming, Religion and Society in Africa. 1992. ISBN 90 04 08936 5 8. GARVEY, B. Bembaland Church. Religious and Social Change in South Central Africa, 1891-1964. 1994. ISBN 90 04 09957 3 9. OOSTHUIZEN, G.C., KITSHOFF, M.C. & DUBE, S.W.D. (eds.). Afro-Christianity at the Grassroots. Its Dynamics and Strategies. Foreword by Archbishop Desmond Tutu. 1994. ISBN 90 04 10035 0 10. SHANK, D.A. Prophet Harris, the ‘Black Elijah’ of West Africa. Abridged by Jocelyn Murray. 1994. ISBN 90 04 09980 8 11. HINFELAAR, H.F. Bemba-speaking Women of Zambia in a Century of Religious Change (1892-1992). 1994. ISBN 90 04 10149 7 12. GIFFORD, P. (ed.). The Christian Churches and the Democratisation of Africa. 1995. ISBN 90 04 10324 4 13. JE¸ DREJ, M.C. Ingessana. The Religious Institutions of a People of the Sudan-Ethiopia Borderland. 1995. ISBN 90 04 10361 9 14. FIEDLER, K. Christianity and African Culture. Conservative German Protestant Missionaries in Tanzania, 1900-1940. 1996. ISBN 90 04 10497 6

15. OBENG, P. Asante Catholicims. Religious and Cultural Reproduction Among the Akan of Ghana. 1996. ISBN 90 04 10631 6 16. FARGHER, B.L. The Origins of the New Churches Movement in Southern Ethiopia, 1927-1944. 1996. ISBN 90 04 10661 8 17. TAYLOR, W.H. Mission te Educate. A History of the Educational Work of the Scottish Presbyterian Mission in East Nigeria, 1846-1960. 1996. ISBN 90 04 10713 4 18. RUEL, M. Belief, Ritual and the Securing of Life. Reflexive Essays on a Bantu Religion. 1996. ISBN 90 04 10640 5 19. McKENZIE, P. Hail Orisha! A Phenomenology of a West African Religion in the Mid-Nineteenth Century. 1997. ISBN 90 04 10942 0 20. MIDDLETON, K. Ancestors, Power and History in Madagascar. 1999. ISBN 90 04 11289 8 21. LUDWIG, F. Church and State in Tanzania. Aspects of a Changing Relationship, 1961-1994. 1999. 90 04 11506 4 22. BURKE, J.F. These Catholic Sisters are all Mamas! Towards the Inculturation of the Sisterhood in Africa, an Ethnographic Study. 2001. ISBN 90 04 11930 2 23. MAXWELL, D., with I. LAWRIE (eds.) Christianity and the African Imagination. Essays in Honour of Adrian Hastings. 2001. ISBN 90 04 11668 0 24. GUNNER, E. The Man of Heaven and the Beautiful Ones of God. 2003. In preparation. ISBN 90 04 12542 6 25. PEMBERTON, C. Circle Thinking. African Women Theologians in Dialogue with the West. 2003. ISBN 90 04 12441 1 26. WEISS, B. (ed.). Producing African Futures. Ritual and Reproduction in a Neoliberal Age. 2004. ISBN 90 04 13860 9 27. ASAMOAH-GYADU, J.K. African Charismatics. Current Developments within Independent Indigenous Pentecostalism in Ghana. 2004. ISBN 90 04 14089 1 28. WESTERLUND, D. African Indigenous Religions and Disease Causation. From Spriritual Beings to Living Humans. 2006. ISBN 90 04 14433 1 (In preparation) 29. FAULKNER, M.R.J. Overtly Muslim, Covertly Boni. Competing Calls of Religious Allegiance on the Kenyan Coast. 2006. ISBN 90 04 14753 5