Adición y configuración de zonas

Identities, seniority and belonging to various cohorts (including pastoralists, elders, lmurran, married women, ‘Samburu’ and lineages) and places are framed through performing, and recollections of stories surrounding, various ceremonies carried out by Flat Rock residents on Mt Nyiro. Identities, meanings and seniority of certain plants, livestock, Nkai, times of the month and seasons, and institutional frameworks take meaning and are reshaped and reified through recollections of their roles in, and/or association with, ceremonies. Familiarity and a sense of belonging to places are developed through performing and recollecting stories of these ceremonies.

Numerous events or occasions in Flat Rock people’s lives are marked by a ceremony - including birth, circumcision, Lmuget age-set ceremonies (for men), marriage, birth of children, and death. Ceremonies are also performed at other times in which offerings are made to Nkai.

Many of these ceremonies take place at certain locations on Mt Nyiro, at certain propitious times of year, certain propitious times of the lunar calendar, and at certain times of life. Many events repeat, such as circumcision of a new age-set every 14 or so years75.

In the past, all clans of Mt Nyiro performed a ceremony on a marua in their place on the mountain (nkop ang’); a place they were custodians over in terms of securing goodness for other, less senior people through managing grazing and water sources, and managing ceremonies in their place76. Some elders of Flat Rock frame their ancestral land as sacred to their lineage because it contains their dead ancestors, those who are senior and closer to

Nkai77; some framed ancestors as Nkai78. They perform ceremonies on ancestral land because it is sacred79; some say that the place has been made sacred and ‘senior’ (a place where Nkai listens) by successive generations performing ceremonies on it80. Through the performing of this ceremony, senior brothers enact custodianship roles over less senior/younger brothers, seeking goodness for their lineage from Nkai81.

In the past, a selection of the most senior men of the most senior families of the most senior lineages in each clan played a role in each clan’s ceremony in their place. During the ceremony, one senior man from the clan brought milk, another man brought honey, another brought sacred plants, and another brought a sheep to sacrifice; all as offerings to Nkai. Because of their senior position, close to Nkai, elders blessed the land (‘their land’) and the people, asking Nkai for goodness. A male sheep was sacrificed because it is sacred (kamanyak); it is Nkai; Samburu life follows the way of the sheep (lkerreti). Milk and honey are important offerings used in many ceremonies. Certain ‘senior’, holy/sacred (kamanyak) plants (two from the mountain and two from the lowlands) are burned. The smoke given off is an offering to Nkai and is Nkai, carrying the goodness of Nkai, which multiplies and attaches to other things, spreading goodness - noticeable in the form of a ‘good’ scent (known to be

koropili). People waft their blankets in the smoke to attract the goodness of Nkai (see Figure

5.10, which shows this happening during a different ceremony). The clan ceremony described here, like many others, was performed on a propitious day of the moon and a propitious month of the year, during the rainy season known as Ngerngerua82.

Figure 5.10 Lasar: burning of sacred plants at Flat Rock Lmeoli ‘Lmuget of milk and leaves’ ceremony, Mt Nyiro.

Nowadays, only the most senior men of the most senior lineages of the most senior Samburu clan (Lmoosiat) perform this clan ceremony at Mt Nyiro. Junior clans of Nyiro have ceased to perform this ceremony on their clan land83. One Bull Clan elder said the reason his clan no longer perform the ceremony on their Mt Nyiro clan land is because no members of his clan’s most senior family lineage currently live at Mt Nyiro. He said that it is not possible for members of junior family lineages to perform this ceremony in the absence of their seniors; such disregard for seniority, which is dictated by Nkai, and to assume custodianship over

lkerreti and places, would result in badness being bestowed upon those negligent people84.

Like custodianship roles over grazing on Flat Rock areas of Mt Nyiro, custodianship roles over ceremonies are no longer determined by lineage land; Flat Rock elders assume joint- custodianship of ceremonies in ‘Flat Rock land’; lineage areas are irrelevant85.

As the most senior people closest to Nkai, Lmoosiat are known by all in Flat Rock to act as custodians of ceremonial duties involving communication with Nkai to secure ‘goodness’ for all Samburu people. Lmoosiat are known as the most senior clan because they perform this role. Because they are one of the original Samburu clans and were among the first Samburu to ‘conquer’ Nyiro, Lmoosiat clan are the custodians of the most sacred (senior) places, on the most sacred (senior) mountain for Samburu (Nyiro), the place where Nkai resides86. All Flat Rock residents recognise the seniority of their mountain among all others for Samburu through prayers, songs, blessings and curses, “When we seek (goodness from) Nkai we say, ‘Nkai of Cosi Cosi’”87. Lmoosiat land includes a place known as Cosi Cosi, which contains one of a select

number of large boulders on Mt Nyiro where many people say Nkai lives88. Identities of Lmoosiat and Cosi Cosi as senior depend upon one another.

Figure 5.11 Cosi Cosi, Mt Nyiro.

Many people of Flat Rock say that the ‘correct’ Samburu way of living (lkerreti), which includes ideas that Nkai lives at certain boulders on Mt Nyiro, has been passed down from the first Samburu, directly from Nkai and should therefore not be questioned. To do so would question the identities, status and honesty of ancestors, Nkai, senior lineages who still perform ceremonies on Nyiro, and everyone who evokes Nkai of Nyiro when praying, singing, blessing and cursing. This would be disrespectful and go against nkanyit and lkerreti89. Versions of various communal stories describe how ancestors have experienced Nkai in these and other places on Mt Nyiro90 (see figure 5.13). Some people recall similar embodied experiences to those detailed in the stories91. Personal experiences of Nkai serve to validate stories and associated institutional frames, ‘truths’ of lkerreti.

One way that people express the presence of Nkai at these boulders on Mt Nyiro is through descriptions of events preceding rainfall: increasing wind speeds, mist rising from the boulders, trembling and production of a ‘Godly’ sound from the boulders. These rain ‘indicating’ entities (visible material things and noises) are Nkai92_{. The presence of Nkai at Cosi Cosi is also known}

because many Mt Nyiro rivers originate there. Bamboo trees only grow in the boggy terrain of Cosi Cosi; such rare trees are holy (senior among other trees) and show the presence of

Figure 5.12 Bamboo forest, Cosi Cosi, Mt Nyiro.

Another place on Mt Nyiro where ancestors have experienced Nkai is a place known as an

lmeuteun. Lmeuteun are places where people (and livestock) were punished and turned into

rocks by Nkai. The rocks at the lmeuteun on Mt Nyiro were once people celebrating at a homestead. The people did not show respect to an old woman, instead they laughed at her. The old woman was Nkai (in disguise); Nkai turned the sinners into rocks as punishment. The story and place is evoked by people to warn of the dangers of sinning and not following

lkerreti94_.

Figure 5.13 (left) Soit e Nkai: one of the (mist-concealed) houses of Nkai atop Mt Nyiro. Figure 5.14 (right) The lmeuteun at the foot of Mt Nyiro.

People justify the form of ceremonies by saying that the first Samburu performed the same ceremony and experienced ‘goodness’ as a result; to change the ceremony and question it’s purpose would be disrespectful95. People also claim that they have experienced goodness through performing these ceremonies96. A member of a senior family belonging to Lmoosiat clan said that when he has taken part in the ram sacrifice ceremony at Cosi Cosi, Mt Nyiro, during times of drought, goodness resulted in the form of rain; Nkai came, desired vegetation combinations grew, people and livestock became healthy. He said, “This shows that Nkai is present (on Mt Nyiro) and listens to our requests”97.

Goodness in people’s and their livestock’s lives depends upon these (and other) ceremonies and the roles played by various entities. Identities and meanings, such as concepts of seniority among people, plants, animals and places and their ascribed connections to Nkai are re- shaped and reified through practice (and recollections) of these ceremonies on claimed land. These entities are understood relationally and enable conceptions of people belonging to lineages and places, and conceptions of (custodianship over) lkerreti to build up. The prosperity of people’s lives in ‘their’ places, including grazing livestock and collecting honey, depend upon relationships with and roles of Nkai, senior brothers, certain senior plants and sacrificial animals.

Legitimacy of certain people’s status and roles as custodians over ceremonies and places, enacting lkerreti ‘truths’ to secure goodness for others, relies upon upholding this ‘world’ where ancestors’ knowledge is framed as ‘truth’ in the form of lkerreti; a world and ‘truth’ where seniority depends upon being first and first being close to Nkai; and depends upon a world and ‘truth’ where Nkai is said to reside on Mt Nyiro and influence lives of those living there. By evoking the lives of forefathers as linked with current lives and as being associated with the goodness of these lives, people are reinforcing a connectedness to the past, bringing the past to the present. Identities of being Samburu and being of lineages are made timeless. The inner-workings of lkerreti become known and made into ‘truth’ in the process of performing and recalling performances of these ceremonies. ‘Success stories’ of ceremonies, such as bringing rain, further legitimise the ‘truth’ and necessity of upholding the institutions, rules and positionalities of various peoples in order that all lives will be prosperous.

Flat Rock elders recalled similar ‘success stories’ about times when they have blessed individuals inflicted by badness (such as miscarriages) due to a sin affecting them. After blessing and praying to Nkai to reverse the badness, goodness followed98.