Identities on the Move: Clanship and Pastoralism in Northern Kenya (review)

Book Reviews 197 matter of local, historical, contingent processes—again, we can study what did happen, but not what had to happen. The book ends with a provocative concluding chapter, illustrated by the surrealist art of Man Rey and Meret Oppenheim. Culture is mentioned (a rare occurrence) in the first paragraph, to be defined as "the style in which things are done." We see here what is probably the chief weakness of the book—a tendency to skate over the highly problematic and much-discussed anthropological notion of culture as if it could be safely consigned to the vaguely defined realm of "reproductive schemata." But I do not want to dwell on negative points in this short review. The book is far too important for this. It should come as a revelation , to those anthropologists who were led by the arcane debates of their Marxist colleagues in the 1970s, to conclude that Marxism had nothing useful to contribute to their subjects. If they are prepared to suspend this judgment long enough to read a book with Marxism in its subtitle, they will find here a powerful yet concise anthropological critique , mercifully free of extended reverential analyses of the Marxist "scriptures," which nevertheless demonstrates the value of Marxist assumptions in ethnographic analysis. "The effect," as Eric Wolf writes in a quoted comment, "is stunning." David Turton University of Manchester Identities on the Move: Clanship and Pastoralism in Northern Kenya Günther Schlee Manchester, England: Manchester University Press, 1989; distributed in U.S. and Canada by St. Martin's Press. The history of the peoples of the far northeastern plains of Kenya has not hitherto received much attention except in relation to the impact of the "Somali invasion" from the Horn. Identities on the Move is thus timely and important. It demonstrates that the historical processes involved are far more complex than the earlier "invasion" model allowed, 29? Book Reviews and suggests new perspectives on the construction and interaction of local identities. The book can be divided into two interdependent parts. In the first, Schlee makes a strong case for the existence of an early culture-complex that he terms PRS (Proto-Rendille-Somali). From this derive the peoples currently known as the Rendille, Gabbra, Sakuye, Adjuran, and Garre— though it becomes increasingly clear, as Schlee's argument develops, that distinct and finite ethnic labels are less than helpful in understanding the tangled past associations of the communities concerned. The second part of the book examines the dense network of inter-ethnic clan linkages which tie these communities together and provide a key to the reconsideration of the region's history. The term itself—PRS—is a little misleading since the "Somali" element appears to be linguistic, not to be equated with the modern Somali identity. The latter has developed relatively recently as a consequence of the Darood and Degodia (Somali) expansion of the later 19th century . Originally non-Muslim and sometimes Oromo-speaking communities in northeast Kenya were detached from the Boran orbit, converted and realigned as "Somali." Any notion of a simple clash between "Oromo" and "Somali" then disappears. The Adjuran and Garre are cases in point. Both may derive from earlier proto-Somali elements which came under Boran dominance and shifted language and culture. Later, having absorbed more recent Somali immigrants, they became reSomali -ised and Islamised through their discovered links with the Hawiyya. It will be seen from this how complicated a picture Schlee is unveiling; and the author is not easy on the reader. The weight of detail is impressive—and stunning. Better maps and an occasional recapitulation in the text would be helpful to those, like the reviewer, who fail to take in the finer points at a first reading. Schlee builds his arguments with methods and materials drawn from oral tradition and comparative ethnography. His reconstruction of the PRS complex is the soundest part. Here Schlee uses the techniques normally applied to language reconstruction to great effect in tracing back cultural traits rather than words. What emerges is essentially a "camel complex," which extends beyond herd management practices to embrace ritual, calendrical, and numerical systems and a ramifying network of camel lineages that parallel and...