Cattle Bring Us to Our Enemies: Turkana Ecology, Politics, and Raiding in a Disequilibrium System

6. Introduction to the Four Families

chapter 6 Introduction to the Four Families 7 This chapter introduces the four families with whom I worked for most of the time that I was in Turkana District. Much of the analysis concerning decision making is based on discussions and interviews that I had with the four herd owners who were the heads of their individual families. Men, therefore, have influenced my interpretation of events, in particular by how these men who make decisions concerning land use see the world around them. I also established friendships with a number of Turkana women and had many conversations with them about land use and family life. Where I can, I discuss what I perceived to be their impact on decision making. However, I do not pretend to present a balanced account of life among the Turkana. Mine is primarily a view from the perspective of Turkana males, for better or worse. My goal here is twofold: to set the stage for the description of movement patterns and decision making in the analytical chapters that follow and to describe the four herd owners and their families so that the reader can get a sense of who they were as people, not just as analytical units or data sets. I previously provided historical detail on raiding so as to set the political and historical context of Ngisonyoka life when the research began in 1980. Here, I describe the families and livestock holdings of each of the four herd owners at the time that I first met them. I will also discuss some of the important personal 109 events that occurred in the lives of the herd owners that led up to their social and economic conditions as of the time I arrived in 1980. Angorot Angorot is perhaps the most intelligent and articulate man I met during my entire time working with the Turkana. When I first met him he was in his early forties and living with three wives (one of them inherited), four brothers, and his mother. His herds consisted of 107 cattle, 68 camels, 722 goats, and 269 sheep. Although this number of livestock is considered a large holding, Angorot was not deemed to be a rich man. Angorot’s fifth brother, Aki, was in prison when I first started working with him. The Kenya government disarmed the Ngisonyoka in 1979, and Aki was caught with a rifle. He was released in 1982 and returned to the awi, where he remained throughout the study period. Akopenyon was the principal manager of the camel herd and would accompany the nonmilking camels when they were separated from the awi. Nakwawi and later Lokora took care of the goats and sheep, and Erionga took care of the cattle. Before being sent to prison, Aki was in charge of the cattle, and after his return he took care of cattle when they were at the awi, but Erionga managed them when they were separated. Two features seem to characterize all of Angorot’s brothers: a strong sense of responsibility and their playful sense of humor. Aki, for instance, loved to conceal my tape recorder and record parts of a conversation when people were visiting, then play the tape back catching them off guard. He would laugh so hard that sometimes he would fall off his ekicholon (small stool). His other brothers were not the jokesters that Aki was, but they all loved to play small jokes on each other and sometimes visitors (myself included). In 1980 Angorot’s awi consisted of six ekols. The first ekol belonged to Angorot’s mother, Nakadeli. Angorot’s unmarried brothers, Akopenyon, Nakwawi, Erionga, and Lorkora, also slept there when they were at the awi, as did Angorot’s unmarried sister Kochodin. Nakadeli was the matriarch of the awi and offered advice and helped wherever needed. It was important that each of Angorot’s wives get along with her as she clearly could influence Angorot in decisions related to the household. As is Turkana custom, each of the wives 110 cattle bring us to our enemies spent their initial years in the ekol of the household head’s mother, living with and assisting her until the new wife had given birth. The second ekol belonged to Angorot’s first wife, Imadio, and her two children, a six-year-old son and a one-year-old daughter. Angorot’s second wife, Kole, occupied the third ekol with her...