Nipate
Forum => Kenya Discussion => Topic started by: KenyanPlato on February 22, 2023, 10:37:48 PM
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I will get some pokot warriors backed by Turkanas and take over Kericho. the whole county will become my own territory
my General
https://www.facebook.com/Kipskigen/videos/927261401970764/?app=fbl
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Kericho is a gem.In 2003 or about Unilever Global director former UK foreign affair minister must have Claire short or something..visited kericho..then Unilever had decided to drop tea business..After four days in kericho magnificent tea estates..he told Unilever top folks they would insane to sell the only beautiful assets they got.I saw her with many range rovers than I had seen.Kericho is incredibly beautiful.
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It was Barones lydia chalker in 2000 ..she rolled out with so many range rovers.I guess moi was threatening uniliver
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It will huge fight for white man to give up kericho
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Kericho is a gem.In 2003 or about Unilever Global director former UK foreign affair minister must have Claire short or something..visited kericho..then Unilever had decided to drop tea business..After four days in kericho magnificent tea estates..he told Unilever top folks they would insane to sell the only beautiful assets they got.I saw her with many range rovers than I had seen.Kericho is incredibly beautiful.
Margaret Thatcher toured my local tea factory in 1988.
https://artsandculture.google.com/story/margaret-thatcher-39-s-speech-to-kenya-mohamed-amin-foundation/BQVRZNopmrtKRA?hl=en
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Kenya was using tea farming as a means ro milk British for loans and grants back then
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Kericho is a gem.In 2003 or about Unilever Global director former UK foreign affair minister must have Claire short or something..visited kericho..then Unilever had decided to drop tea business..After four days in kericho magnificent tea estates..he told Unilever top folks they would insane to sell the only beautiful assets they got.I saw her with many range rovers than I had seen.Kericho is incredibly beautiful.
Margaret Thatcher toured my local tea factory in 1988.
https://artsandculture.google.com/story/margaret-thatcher-39-s-speech-to-kenya-mohamed-amin-foundation/BQVRZNopmrtKRA?hl=en
is that kagwe..I was recently in forest Lodge in karaita forest ..Great experience for the kids..zip linning
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Kenya was using tea farming as a means ro milk British for loans and grants back then
karanja of ktda is a legend..man who build ktda from scratch. I don't think brits ever thought mwafrika would ever hack tea business...as it intense 24 hours 7 days 365 business..but karanja did it.In our place mzungu had done every thing to promote tea but people saw it as some joke..cattle and dairy farming made sense .People left tea to grow into large forests..20 feets off ground.People referred it with derisory as forest tree of no use.
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It will take huge fight for white man to give up kericho .they are keeping it now for aesthetic as twa business no longer means
business for them
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Njuri feels jealous when he see this ..with meru where my uncle
told me they buy used mattresses and blankets in market
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Bottomline. kericho remain colonised by British largely.One day we shall liberate it.For now we have keep buying estate per estate..whole of it is expensive..maybe 5 billion dollars
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Karanja was part of my dad's generation that got educated and took over jobs from White people. they were no nonsense managers. Karanja owned a restaurant hapo jeevanjee gardens. I think he had worked as tea director or manager for mzungu tea farm in limuru. plus at that point kenya had agricultural extension officers. as I a kid I helped my parents plant tea. Everyone in the village told my mum she had lost her mind as she will never make money. my mum quit her teaching job. hired guys to set up a green house and grew seedlings. at that point allotments for painting tea were issued by agricultural office. she took all my dad's family that had land in our area allotments and planted about 10 acres and 16 acres in farm owned by my grand parents. in 1984 after the drought tea prices went up ..that year rhe bonus was so high all farmers who had abandoned their farmers went back and literally took saws to prune the tea bushes back. my uncle farm had bushes as high as 5 feet. I think kenya had borrowed money to build factories so each year almost all earnings went to pay the factory so people had quit tea farming due to low prices. anyway by 1986 all the mud huts in my area had been replaced by timber or brick houses. we were now hiring Gusii pickers fulltime. the first gusii in my area was hired by my mum. he was a very interesting guy. I liked hanging around learning about travels from kisii, kericho, limuru then to Githunguri..if you touch tea in my area you will be killed
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Kari research had an experimental farm in my home. we used to pick the tea measure it and keep records for the researchers
I will get the picture we took of the posts marking the 4 varieties they were researching
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I will get some pokot warriors backed by Turkanas and take over Kericho. the whole county will become my own territory
my General
https://www.facebook.com/Kipskigen/videos/927261401970764/?app=fbl
I did some military simulation on my ARCGIS intergrated and found that Merus could attack and conquer Kalenjin counties in just 10 days then I did the ame for Kikuyus and found you will take 6-9 Months either way GEMA can easily subdue kalenjins and take over all their counties. We can put kalenjins in Turkana.
Merus would pour over Laikipia then appear in baringo south in 2 days then launch a major attack on ngalenjini from there avoiding conflict with Pokot and the rugged terrain in the inside
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Great insightful story. Very similar to my experience growing up. Tea started booming in early 90s.
Karanja was part of my dad's generation that got educated and took over jobs from White people. they were no nonsense managers. Karanja owned a restaurant hapo jeevanjee gardens. I think he had worked as tea director or manager for mzungu tea farm in limuru. plus at that point kenya had agricultural extension officers. as I a kid I helped my parents plant tea. Everyone in the village told my mum she had lost her mind as she will never make money. my mum quit her teaching job. hired guys to set up a green house and grew seedlings. at that point allotments for painting tea were issued by agricultural office. she took all my dad's family that had land in our area allotments and planted about 10 acres and 16 acres in farm owned by my grand parents. in 1984 after the drought tea prices went up ..that year rhe bonus was so high all farmers who had abandoned their farmers went back and literally took saws to prune the tea bushes back. my uncle farm had bushes as high as 5 feet. I think kenya had borrowed money to build factories so each year almost all earnings went to pay the factory so people had quit tea farming due to low prices. anyway by 1986 all the mud huts in my area had been replaced by timber or brick houses. we were now hiring Gusii pickers fulltime. the first gusii in my area was hired by my mum. he was a very interesting guy. I liked hanging around learning about travels from kisii, kericho, limuru then to Githunguri..if you touch tea in my area you will be killed
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I didnt know kari cared about tea - always thought it was exclusive business of tea research
Kari research had an experimental farm in my home. we used to pick the tea measure it and keep records for the researchers
I will get the picture we took of the posts marking the 4 varieties they were researching
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I last used arcgis when it was version 10. I used to create poverty maps. Tharaka Nithi was my major client in food poverty.I think you should re-derict efforts there.
I see you now fear pokot :)
I see you are learning military doctrines kipole pole -something kalenjin done for 3,000 years since their time in khartoum guarding the meroe empire
I did some military simulation on my ARCGIS intergrated and found that Merus could attack and conquer Kalenjin counties in just 10 days then I did the ame for Kikuyus and found you will take 6-9 Months either way GEMA can easily subdue kalenjins and take over all their counties. We can put kalenjins in Turkana.
Merus would pour over Laikipia then appear in baringo south in 2 days then launch a major attack on ngalenjini from there avoiding conflict with Pokot and the rugged terrain in the inside
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I last used arcgis when it was version 10. I used to create poverty maps. Tharaka Nithi was my major client in food poverty.I think you should re-derict efforts there.
I see you now fear pokot :)
I see you are learning military doctrines kipole pole -something kalenjin done for 3,000 years since their time in khartoum guarding the meroe empire
I did some military simulation on my ARCGIS intergrated and found that Merus could attack and conquer Kalenjin counties in just 10 days then I did the ame for Kikuyus and found you will take 6-9 Months either way GEMA can easily subdue kalenjins and take over all their counties. We can put kalenjins in Turkana.
Merus would pour over Laikipia then appear in baringo south in 2 days then launch a major attack on ngalenjini from there avoiding conflict with Pokot and the rugged terrain in the inside
Fear Pokot? There wont be nay need to capture or pour resources in the arid areas where they roam this no need ro go there, we will concentrate on Kericho,Nandi and Uasin gishu not the kalenjin wastelands of the north.
Kalenjin have failed in military against shabaab, bandits and now Congo M23. Like I said coz you guys were cooks porters and drivers you basically career soldiers like Museveni says.
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Poriet-Ap-Jerman | 1st world war
Poriet-ap-Jerman (1914 -1918) saw many Kalenjin men of Nyongi age-set fighting in it. In this article we look at The Nandi experience.
Historians of the colonial period in Africa, and particularly of that phenomenon known as nationalism, have generally assessed the impact of military service During the world Wars. Somewhere in the Kenya Africans' collective experience in the war, whether from participating in small numbers with regular military units or in large numbers as porters in the Carrier Corps, lies the source of their first experiments in organized political activity.
In abbreviated form, then, this is the line of reasoning. Service in the King's African Rifles or the Carrier Corps during 1914-18 somehow inclined and equipped African veterans to become active nationalists; they became agents of modernisation and the organisers of political action.
The Nandi, having earned a reputation for their stiff resistance to British 'pacification', were heavily recruited for the K.A.R. during and after World War I, and supplied a higher percentage than did any other Kenyan people: roughly 10 per cent of the adult male population served in the army between 1914 and 1918. The absence of significant civilian contact with Europeans makes it easier to distinguish the results of military service in Nandi District from other external influences than elsewhere in Kenya where the European presence was more closely felt.
Finally, the social and political organisation of the Nandi helps to identify those who were old enough to have served in World War I. One important note of caution. This article speaks directly only to the experience of the Nandi.
The official records of the K.A.R. show that a total of 1,197 Nandi were recruited during the war. Before 1915, the largest number to have been employed outside the District since the establishment of British rule in 1905 was less than 200. The return of nearly 1,200 men to a population of approximately 40-50,000 at the end of the war might well be expected to have had a widely felt impact. This is especially true since they had received combat training in the K.A.R., as few Nandi were recruited for the Carrier Corps, and they had a long list of grievances against the colonial administration.
The surviving Nandi veterans interviewed in 1973 maintained, to a man, that they had been promised pensions by their officers; these they never received. Most of them also expressed dismay at the alienation of some 64,000 acres of good pastoral land in 1920 by the very Government they had just been serving with their efforts and their blood- indeed, some remembered that, in at least two cases, their own former officers had settled on the land taken from them.
To make matters worse, the new boundaries of the Nandi Reserve excluded several important salt licks to which they had been accustomed to driving their cattle. An additional cause for complaint was the restriction placed on the movement of cattle because of a rinderpest epidemic; the quarantine was in effect from 1919 to 1923, and regardless of the long-range benefits it might have had for their herds, this appeared to most Nandi as a capricious attempt by the Government to keep them from moving their cattle about the countryside. The embargo was particularly onerous because the Nandi were still required to pay their full taxes, although the sale of cattle to other peoples, particularly the Luo, had been their principal source of cash.
Finally, although this was not as important an issue as with the Kikuyu, the Nandi were angered by missionary attempts to abolish the practice of female circumcision. The Africa Inland Mission in the District provided a refuge for uncircumcised female converts who, because of their condition, were ineligible for marriage.
This was a source of consternation for veterans who were looking for wives, and for the fathers who were deprived of the customary bride wealth. All in all, the Nandi who returned from military service had good reason to believe that they were not about to be given the rewards they thought were their due and, even more crucial, that they were not going ' to be left alone' by the Europeans. How did these veterans respond to this situation?
Most of the K.A.R. veterans belonged to the Nyongi age-set which had been circumcised during the four-year period immediately preceding the war, and they had therefore left and returned unmarried. Military service did not significantly disrupt normal patterns in this area since the young men often waited several years after coming out of seclusion following circumcision before marrying. Almost all of the Nandi veterans took wives within a few years of their return, and more will be said about this below.
When questioned about how they were received back by their parents and contemporaries, the veterans were unanimous in declaring that they had been warmly welcomed, and had resumed without difficulty the positions in society which they had left. For their part, the ex-askari bore no resentment towards the men of their own age who had avoided conscription and, thereby, the hardships of military service. Some of the latter had acquired wives and cattle while the askari were slogging around Tanganyika and Mozambique, but the veterans expressed gratitude to them for looking after their cattle and other property while they were away.
Nor did the veterans have any difficulty in readjusting to traditional governance and its methods of assigning rank and privilege. They were able to leave behind a system in which importance hinged on the number of stripes a man wore, and re-immerse themselves in a society where age was the most significant determinant of status. Men who had been sergeants in the K.A.R. were willing to surrender their authority (which had been considerable) and revert to the traditional but relatively junior rank of those who had not yet attained the position of 'elders'.
There are many other indications of the shallowness of the westernisation of the Nandi veterans. They did not permanently adopt European styles of dress despite their years of experience. Most of the ex-askari said that they continued to wear their uniforms until they wore out, but thereafter had no interest in replacing them with other shirts and trousers. The only army item which really appealed to the veterans was the woollen overcoat, a useful substitute for the blankets that had begun to replace animal skins as the main clothing for Nandi men.
Elementary instruction in sanitation was offered during training to all K.A.R. askari. Several of those interviewed specifically recalled having been told the importance of well-constructed latrines as a step in the prevention of diseases, but no more than four were sufficiently impressed with the alleged benefits to bother digging one in their own compounds when they returned.
The indifferent success of missionaries with the Nandi veterans is still further evidence of their preference for traditional ways. It is difficult to separate the behaviour of the former soldiers from that of other Nandi with Technically, the K.A.R. was voluntarily recruited until 1917 when conscription was regard to attendance at the local mission stations (which was notably lower than for their agriculturalist neighbours); and certainly the experience of contact with Europeans and their ways did not lead those who had been in the army to adopt the western practice of going to church.
Nor did the veterans become agents of change as regards the introduction of new technology. For example, ploughs were introduced into Nandi District during the early 1920s, but being pastoralists at heart, and only half interested in farming, the Nandi were slow to adopt this new implement, although a few were accepted when they first appeared.
The veterans who commented on ploughs said that they had had no interest in them, and did not think they were a significant improvement on hoes. The same seems to have been the case with the use of windmills for pumping water. The inference to be drawn is that participation in the 1914-18 campaign did not, in itself, mean that the veterans would be in the vanguard of modernisation.
Fear Pokot? There wont be nay need to capture or pour resources in the arid areas where they roam this no need ro go there, we will concentrate on Kericho,Nandi and Uasin gishu not the kalenjin wastelands of the north.
Kalenjin have failed in military against shabaab, bandits and now Congo M23. Like I said coz you guys were cooks porters and drivers you basically career soldiers like Museveni says.
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Economic Issues
While the ex-askari did not receive the pensions expected, they did return to the District with their back wages. How they spent this money, in an area where cash was scarce, is a good index of the degree of their westernisation. Some of the men returned with as much as several hundred shillings, and by far the most common purchase was cattle, since nearly every veteran used part or all of his money for this purpose.
The second type of expenditure was closely related to the first. Some of the recently-purchased cattle, plus some cash, was used as bride wealth with which to marry. The third and markedly less common use of money was the acquisition of land on the fringes of the Reserve. In 1919, population pressure was mounting because the Government had alienated part of the Nandi Reserve, but it was not yet great enough to leave most men dissatisfied with the amount of land they would acquire by traditional means; some, however, did choose to use their new purchasing power to enlarge their holdings.
The ways in which the Nandi ex-askari spent their money is most significant. Their military experience and their contact with Europeans might have been expected to incline them towards consumer items. But the majority of veterans did not buy bicycles, watches, or even farming implements, suggesting not only that the Nandi are a generally conservative people, but also that the exposure to 'modern life' and to the products of European industries made far less of an impression on them than is often assumed. The cash acquired from Europeans was converted as quickly as possible into cattle -- the measure of wealth among the Nandi.
Perhaps the best test of the extent to which the Nandi veterans of World War I were westernised is the number who sought employment in the modern or cash sector of the economy. The popular assumption is that, having become accustomed to the benefits of a cash income, men with military experience would be the first to seek paid employment, but this cannot be verified for those from this part of Kenya who served in World War I.
Previously, relatively few Nandi had found the prospect of paid employment sufficiently alluring to leave in search of jobs. In 1914, an estimated 100 were employed outside the District -- this from a population of about 45,000. Nor did they take up jobs within the District when they became available. As early as 1909, the District Commissioner had noted the reluctance of the Nandi to seek any type of employment. While the number of men employed outside the District rose to 352 for 1915-16 and to 612 in 1916-17, by 1919 it had fallen again to 185.
The increase was largely in response to the wartime needs of the Protectorate and the demand for labour on European farms. The figure for 1919 was a return to the more normal pattern for the District. In the same year there were 157 in paid employment within the District. Thus in 1919, there were less than 350 Nandi men holding down non-military jobs. The approximately 1,700 Nandi who left during the war to serve in the military, or in some war-related occupation, constituted the first significant group to be employed outside the District.
Military service, through conscription and later through voluntary recruitment, was the only type of paid employment that continued to draw large numbers of Nandi out of their District. In 1922, the District Commissioner correctly ascribed the reluctance of the Nandi to leave voluntarily for civilian jobs to their unwillingness to move without their cattle. Military service continued to appeal to them after the war as a way to perpetuate the warrior tradition at a time when their customary raids against the cattle of their neighbours had been halted by the Government. But this did not make non-military employment attractive to the Nandi. While the K.A.R. (and later the Police) recruiters had no difficulty filling their quotas, the District Commissioner was hard put, in 1922, to produce 200 able-bodied young men to work on local road-building projects, and had to resort to conscripting them under the 'Native Authority Ordinance'.6
The only non-military activity for which the Nandi willingly left the District was to become squatters on the European farms around Kitale and Eldoret. Under a 1925 Ordinance, 'native resident labourers' entered into contracts with land owners which guaranteed them a plot of land for cultivation and building, and specified the number of animals they could graze on the farm.
In return, each squatter had an obligation to the land owner of 180 days of labour, although in some cases a small wage was also received. Becoming a squatter was appealing because the men could take their cattle with them, thereby gaining access to new grazing land. Indeed, G. W. B. Huntingford estimated that in 1933 there were as many as 12,000 approximately one quarter of all the Nandi - living on European farms outside the Reserve, mostly in Nandi, Uasin Gishu, and Trans-Nzoia Districts.
As squatters the Nandi had responsibility for the farm owner's cattle as well as their own. They generally brought their families with them, and, in many ways, lived more traditional lives than those who stayed in the District and were subject to the modernising influence of government and education in the years before and after World War II. Squatting remained the most important activity for the Nandi outside the Reserve for the entire post-war colonial period. In fact, the number who left their homes for this purpose continued to increase, especially during the 'Emergency' when European farmers dismissed Kikuyu squatters and replaced them with other resident labourers. Because of its close relationship to traditional Nandi patterns of life, squatting is not considered ' employment'.
Of the 52 veterans on whom data was obtained for this study, eight remained in the K.A.R. for at least 5-6 years after 1918,2 and of those, five had been non-commissioned officers and three had been privates. Of the other 44 men surveyed, 18 had held salaried jobs at one time or another during the period since they left the military, and the interesting point to note here is that 12 of these had been non-commissioned officers in the K.A.R.
There were only six men who had been privates who sought employment in non-military jobs after their demobilisation. Of the remaining 26 men who did not re-enlist and who did not take other jobs after the war, seven left the District to become squatters on European owned farms, while 19 returned to their own homes in the District and did not again work for a salary. Among this total of 26 men who left salaried employment for the last time at the end of the war, 21 had been privates.
If we examine the post-war occupations of these men in relation to the ranks, they held in the K.A.R. the following picture emerges. Of 30 privates three stayed on in the army, six found other employment, and 21 (70 per cent) did not again receive a salary. Of the 22 men who had been corporals or sergeants, five remained in the K.A.R., 12 (55 per cent) found other salaried positions, and five either stayed at home or became squatters.
It is clear from these figures that there was a significant difference between the experience of the men who had served as privates and those who had risen above that rank. The 55 per cent of the non-commissioned officers who held jobs following their discharge is very much above the proportion of the general Nandi public who did so. On the other hand, there was a marked propensity among the ex-privates to stay at home or to become squatters.
The latter tendency is the more significant since the majority of Kenya Africans who served in the K.A.R. did so as privates.3 Among the Nandi, only 20 per cent of the men who had been privates were again employed in any nonmilitary salaried occupation.
The reluctance of the Nandi who had served as privates, and of those who had not been in the army at all, to seek employment, was due not only to their desire to remain at home and care for their cattle, but also to the scarcity of jobs and the generally unattractive nature of those that were available in post-World War I Kenya.
The men who had been non-commissioned officers and who wanted to work for a salary found jobs as overseers or 'nyapara' on European-owned farms - sometimes in the employ of the same men who had been their officers in the K.A.R. The privates were likely to find employment only as the most menial labourers or as domestics. It is not altogether surprising that the District Commissioner in Kapsabet had great difficulty in finding 200 men willing to work on the roads in 1922.
With the possible exception of non-commissioned officers, military service during World War I does not appear to have equipped men with skills that were highly sought in the 'modern sector', such as it was in the 1920s. Most of the men had neither the desire nor the skills to become active in fashioning the economy of the new Kenya.
Political Issues
Following World War I, the small European civilian population, as well as the Government, was concerned about the possibility of armed insurrection among the indigenous peoples led by men just back from the war. They feared that the ex-askari would use their military skills to this end, and that sufficient firearms and ammunition had been collected to arm such a revolt.
In October 1919, for example, The Mombasa Times and East Coast Herald reported that an ex-askari had' run amok' in Mombasa with a gun and bullets left over from the war, and warned, 'That there are thousands of rounds of ·303 among the natives may be taken for granted as there was nothing to prevent its being obtained in the field in war times.'2 But the organised rebellion did not occur, at least not until after World War II, and the fears proved to be without foundation.
The absence of activism'-inspired political activity among the Nandi is easily established. Despite the numerous grievances outlined above, the veterans did not seek political solutions to their problems. Even the pension issue did not impel the Nandi to form any sort of coherent organisation. In 1920 or 1921, a few of the ex-askari of Kaptumo Location pooled their resources under the leadership of Sergeant Kabuson arap Korony to send one of their number to Nairobi to enquire of the colonial Government concerning the pensions.3 The representative is said to have had an interview with a bwana mkubwa and to have filled out many forms, but he returned to Nandi District without the money he had been sent to obtain. Nothing further was heard of this ad hoc group of veterans.
The most important reason for the lack of organisation was that the majority of Nandi veterans returned to their own homes and took up very much the same positions they had left some three or four years earlier. The obligations and ties they resumed were those to their families, their age grade, and their 'korotinwek'; the camaraderie of old soldiers and the common interests of veterans gave way to a man's traditional associations. The veterans did meet one another from time to time to discuss their pension problems, or to relive their military experiences around a pot of beer, but such gatherings were small and casual. The concept of a formal organisation of veterans either did not occur or did not appeal to them.
A few of the men who had served as non-commissioned officers in the K.A.R. joined the British Legion during the inter-war period. But those I spoke to could not define the benefits of membership beyond a medal that some of them still displayed on their coats or blankets. All veterans were eligible to join, but very few, if any, of the Nandi who had been privates chose to do so. By way of contrast, Okete Shiroya reports that the second generation of askari made several attempts to organise themselves, and that each time they were frustrated by the Government's refusal to register any association of ex-servicemen.
The only organisation legally available to World War II askari was the 'K.A.R. and East African (Kenya) Old Comrades Association', but most of the men who joined found that it in no way served their needs. One of the Europeans' greatest fears - and this is true of both World Wars -- was that they had lost prestige in the eyes of Africans. The concern was frequently expressed that blacks, having seen white men kill other white men, would sooner or later realise that they too could do the same. Writing of the 1939-45 war, Shiroya argues that military service did much to diminish the awe in which Europeans were held, because 'ex-askari had learned and observed that without modern technology, a European was no better than an African'.
But to make this argument is to suggest that Africans once regarded Europeans as superior, perhaps even as demi-gods (as is often enough suggested by Europeans writing on this question). The evidence, including armed primary resistance in many parts of the continent, and especially in Nandi, makes it seem very unlikely that this was ever the case. Rather, Africans have always recognised that, save for 'modern technology', they could equal whites in combat.
The problem was that for a long time the 'modern technology' was available only to whites. Thus the deference that Africans showed, which some Europeans took as awe and respect, was a recognition of their relative powerlessness in the face of advanced technology.
It follows that service in either war might confirm that Europeans were mortal, but there is no evidence that this proposition was ever in doubt. The main difference is that the askari in World War I underwent little exposure to the machinery of modern fighting, whereas those in World War II acquired a detailed knowledge of military technology.
The only time during the inter-war period that any Nandi were accused of anti-Government political activity was in 1923 when the so-called 'Nandi uprising' occurred. This incident, which has been discussed in some depth recently, was either an attempt by the Nandi to carry out their traditional handing-over ceremony (saket-ap-eito), or a plot by the Orkoiyot and his henchmen to drive the British out of the country.1 I have argued elsewhere that there is no evidence for the latter charge, but the District Commissioner, G. Castle-Smith, believed that a Nandi ex-askari, one arap Tamo, was behind this 'uprising'. The Provincial Commissioner, H. R. Montgomery, investigated and found no validity in such an allegation. None the less, Castle-Smith arrested the Orkoiyot and deported him to Meru, thereby quashing the 'uprising'. The point here is that not only was the District Commissioner mistaken, but that this event is the sole instance in which the Nandi were accused of anti-Government activity.
Veterans were conspicuously missing from all forms of politics in Nandi District. At least during the 1920s, no ex-askari was a member of the only quasi-legislative body on which Africans could sit in the inter-war period, namely the Local Native Council. There were six Government-appointed chieftaincies in the District, but during the entire period between 1919 and the outbreak of World War II only one ex-askari served as a chief. There is no record of any protest from veterans that they were not sufficiently represented - their interests were not distinguishable from those of the rest of the population.
Nor did veterans become disproportionately involved in traditional politics. The role of the Orkoiyot and his colleagues (orkoiik) was clearly political as well as religious. But these offices were restricted to members of the Talai clan who were descended from Barsabotwo, the original Maasai Laibon who had been incorporated into Nandi society in the mid-nineteenth century. The Talai clan remained quite separate from the others and its members did not serve in the K.A.R. As a result, none of the ex-askari became orkoiik after the war.
Traditional Nandi governance is a matter of balancing interests over which the elders have final jurisdiction. When the Nyongi reached the age at which it fell to them to assume this role, the veterans were in no way differentiated from others of their age grade. These findings should raise some questions about the generally accepted assumption that African participation in World War I was necessarily a stimulus to modernisation and political activity. It is appropriate, by way of contrast, to close by looking again at the consequences of military service in World War II.
Generalising from the Nandi experience, it appears that far from turning Africans into anti-Government radicals as some had feared, military service in the 1914-18 campaign had little measurable effect on the politics of Kenya in the inter-war period. In fact, if their military experience had any influence on the veterans at all it may have been conservative rather than modernising. Though some Africans who served in the 'Great War remained bitter about the treatment they had received, and the Government's failure to provide a pension. See less
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Pundit you can put entire libraries of books here but won't change the simple facts have always mentioned.
And yes we Merus will overun Nandi in just 3 days throw you into Turkana or baringo, we will let Plato and his kin keep Kericho after 9 months of fighting :)
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Nthaka: The Warriors
During the late 1700s and most of the 1800s, the Meru-speaking peoples endured an era of internecine war.[2] Twice yearly, at the beginning of each dry season, warrior bands set off from every ridgetop to raid the livestock of adjacent areas. Raiding was universal, continuing until onset of the rains. The prize was livestock, particularly cattle, as well as the chance for every warrior to earn not only glory but also wives. As a result every Meru male spent his entire youth in preparation for the warrior years, and every Meru community lived in constant expectation of attack.
Yet, although totally militarized, the Meru waged sharply limited forms of war. Every conceivable type of military action was regulated by a rigid but universally accepted series of military conventions ("ancestral traditions"), intended both to provoke the violence necessary for successful livestock rustling and limit it at levels tolerable to the society as a whole.
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Pundit Merus remain still totally militarized to this day, just need training in modern day arms and equipment and thats it, Your 10 acre farm in bomet is in my hands by evening.
Pundit one the reason a community becomes totally militarized like the Meru or Israel is because of their small numbers and having to neighbour more populous communities. Due to this Merus would wage very intelligent warfare strike at communities and destroy them before they could raise numbers to attack them, especially after the rainy season was a Meru favourite for attack, we would appear in the morning hours while you farmed or herded cattle to graze in the long grass then simply beheaded you and threw you into the Dustbin of history :)
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Meru warfare tactics were employed against the British in the Mau Mau war. Merus unlike Kikuyus didn't openly attack the British when Marshal Mwariama tried to attack the British openly in Garbatulla with 500 men he was mowed down by canon, heavy artillery and machine fire survivors were further bombed by Lincoln bombers for 2 days only handful survived. Mwariama resulted back To Meru war tactics.On the contrary General Baimungi Marete always employed specialized units in hit and runs which proved very successful. Meru warfare tactics actually indicate why Many Meru Mau Mau survived the war and evaded capture as opposed to Kikuyus.
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Meru temperament will exclude you from army. You'll get all killed.
You cannot be a warrior until you control your anger. You need to be disciplined, cool, calm, collected and not given to emotions.
That is most important training. Kalenjin do this in MTC. Military training do this.
Meru warfare tactics were employed against the British in the Mai Mau war. Merus unlike Kikuyus didn't openly attack the British when Marshal Mwariama tried to attack the British openly in Garbatulla with 500 men he was mowed down by canon and machine fire survivors were further bombed by Lincoln bombers for 2 days only handful survived. Mwariama resulted back To Meru war tactics.On the contrary General Baimungi Marete always employed specialized units in hit and runs which proved very successful. Meru warfare tactics actually indicate why Many Meru Mau Mau survived the war and evaded capture as opposed to Kikuyus.
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Njuri - you copied alot of things from Samburus and Maasai - but you didnt copy the most important - self-control/discipline.
You allow emotions to control you.
That in our place is considered childish.
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Maasai omitted critical lessons.
An equivalent seclusion pattern for both boys and girls during the process of performing rites of passage was noted amongst the Maasai people of Kenya and Tanzania, in the East African region. For the Maasai youth, community education and physical initiation (circumcision and clitoridectomy) was mandatory as a rite of passage for both boys and girls before marriage. According to Sifuna (1986: 171), after circumcision, boys were grouped into sets of warrior hood or “Limurran” where they learned social skills, duties and responsibilities as adapted members of the Maasai culture.
Personal discipline, self-control and respect for one another especially in age sets were strong virtues. Indeed, peers in an age-set group among the Maasai perceived each other as a “blood brother” and by extension, what belonged to one belonged to the other. That is why it is argued that Maasai members of one age group in their future life could “share wives”, that is, if a member came to his house and found a spear placed near the door, outside, he would know that warrior hood brother was inside performing conjugal rights.