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.
Topic: I will conquer Kericho (Read 2537 times)