The Nandi in transition: background to Nandi resistance to the British 1895-1906

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Periodical article

Title:	The Nandi in transition: background to Nandi resistance to the British 1895-1906
Author:	Gold, Alice E.
Year:	1978
Periodical:	Kenya Historical Review
Volume:	6
Issue:	1-2
Pages:	84-104
Language:	English
Geographic term:	Kenya
Subjects:	Nandi (Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania) anticolonialism
Abstract:	This paper examines the economic and political changes which the Nandi experienced in the second half of the 19th century. By the 1880's, they had arrived at the height of their wealth in livestock and their military power. But the growth in wealth and power had affected the Nandi differentially. Dissimilar and occasionally conflicting aims and interests had developed within Nandi society; pastoralists versus cultivators, elders versus warriors. Tatu, when the Nandi suddenly experienced a series of naral disasters in the 1880's their economy as well as their internal political unity was temporarily destroyed. The British presence which began in 1895 came to be viewed as one more serious threat to their precarious position, but at the same time provided incentive for greater political unity. The conflict, which is examined only briefly here, began as a series of isolated encounters with neither side knowing its adversary. But as the British became increasingly aware of how the Nandi fit into their East African imperial interests, myths surrounding the Nandi (warlike, truculent, thievish, etc.) came to be used to justify the destruction of their economy and political structure. Notes. Maps.