Traveling with the Rendille
Text and photography by Jeffrey DeKock, Class of 2001, Calvin College
Minds in the Making

Hundreds of years ago, a tired and weary group of travelers reached the edge of a great lake. After a long journey across the desert, fueled by the hope of a bright future in a new land, they found themselves trapped at the water's edge. Knowing no way to cross the vast sea and unable to turn back to the dangerous land behind them, they knew that only a miracle could save them.

Fortunately, a parting of the great lake had been foretold. When Moses had gathered the Israelites at the shore of the Red Sea it took but the whisper of God and the lifting of a rod to separate it. This was not the Red Sea, however, and this day a mortal offering was required.

What was required from this East African nomadic tribe, as the Rendille tell the story, was the life of a male warrior from its most powerful family, the Galborans. As the prophets had foretold, only his death would cause the waters to split. The chosen warrior named Inam (meaning son of Galboran), having embarked with his kinsmen on what would later be called The Great Trek, was not going to let a mere lake hinder their journey across the northern deserts of Kenya. A new home was needed, and a new home they would get.

God had already performed many miracles on this trek, the Rendille say: He had made the full moon stand still one night to light their journey and had converted sand into food when none else was available. Yet Inam knew that God had promised more, and that he would not betray them. And so he handed his most prized possession, a spear, to his friend, and asked that it be offered to his mother as a parting gift. With that final gesture he waded out into the sea. With what seemed like only a few steps the water had already reached his neck. "Now is the time," he uttered to himself. Slowly he lowered his head under the water. Only with his death would the waters part. With his last few breaths on earth, the great Galboran warrior prayed that his people would find their destined homeland and that it would be a safe place of abundant growth and unending promise. As the waters closed in on his life, the great sea began to separate, forming a trail that would lead his people home.

A year later, Inam's family and friends, who would forever after refer to him as Leebagoche (meaning savior), did find a home. It was a dry and desolate place located in the heart of Northern Kenya's Chalbi desert. Five hundred years later, they are still there. They call themselves the Rendille (meaning the People of God). However, what their ancestors had prayed and hoped for that night on the lake's shore has only partially been fulfilled.

The Rendille area, covering a few hundred square miles, is set at the center of seven warring tribal groups, most of whom outnumber and out-arm the Rendille. Their territory is prone to thievery by these rival tribes, and their main source of survival-camels-are often stolen away in the night. Warriors from these tribes attack with stealth and speed, and hundreds of camels can be lost in a matter of hours. It is not just animals that are lost on these raids; human blood is often shed as well. The safety Inam prayed for has not come. Nor has the abundance.

The relentless beating of the sun, irregular rains, and regular droughts have often led to food shortages. This endangers the population and also pushes the camels-and the majority of the male population who protects them-to more fertile grounds, grounds that often bring them closer to their enemy's greedy eye.

Safe and abundant it is not. But promising? Perhaps.

Just a few decades ago, due to these tribal wars and regional famines, the Rendille population had dropped to around 28,000. Since then, however, they have gathered strength, stabilized the region, and brought their number up to nearly 60,000. They were able to accomplish this in two very different ways: marriage and machine guns.

A hundred miles from their home village, a dozen young Rendille men, identifiable by their necklaces of carved roots symbolizing their uncircumcised state, herd camels in a scarce patch of green land. Just a few hundred meters from them walk the warrior class. Wearing little but beads around their necks, these young adults traverse the desert barefoot. Swinging from their shoulders are AK-47's.

Years ago, the Kenyan government, acknowledging the tribe's dwindling numbers, made one of its rare visits to this area to provide guns-which had banned since colonial rule-for the Rendille. For years the Rendille had been heavily out-armed by neighboring tribes whose land reached or crossed into neighboring nations, where the international arms trade was flourishing. The Kenyan government's influence is extremely weak in the region, and rather than attempt to disarm any of the other tribes, supplying guns to the Rendille community was their best answer. Thankfully, it has worked.

Competitively armed, and with all sides fearing the bullet, the tribes, with the continued push of some local NGO's (non-governmental organizations), have largely cut down their camel raiding and killing. It was once a sign of manhood to steal camels or cattle; men now compete instead in sporting events such as racing and wrestling to impress their women and prove their strength, dexterity, and speed.

With the borders safe and the herds protected, another major shift in the Rendille way of life has happened: men are being called home early to marry.

Traditionally, only an adult was permitted to marry, and to attain adult status, one had to complete twelve years as a warrior and before that, at least twelve years as an uncircumcised boy. Due to this prescribed late marrying age, and the harsh desert conditions that cause a high mortality rate, the Rendille elders knew that if a change was not made, their population would continue to diminish and risk vanishing completely. And so, for the past twenty years, the warriors have been invited back early to marry. Now the population is steadily growing.

Early one morning, on what was soon to be a hot and dry summer day, one of these early returning warriors awoke me to announce his plans to wed. His hair was died red with ochre, his head covered with feathers, and his body with beads and small metal ornaments. He spoke excitedly about the wedding that was soon to take place.

It would be a two-day ceremony, like all Rendille weddings, comprised of several traditional events. First, camels would be paid to the bride's family as a dowry. While the playfully heated negotiations between fathers took place-negotiations which always ended with the same price: eight camels-the women would build a home for the newlyweds. Made of branches, goat skin, twine, and more recently, cardboard boxes, the would be constructed near the Naboo, a sacred circle where the male elders meet each night around a fire to make decisions for the village and to pray for the fertility of the new couple. After all, a child was expected within a year.

After explaining these and the many other details of the wedding and boasting of his bride's beauty, the groom and his best friend headed off into the desert sands with plans to arrive at the bride's family encampment by evening. It would be a 30-mile walk, an easy journey for a Rendille, but alas, a walk I knew my non-nomadic legs would never be able to complete.

Thankfully, there was plenty for me to do in the village I was staying in. I had been there almost two weeks, guest of a nearby town chief, and each day brought me closer to a way of life I no longer thought existed.

I had begun my journey to visit the Rendille two weeks before, with a long and grueling two-day trek down 300 miles of dirt road, crammed into the back seat of a petrol tanker. As sour, tired, and sick as I was when we finally arrived, I had been lucky. Most people travel this route riding not in the cab of a truck, but on top of it.

As we exited the truck, those who had ridden on the top shook the layers of dirt from their clothes and faces, and as the dust settled I received my first glimpse of a world long forgotten. Naked children ran through streets of dirt while old men huddled in the shrinking shade of the midday sun, beating their staffs on the ground to emphasize the validity of their latest argument. Women wrapped in dyed cloths and wearing beautiful beads in dozens of colors carried bright yellow jugs of water on their backs into their homes. These homes were circular and small, and made of sticks and various other materials that before that day I would only have described as trash.

The first home we visited in this new and bewildering place belonged to the grandmother of my friend, guide, and translator Asaaska. She was a frail but vivacious woman who talked constantly and to my surprise, granted me permission to photograph her. She was one of the first traditionally dressed women I had been allowed to photograph and I began taking dozens of shots. But with the difficult lighting conditions inside the dark hut, I had to take a variety of shots to get the picture I wanted. By the twentieth picture she spat on the floor and asked her granddaughter if "that thing"-the camera-was killing her. I assured them both that it was not, but what I did not realize was that although I was not killing her, I was causing problems for her funeral.

I began to understand the implications of photographing her a few days later while returning from a neighboring village. We had passed a large pile of stones about seven feet long and four feet wide surrounded by a pile of thorny branches. I had heard about these graves, but seeing one was not what I expected. To my surprise it was littered with trash. The wind had lodged, among other things, a plastic bottle and plastic bag into the cracks of the larger stones. I knew that a wise and respected elder lay beneath these stones and so I suggested to Asaaska that we clean it up. She was so flustered by the fact that I had just photographed the grave, that she could barely get out the words to tell me to leave it alone. Death, I was slowly learning, was altogether different here.

Under such harsh conditions, death often comes early for the Rendille. But if it comes too early it is not the sad and mournful event one might expect. It is a shameful one. If a child or warrior dies, from whichever of the many possible causes, they are simply left out in the desert to be swallowed up by the sand, or more likely, ripped to pieces by the hyenas. Once they are gone, their name will never be mentioned again. Ever. As far as everyone is concerned, they never existed. To die young is to be weak, and to be weak is to be forgotten.

For a Mzee, a village elder, like the one buried in this grave, death is a more admirable thing. However, it comes with the same consequences: to be erased from memory. His people will bury him under a pile of rocks at the center of their village, and after the laying of the last stone they will pack up all of their belongs and move to a new place, never to return. But the possessions of the deceased will not be taken along. Most, like photographs and personal belongings, will be buried with the body, while more useful things like clothes and weapons will be given to strangers. In the end, not one single thing of his will remain within the group, and like all of his ancestors before him, no one will ever again mention his name.

By taking these photos I have added a strange dimension to the Rendille traditions. But I am not the first-and certainly will not be the last-to arrive in their culture with modern technology and Western values. In fact, Coca-Cola had long preceded my trip. Having eaten primarily camel meat and cabbage washed down with salty water for nearly two weeks, I was thoroughly surprised, and utterly delighted, to be treated to a Coke at one of my last meals.

But this was only one of many surprises. I also remember walking through one of the villages and finding a sticker for Arsenal, England's premiere soccer team, stuck to the side of a goatskin dwelling. The infiltration of Western culture into Rendille villages has not been one-way, however. The Rendille have also been searching it out on their own, and this has not come without difficultly. Even in the bustling capital city of Nairobi, where many Rendille have come in search of work, their ancient traditions have not escaped them.

For these few who have reached the paved streets of Kenya's modern society and been granted access to its schools, their traditions have held them back, and they often find themselves turning down a road with a dead end-the Kenyan Government. To obtain a passport, for example, one must prove family residence in Kenya for at least three generations. The Rendille, despite having lived on the land for more than 500 years, have buried all their proof. Furthermore, even the most sympathetic government officials can only respond with frustration when a Rendille refuses to utter the name of their own grandparents. For some Rendille, having lost their grandparents during childhood and not speaking of them since, they do not even remember their names. Often the parents refuse to remind them.

The Rendille have overcome these and other barriers. Many men have gone to school and university in Kenya, and a few have even moved abroad. Even the women, long repressed and kept out of school due to their perceived inferiority, have moved up as well. In fact, just two years ago, the first Rendille woman ever to complete university graced the graduation stage.

But their fight is far from over. Women, such as my guide Asaaska, fight long uphill struggles against various women's rights issues like literacy (currently at less than 1%) and female circumcision (practiced by 99.7% of the population).

Although some of these battles have been won, there are others constantly emerging, most recently those caused by the trappings of modern society. In the mid 1980s a massive famine struck Ethiopia and most of Northern Kenya. A camera crew from Catholic Relief Services arrived to shoot a film to raise awareness and funds for relief efforts. Unable to get permission from then-dictator Haile Salassie to film in Ethiopia, they opted instead for the dry Kenyan desert. The Rendille landscape made a dramatic background for the film. But along with their cameras the crew brought in something else: alcohol.

When the crew left, their home was converted into the region's first bar and the Rendille, who had assisted the filmmakers and who had been paid in beer, were its first customers. The village of Korr stands at a major natural water sources, which has long quenched the thirst of the local camels. Now it is a new type of watering hole. Youth have taken to drinking early and are often found at the bar rather than at school or out with the herds. Fueled by alcohol and stories of the West, many parents feel the youth have undermined the customary parental authoritarian relationship and have ignored traditional lifestyles.

Then there is miraa. A leaf with intoxicating properties, miraa can be chewed to achieve a wide-eyed, relaxed state. The allure of alcohol and miraa has led to many youth refusing to live in the desert and travel with the camels; they prefer to loiter around the nearby town centers looking for work or people to hassle. As in most societies where restlessness and resentment inflict the youth, crime is becoming increasingly commonplace.

The greatest struggle facing the Rendille today is in education. Schools have been established in the area, due in large part to two South African missionaries living in the region, but funding for them is practically non-existent. Lying too far north in the already forgotten region of Kenya, even World Vision and Compassion International do not support schools this remote. Most recently, violence has erupted in these schools. A series of shootings and reprisal killings has taken place due to years of tribal scuffles and political struggles. Two weeks before I arrived the region had been on lockdown after three Rendille school girls had been found tortured in a nearby village. Weeks later, a neighboring tribe would lose ninety children and teachers in a brutal massacre. The Red Cross has now moved in for the first time since the famine of the 1980s and the area has become stable. Food supplies are being brought in and peace negations have taken place. But the endemic struggle of humans against nature, and humans against humans, goes on.

And tomorrow, like every other day, the Rendille will rise with the sun and pour milk out of their huts as a libation to their ancestors and to God. On that brisk cool morning they will wonder what will come next for their people, and they will pray to God for a protection that only he can grant. But they will never know if crime and war will keep their distance.

In the afternoon the men will gather beneath the branches of a sacred tree, and under its shade they will hope that the rains come this year and they will pray that their land and animals will provide. But they will never know if a drought is just around the corner. And that evening as they huddle around the fire in the sacred Naboo circle with the night closing in on them, they will wonder if the schools will still be open tomorrow and they will pray for the prosperity of their children. But they will never know if aid will arrive or if instead ever encroaching modernity will, engulfing their people and wiping away their ancient traditions forever.

The Rendille have come a long way since gathering on the shores of that great lake five hundred years ago. But today, many questions remain unanswered, many hopes unfulfilled, many struggles not yet won. And unlike the parting of that sea, what will become of the Rendille in the next five hundred years has not been foretold.

About the Author

Jeff DeKock is a Calvin College alumnus and former adjunct professor of communications at Trinity Christian College in Palos Heights, Illinois, and at Daystar University in Athi River, Kenya. He is currently pursuing postgraduate studies in Visual Anthropology at the University of Manchester in England.

If you are interested in learning more about the Rendille or in supporting their literacy or educational programs please contact the author at <jeffdekock [at] yahoo [dot] com>.

Back to Top