Abstract
In 2009, an extreme drought devastated herds of livestock and wildlife across southern Kenya and impacted local livelihoods. For local Maasai pastoralists, this event was both unprecedented and perceived as part of a trend in increasing climatic instability. In this chapter, I contextualize Maasai pastoralists’ experiences of this extreme drought by examining their climatological and meteorological knowledge, and how it informed their interpretations of the drought. Based on mixed-methods research, including visual ethnography, I first examine Maasai perceptions of recent and current climatic conditions in Kajiado and Narok counties, and their weather forecasting expertise (which includes observation of fauna and flora). Second, I explore Maasai observations of biodiversity changes associated with climatic changes. I do so by analyzing images of unusual animal behavior photographed during the 2009 drought by Maasai agropastoralists who acted as collaborative researchers and photographers. Across both counties and over a decade, perceptions of evolving climatic variability feature longer dry seasons, more intense rains and droughts, altered spatial and temporal rainfall patterns, and the notion that traditional forecasting knowledge is increasingly irrelevant as weather events and indicators are no longer synchronized. The 2009 drought was not predicted and, as my collaborators documented in photography, caused animals to behave strangely and in unprecedented ways, e.g., letting themselves be touched by people, entering settlements, and dying of starvation. This participatory visual research project resulted in unexpectedly rich, fine-grained information on local drought impacts and on human and nonhuman coping, which was later shared with the community and local policy-makers. Importantly, the participatory process fostered critical debate on future livelihood options under climate change among the project participants and their local audience.
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Notes
- 1.
For Amboseli Maasai pastoralists, independently of how they feel about specific wildlife species, people, their livestock, and wild animals have always “stayed together” on the same land, all being part of God’s creation (Enkai naitayuo) (Roque de Pinho 2009).
- 2.
Enkang, pl. inkangitie: homesteads composed of several households that may (or not) be family related.
- 3.
Rutten (2016) mentions emperi as another drought category, corresponding to a long-lasting drought (more than a year) featuring drying of water holes, long-distance migration of animals, and massive deaths of domestic and wild animals. This would correspond to the 2009 drought, but for my informants, the 2009 drought was emboot. Rutten (2016) suggests that the term emperi is less known among younger pastoralists, partly because food relief nowadays prevents human casualties.
- 4.
Drought somewhere may be “lack of drought” elsewhere: in 2002–2004, the fact that my informants living in the northern part of the study area continuously complained of drought was gently mocked by my friends in the south, who saw them as actually spoiled by an abundance of good pastures that did not exist further south.
- 5.
Amboseli NP is a 392 km2 unfenced protected area created in 1974.
- 6.
That is, Imbirikani, Olgulului-Lolarrash, and Osilalei group ranches. Group ranches are ranches collectively owned by a group of registered Maasai household heads.
- 7.
Maasai sections (olosho, pl. iloshon) are historically politically autonomous territorial units with their own celebration of ceremonies, architecture, dress, and linguistic specificities.
- 8.
Olmarei, pl. ilmareta (“family”; Mol 1996: 245) is conventionally used as meaning “household” although there is no single word in Maa (the Maasai language) that corresponds to “household.” Household are considered to include a husband (or a widow), his wife/wives, children, and other economically dependent persons.
- 9.
I interviewed community organizers, research assistants, political leaders, elders, church leaders, conservation practitioners, tourism business owners, a nurse who is also a balloon pilot, and performers at cultural villages. Some of these men and women participated in the participatory filmmaking project that resulted in an award-winning participatory documentary “Maasai Voices on Climate Change (and other changes, too)” (2013) (available here: https://vimeo.com/73980798).
- 10.
See chapter by Galvin et al. in this book for additional information on the Pastoralist Transformations to Resilient Futures research project.
- 11.
More information on the participatory research process is available in the documentary “Through our Eyes: a Maasai Photographic Journey” (2010), by Lindsay Simpson and Joana Roque de Pinho: https://vimeo.com/29026437. This project resulted in two photo exhibits, collaboratively curated by the Maasai photographers, in the USA.
- 12.
Evolving human-wildlife relationships was the focus of my previous research in the area (Roque de Pinho 2009).
- 13.
Permanent homestead: Emparnat, pl. imparnati.
- 14.
The remainder of Imbirikani GR is communally managed.
- 15.
This was pre-smartphone time. In contrast, in 2011 in the Mara, some Maasai collaborators were using smartphones.
- 16.
We debated the topics of authorization to shoot and publish images, informed consent, reciprocity, and danger of taking pictures for both photographers and their subjects. All the photographers signed consent forms granting me the right to display their photographs in photo exhibits for noncommercial purposes and to publish them in scientific and nonscientific publications.
- 17.
Further key ethical considerations included distributing printed pictures to all their authors and them giving a second copy to each person appearing in their pictures. At the end of the project, the photographers became the owners of the cameras they had used, as well as of other equipment they had used collectively (i.e., tripods, extra lenses, battery chargers etc.).
- 18.
This was usually independent of the degree of photographic skill involved. Some of the conventionally “worst” pictures had very elaborated narratives.
- 19.
I thank Lindsay Simpson (and the Center for Collaborative Conservation at Colorado State University that funded her trip) for filming the meetings and transcribing the videos’ soundbites.
- 20.
I am grateful to Nicolas Tapia and Lindsay Simpson for transcribing interviews from the Maasai Mara (2011).
- 21.
A conflation between weather and God also exists among Mongolian pastoralists (Marin 2009).
- 22.
See the video “Of God, Rain and Motorbikes” (2013): https://vimeo.com/65117460
- 23.
Reflecting the symbolic association between rain and fertility, a form of blessing consists in gentle spitting on someone’s face or hands.
- 24.
This analogy between changing rainfall and people’s politics is particularly poignant. In this elder’s home area, i.e., the subdivided and privatized Osilalei GR, drastic changes have impacted people’s lives, with land privatization blamed for increasing selfishness, isolation, enmity among neighbors, and alcohol consumption. Elsewhere in Amboseli, people have complained about increasingly aggressive clan-based politics, land grabbing, and corruption (Roque de Pinho 2009).
- 25.
The sample size varies according to interview question because not all 192 informants answered all the questions.
- 26.
In more mesic Osilalei GR, in the north of the Amboseli ecosystem, cultivation is rain fed.
- 27.
In the words of a junior elder, “There is a Maasai saying: drought is happy when people are separated in many places” (Amboseli, 2003).
- 28.
Boma: fence (Swahili); understood as homestead when used in English speech.
- 29.
When speaking in English, my Maasai interlocutors frequently used “rain” as both subject and verb in the same sentence.
- 30.
See also the participatory documentary by Maasai pastoralists in Talek “Maasai Voices on Climate Change (and other changes, too)” (2013; 10 minutes): https://vimeo.com/73980798
- 31.
This is also illustrated in the participatory documentary “Maasai Voices on Climate Change (and other changes, too)” (2013).
- 32.
In the Mara, cattle births were synchronized with the short rains. Recently, calves are being born during prolonged dry seasons, which hurts the mothers.
- 33.
This includes ritually slaughtering sheep and cattle of holy colors (asajaki Enkai). Other rituals performed when rains fail include naked pregnant women, young girls and men wearing sheep skins and carrying milk and beer (as fertility symbols) walking over pastures to bless the land, and women’s fertility songs and dances (holding green grass) (Roque de Pinho et al. 2009). Certain elders would also lie naked in dams to invite rainfall. “Now, it is shameful to do these things, now you just go to church” explained an elder in Amboseli (2002–2004); “these things mostly stopped with the Iseuri age-set” (i.e., men now in their 70s).
- 34.
Also, as explained by a senior elder, “[This year, 2011], we didn’t get the long rains, the loonkokua. The Onkokua (the Pleiades) are supposed to rise at the beginning of the rains. And then they descend. This year, they went down and it was still dry. There was no really long rains. Only short rain for a few days and then again a few days and then it stopped.”
- 35.
Ostriches (esidai, pl. isidan, “the beautiful one”) have a special significance in Maasai culture (Roque de Pinho 2009).
- 36.
Oloibon, pl. iloibonok: ritual experts with divinatory powers.
- 37.
Described as “regular people with that natural power,” they are the same experts who predict “to the day” when women will give birth (Field notes, 2002–2004) and translate the speech of hyenas, coming mostly from the Ilkisikon subclan of the Ilatayiok clan (Field notes, 2009). One of them, in Kalesirua, was famous: “Menye Isaiah [Father of Isaiah] used to read goat intestines. He’d say ‘this is dangerous, no rain this time’ or ‘people, get ready, lots of rain coming’ or ‘rain is coming and also a worm problem.’ He was very specific!” (Project photographer, Richard ole Supeet, 2009).
- 38.
In the Mara, the Ilnyankusi age-set members (i.e., men now in their 80s) are reputed to be the last ones to know some signs.
- 39.
“Amboseli” derives from empusel: dry, parched land.
- 40.
Cultivated plots (Swahili).
- 41.
Olmurrani, pl. ilmurran: “the circumcised ones,” known as “warriors.”
- 42.
In the Mara, hyenas are also said to have benefitted from the 2009 drought: “That time was a feast for the hyenas: they really fattened (Maasai female community organizer).
- 43.
Crop by-products fed to livestock included maize stalks and cobs (powdered and made into porridge), onion stalks, and bean leaves.
- 44.
This chapter contains many quotes by this photographer, Daniel Koisinget, as he was a prolific, detail-oriented informant. He is the oldest in the photographers’ group (in his 50s). A respected leader of several community organizations, he became the dedicated chairman of the Maasai Photographers for Conservation, the association the photographers created at the end of the project. During the project, he took almost no pictures but extensively facilitated debate among the photographers and contributed in-depth information. The participatory photography approach was interesting in that it brought to the fore my collaborators’ contrasting skills.
- 45.
Kaputei, Kangere, and Matapato are neighboring Maasai sections (iloshon).
- 46.
Mzee, pl. wazee (Swahili): elder, old man.
- 47.
Other examples, among others: 1980 is “the season of the rats” (Olari loondero) after rodents that ate grass and people’s stored food; 1997–1998 is Olari lenkare: “the season of the water,” named after El Niño rains.
- 48.
In contrast, a drought situation in 2003 in Amboseli was allegedly resolved by a sheep sacrifice (the preparation of which I witnessed). It rained shortly thereafter.
- 49.
The resolution of some images is low because of some cameras’ low quality. No image was improved. Some pictures by different authors represented the same “story,” so I was able to choose the most representative one.
- 50.
In another instance, elephants were photographed inside a settlement at night. However, the photographer was (fortunately) too distant for the camera’s flash to reach it and allow for a clear picture.
- 51.
For instance, photographer Naomi ene Jackson used her picture of skinny “desperate cows” waiting for women to feed them maize stalks to argue that, contrary to Maasai men’s usual downplaying of women’s livestock rearing competence, “in this drought, it is the mamas who saved the cows, not the men.”
- 52.
See the Maasai Voices on Climate Changes (and other changes, too) (2013) participatory documentary for youth perspectives on those strategies.
- 53.
Kenya Wildlife Service et al. (2009) noted the movements of buffalos, zebras, and wildebeests into the Amboseli swamps as signs of an unprecedented drought.
- 54.
This is believed to elicit jealousy in onlookers and thus bad luck through “having eyes” (evil eye).
- 55.
This also came as a surprise because, given the tough conditions and people’s high levels of stress, I had expected that people would not want nor would have the time to participate and thus that the project would fail. Instead, the project elicited widespread enthusiasm, which suggests the appeal of visual and participatory approaches.
- 56.
Traditionally, Maasai pastoralists distinguish endaa enkishu (food from the cow) and endaa enkop (food from the land), the former being much more appreciated than the latter.
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Acknowledgments
A Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) postdoctoral fellowship (SFRH/BPD/108780/2015) enabled my affiliation to the Centro de Estudos Internacionais (Instituto Universitário de Lisboa - ISCTE-IUL) (UID/CPO/03122/2013) and funded data analysis and the writing of this chapter. I am grateful to the following institutions for supporting my research in Maasailand over the years: the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (PRAXIS XXI/BD/19669/99; SFRH/BPD/43242/2008); USAID’s Global Livestock Collaborative Research Support Program; the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, and the Fundação Luso-Americana para o Desenvolvimento. The participatory photography project was funded by a Center for Collaborative Conservation Fellowship (2009–2010) at Colorado State University. The Ice Care Project (Portugal) funded a post-drought visit to Amboseli in December 2009. Critical insights came from my dedicated Kalesirua research collaborators (and the Kalesirua community who encouraged their efforts). Their names are Naomi ene Jackson, Panian ole Kakami, Susan Lenet, Ismael ole Karori, Joshua ole Kasaine, Simeon ole Kasaine, Joshua ole Katapa, Noah ole Kilelo, Rafael Kiroyian, Kipaa ole Kitisia, Daniel ole Koisinget, Jackson and Kilowa ole Korduni, Richard ole Supeet, Lois ene Lanet, Shadrack ole Metui, Isaac and Solomon ole Mutunkei, Josephat Mutuko, Malano ole Nkampus, Peter ole Nkoyo, Daudi Oloomoni, Johnson ole Pilenaanka, Musa and Joseph ole Shenaai, and Solitei ole Supeet. Ashe naleng! I also thank Hewlett-Packard (Fort Collins, USA) and many individual contributors for donating a wealth of electronic and photographic equipment that remained with the photographers. The Maasai Mara study was part of the Pastoral Transformations to Resilient Futures: Understanding Climate from the Ground Up project, funded by the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Collaborative Research on Adapting Livestock Systems to Climate Change at Colorado State University and the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS). This chapter has benefitted from the comments of two anonymous reviewers, as well as from insights had while participating in COST Action Drylands Facing Change: Interdisciplinary Research on Climate Change, Food Insecurity, Political Instability (CA 16233, European Cooperation in Science and Technology). In both Narok and Kajiado counties, I am grateful to all my informants and collaborators, the elders, the group ranch committees; and to Richard ole Supeet, Adil Bashir and their respective families for their always open-arms hospitality.
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Roque de Pinho, J. (2020). The Year People Helped Zebras to Stand Up: Climatic Variability and Extreme Weather Observed and Portrayed by Kenyan Maasai Pastoralists. In: Welch-Devine, M., Sourdril, A., Burke, B. (eds) Changing Climate, Changing Worlds. Ethnobiology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37312-2_8
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