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The Samburu People
The Samburu people, related to but distinct from the Maasai, are a semi-nomadic group of pastoralists who live north of the equator in the Samburu District. Where the foothills of Mount Kenya merge into the northern desert and slightly south of Lake Turkana, the Samburu people can be found tending to their livestock near their mobile villages. The Samburu, a name and identity that became fixed and defined after colonial contact, use the term Lokop or Loikop in reference to their people, although they disagree on its meaning.
Considered more traditional than their Maasai cousins, the Samburu people have survived on a purely pastoralist lifestyle, although recent decades have caused young men to search for wage work in nearby Nairobi. A decrease in cattle numbers has also encouraged the growing of vegetable crops to supplement the economy and their diet. While meat is mainly eaten ceremonially or when a cow has died, the milk and blood of cows are daily staples. Common meals also include soups made of roots and barks and a variety of vegetables.
Samburu culture is intriguing and worlds apart from our well-known Western culture. This mobile people live in settlements of anywhere from one to twenty or more families. The culture practices polygyny, where the men have more than one wife. Each wife constructs, with the help of other wives, their own grass and mud huts, and take over the duties of tending to the portable huts, milking cows, obtaining water and gathering firewood. Children have specific obligations around the homes and with the cattle and goat herds, and later go through a ceremonial initiation into adulthood.
A modern lifestyle has generally been rejected by the Samburu, and the benefits of such a lifestyle have been considered undesirable. Until very recently, the idea of men wearing Western dress, such as pants, was considered un-manly. Men and women wear beaded and wooden jewelry, much like the Maasai. The Samburu religion revolves around a multi-faceted divinity, Nkai, and some people in the community gain a reputation for prophesy. As the society is organized around cattle and warfare, the Samburu rely on trading and raiding other settlements.
In such an industrial, modern world, it is intriguing to learn about the lifestyle of a semi-nomadic people who have resisted the influence of the West. Learn more about the Samburu culture on our Kenya Photo Safari, the Luxury Kenya Safari, and the Safari in Kenya and Tanzania.
