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ABSTRACT
The Marakwet and Pokot communities of northwest Kenya are keen farmers, known notably for their creation of extensive pre-colonial irrigation networks. Over the last century both communities have been subjected to a range of external agricultural interventions but Marakwet and Pokot farming remains largely based on practices with a deeper history. We argue, however, that this continuity through time also masks smaller-scale innovations, movements and changes that attest to a dynamic, yet hidden ‘cultural resilience' spanning several centuries. We explore this deeper history through a range of archaeological, ethnographic and historical data and use this analysis to re-think the various agricultural narratives and interventions previously employed in the region.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1 Kipkorir, “Introduction,” x.
2 Kipkorir, The Marakwet of Kenya; Kipkorir, Soper, and Ssennyonga, Kerio Valley; Moore, Space, Text and Gender; Dietz et al., “Locational Development Profile”; Östberg, “The Expansion”; Watson, Adams, and Mutiso, “Indigenous Irrigation.”
3 Davies, “The Temporality”; Davies, “Some Thoughts”; Davies, “A View from the East”; Davies, “An Applied Archaeological and Anthropological”; Davies, “The Irrigation System.” Most other studies have focused on the pastoral Pokot.
4 Davies, “Some Thoughts”; Davies, “The Irrigation System”; Davies, Kipruto, and Moore, “Revisiting the Irrigated.”
5 Ingold, “The Temporality.”
6 Davies, “The Temporality.”
7 Moore, Space, Text and Gender.
8 Davies, “Forced Moves.”
9 Davies, “The Irrigation System”; Davies, Kipruto, and Moore, “Revisiting the Irrigated.”
10 Davies, “The Temporality.”
11 In Marakwet, for example, there are thirteen primary ways of gaining access to land. Moore and Davies, The Marakwet Community Heritage Mapping Project.
12 Davies, “Wittfogel's Dilemma”; Adams, Watson, and Mutiso, “Water Rules and Gender.”
13 Davies, Kipruto, and Moore, “Revisiting the Irrigated”; Dietz et al., “Locational Development Profile.”
14 Pollard, Davies, and Moore, “Women, Marketplaces, and Exchange.”
15 Ibid.
16 Although space precludes further discussion, these operate at both communal and household scales in differing contexts.
17 Bollig, “An Outline”; Davies, “An Applied Archaeological and Anthropological,” 259; Dietz, Pastoralists in dire straits, 148. This has also been accompanied over the last 200 years by an increasing Pokot pastoral expansion, westwards into Karamoja (Uganda) and eastwards into Baringo.
18 Prior to this date the region seems to have been settled by small-stock keeping stone tool and rock-shelter using peoples with a rather different impact on the landscape, see Davies, “An Applied Archaeological and Anthropological,” 254–70.
19 Davies, “An Applied Archaeological and Anthropological,” 226–33; Davies, “Thoughts,” 337–9.
20 As already noted these include radiocarbon dates on a number of habitation sites in the Wei wei Valley as well as optical luminescence and thermoluminescence dates from abandoned irrigation features. See Davies, “Thoughts,” 337 and Davies, “The Irrigation System,” 70–1.
21 Supporting oral historical data includes historic sequences of irrigation channel construction based on age-sets and Pokot genealogies. See Davies, “The Irrigation System” and Davies, “An Applied Archaeological and Anthropological,” 158–85 and appendix F.
22 Moore and Davies, Marakwet Community Heritage Mapping Project.
23 But see French et al, “Geo-archaeological Assessment.”
24 Davies, “Applied Archaeological and Anthropological,” 277–89; Dietz, Pastoralists in Dire Straights, 88–90; Nangulu, “Food Security,” 10.
25 Davies, “Thoughts,” 346; Davies, “Applied Archaeological and Anthropological,” 277–89.
26 Pollard, Davies, and Moore, “Women, Marketplaces, and Exchange”; Davies, “Economic Specialisation.”
27 Jones personal communication. see also Davies, “Applied Archaeological and Anthropological,” 52–65 for Pokot.
28 Kipkorir, “Historical Perspectives.”
29 Jones, personal communication. This crop diversity needs to be explored in much greater detail, not least because it potentially represents an important store of genetic and ecological variation.
30 Adams and Watson, “Soil Erosion,” 110.
31 Davies, “Temporality”; Davies, “Thoughts”; Davies, “The Irrigation System”; Davies, Kipruto, and Moore, “Revisiting the Irrigated.”
32 See especially Davies, “Forced Moves.”
33 Ibid.
34 Davies, Kipruto, and Moore, “Revisiting the Irrigated.” In this region irrigation canals or channels are commonly referred to in English as “Furrows.”
35 Soper, “Survey,” 75–95.
36 Davies, Kipruto, and Moore, “Revisiting the Irrigated.”
37 As much as twofold between the 1930s and 1984, but with some variation. Dietz et al., “Locational Development Profile,” 37–40.
38 For example, Kipkorir and Kareithi, “Indigenous Irrigation.”
39 Henning, “The Furrow Makers”; Huxley, “African Water Engineers.”
40 Kipkorir, “Historical Perspectives,” 6.
41 Nangulu, “Food Security,” 99–101.
42 Kipkorir, “Historical Perspectives,” 6.
43 Anderson, “Depression.”
44 Nangulu, “Food Security,” 108–9.
45 Davies, “An Applied Archaeological and Anthropological,” 77–83.
46 Kipkorir, “Historical Perspectives,” 6–7.
47 Ibid.
48 See Kipkorir, “Introduction,” ix. Dietz et al., “Locational Development Profile.” The lack of an all-weather road along the Kerio Valley remains one of the greatest impediments to regional development.
49 Kipkorir, “Introduction,” x.
50 Davies, Kipruto, and Moore, “Revisiting the Irrigated.”
51 Ibid. Other schemes, especially at Arror and elsewhere are beyond the scope of our knowledge.
52 In these ‘development' schemes the community often has to give up land which would be otherwise used. They are also often expected to supply labour without clear indication of return.
53 Davies, Kipruto, and Moore, “Revisiting the Irrigated.”
54 Rambaldi, “Wei Wei”; Rambaldi, “Small Scale Irrigation.”
55 Anon., “Irrigation Scheme in West Pokot.”
56 Rambaldi, “Small Scale Irrigation.”
57 Rambaldi, “Wei Wei,” 7; Davies, “An Applied Archaeological and Anthropological.”
58 Kipkorir, Soper, and Ssennyonga, The Kerio Valley.
59 Hogg, Pokot Traditional Irrigation.
60 Dietz et al., “Locational Development Profile.”
61 Soper, “A Survey.”
62 Watson, Adams, and Mutiso, “Indigenous Irrigation,” 82.
63 Adams and Watson, “Soil Erosion.”
64 Watson, Adams, and Mutiso, “Indigenous Irrigation,” 113–14.
65 Kipkorir and Kareithi, “Indigenous Irrigation”; Kipkorir and Kareithi, “Human and Natural Factors.”
66 We have GPS-recorded and photographed some 1200 points of interest across the Marakwet irrigation system, the majority of which relate to breakages and repairs at a variety of scales and different periods in time. See Davies, Kipruto, and Moore, “Revisiting the Irrigated.”
67 For example, Kipkorir and Kareithi, “Indigenous Irrigation,” state that they start ‘with the working hypothesis that decay of Marakwet furrows has reduced food crop production in the division and contributed to food insecurity', 15.
68 Ibid., 16.
69 Kipkorir and Kareithi, “Human and Natural Factors,” 114.
70 Caretta and Börjeson, “Local Gender Contract.”