Ethnogenesis and surplus food production: communitas and identity building among nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Ilchamus, Lake Baringo, Kenya

ABSTRACT

Most archaeological discussions of surplus production tend to focus either on its role in the emergence and maintenance of social complexity (whether among hunter-gatherers, farming communities or incipient states) or on the enabling properties of surplus as a basis for technological advances and aesthetic elaboration. Here, we offer a rather different perspective on surplus as an initiator of communitas and driver of ethnogenesis following a period of intense socio-ecological stress, environmental degradation and localized demographic decline during the nineteenth century. The particular case study concerns the Maa-language-speaking Ilchamus community who currently occupy areas around the southern end of Lake Baringo in the Central Rift Valley, Kenya. Drawing on a combination of new archaeological evidence, oral accounts and archival sources, the paper details the processes whereby destitute groups were drawn together into acts of surplus food production, initially of grain via the implementation of a system of irrigated agriculture and subsequently of cattle through the mobilization of kinship and related ties. In so doing, disparate older identities were abandoned or transformed and a different, unifying ethnicity – Ilchamus – emerged based on a new moral economy of shared prosperity.

KEYWORDS:

• Kenya
• Ilchamus
• surplus production
• communitas
• ethnogenesis
• irrigation agriculture

Acknowledgements

The primary archaeological fieldwork on which this paper is based forms part of Nik Petek’s doctoral research at Uppsala University. This project forms part of the work of the Marie Curie Skłodowska Resilience in East African Landscapes (REAL) Innovative Training Network. The research by NP was conducted under the permit no. NACOSTI/P/14/7542/2843 provided by the National Commission for Science, Technology, and Innovation. Both authors thank Amy Bogaard, David Anderson, Kevin Walsh, Bilinda Straight, Amanda Logan and three anonymous referees for their comments on an earlier draft. We also thank David Anderson for giving us access to the transcripts of his interviews. Nik Petek would also like to thank the team Wilson Tiren, Glen Nakure, Victor Iminjili, Henry Mwangi, Benson Kones, Pauline Lekimoe, William Letasiyo, Jennifer Lentapuru, Jesinta Maitano, Tabitha Nakure, John Muasya, Onesmas, Maggie Lemaiki, Fernandos Kredgie, Joan Umazi, Sandra Nampiso, Sheilah Lemangi, John Kanyingi, Brian and Kevin Ndiema for assisting with survey, excavations, and recording. NP would also like to thank Emily Sargeant for consistently saying ‘there, there’ during the writing process.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. We recognize that this was not a universal transformation and that some East African pastoralists, such as the Gada who occupy the border areas between Kenya and Ethiopia, retain age-set-based systems of time reckoning of greater temporal depth than those discussed by Anderson (2016) (see e.g. Kassam 2006). We are grateful to Bilinda Straight for pointing this out.

2. Oral histories were collected by: a) Nik Petek and assistants Wilson Tiren, Glen Nakure and Fernandos Kredgie during semi-structured key-informant interviews of elders of the Ilmeduti age-set and their female counterparts between March and July 2015; and b) David Anderson and his assistants in 1980 during interviews with elders of the Ilnapunye, Ririmpot and Ilparemo age-sets. The authors would like to thank David Anderson for sharing his data. Transcripts of the interviews are held by Nik Petek and David Anderson, respectively.

3. For a similar argument in relation to the Pastoral Neolithic pillar sites in Turkana, see Marshall, Grillo and Arco (2011).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Resilience in East African Landscapes (REAL) Innovative Training Network funded by the European Commission [FP7-PEOPLE-2013-ITN project no. 606879]; additional funding for fieldwork and analyses from the National Geographic Society [GEFNEY 162-15]; the British Institute in Eastern Africa, and the Anna Maria Lundins Travel Grant is gratefully acknowledged.

Notes on contributors

Nik Petek

Nik Petek is currently a PhD student in archaeology at Uppsala University. His doctoral research, which is part of the Resilience in East African Landscapes Innovative Training Network, focuses on the historical ecology of the Lake Baringo basin and the archaeology of the Ilchamus community. His interests also include African pastoral archaeology and the archaeology of the Indian Ocean. He previously worked on the Sealinks project.

Paul Lane

Paul Lane is Professor of Global Archaeology at Uppsala University. He is an archaeologist with over twenty-five years’ research experience in Africa. His main research interests are in the organization and use of space and time in pre-industrial societies, the historical ecology of African landscapes, the archaeology of colonial encounters, cultural perceptions of place, the materialization of memory, maritime archaeology and the transition to farming in Africa.