Conversion

International African Institute

African Conversion from a World Religion: Religious Diversification by the Waso Boorana inKenyaAuthor(s): Mario I. AguilarReviewed work(s):Source: Africa: Journal of the International African Institute, Vol. 65, No. 4 (1995), pp. 525-544Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the International African InstituteStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1161131 .

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Africa 65 (4), 1995

AFRICAN CONVERSION FROM A WORLD RELIGION: RELIGIOUS DIVERSIFICATION BY THE

WASO BOORANA IN KENYA

Mario I. Aguilar

CONVERSION AND RELIGIOUS CHANGE

It has been suggested, and correctly so, that the understanding of processes of religious change is enriched by the perspectives of history and anthropology (Peel, 1967). As Peel suggests, historians have tended to focus on the outside forces that triggered African conversion to Islam or Christianity, e.g. the arrival of the colonial powers, or the work of missionaries in particular geographical areas (e.g. Beidelman, 1974, 1982; McEwan, 1987; Strayer, 1978), while anthropologists have tended to focus on local social institutions that provide the foundation for the acceptance (or rejection: Rigby, 1966) of Islam or Christianity. While processes of conversion in Africa have been complex and gradual, possibilities of religious change have been assumed by others as part of a rational African response to change, in which local religious systems had to adapt in order to cope with macro-cosmical systems as represented by Islam and Christianity (Horton, 1971, 1975, 1982, 1993; responses by Fisher, 1973, 1985).

Several scholarly studies of localised African conversion and religious change have appeared since the early concern expressed by Peel (e.g. Lars- son, 1991; Parratt, 1969; Parkin, 1970; Simensen, 1986; Stevens, 1991; Ubah, 1988; Wambutda, 1991). Those studies have made use of anthropological methods and/or historical archives in order to focus on categories of social change related to localised conversion, processes of religious syncretism, and issues of institutional replacement of traditional categories in the process of state formation in Africa.

In the case of the conversion to Christianity by East African pastoralists, it has been a slow process, owing to the fact, among others, that Christianity tends to function and to create communities through a local social order and ritual interaction. A particular Christian tradition (a Church) is made present through micro-ritual places such as parishes, missions, chapels and places of worship. In order to be part of that local community it is necessary to reside in a particular area. The pastoralists in general, and the Boorana in particular, have continued a semi-nomadic life, even with the constraint of set boundaries during colonial and post-colonial times. In the case of the Boorana, pockets of them in Marsabit and Moyale (Kenya) have converted to Christianity (Tablino, 1992). The conversions have coincided with their relation to urban centres and the possibility of sending their children to schools run by Christian missions.1

Islam has provided places of encounter with the traditional religious world of the pastoralists through trade centres and the caravans that moved from the East African coast into the interior before and at the beginning of the colonial period (Dalleo, 1975). Thereafter Muslim traders (Somali and Arab) dominated



RECONVERSION AMONG THE BOORANA

the urban trade centres with their shops and their fleets of lorries and other vehicles (Turton, 1972: 120-1). Those traders have been agents of the spread of Islam among the pastoralists, owing to their daily interaction with them. The face of Islam has been closer to some African social institutions (e.g. poly- gyny); the face of Christianity has been identified with European missionaries, with their school system and with a European way of life.

The Waso Boorana have come in contact with both Islam and Christianity.2 On the whole Christianity has been unsuccessful in making converts, even though the Catholic and Methodist Churches have missions in the Waso area.3 The Boorana of the Waso area have been identified in mission and political circles with the spread of Islam.

During the 1970s the first systematic studies of the Waso Boorana of Kenya were undertaken. Nevertheless none of the studies was concerned primarily with their religious practices. Those particular studies focused on issues of social organisation, social change and subsistence (Dahl, 1979), and social responses to historical change, drought, famine, economic exchange and development schemes (Hogg, 1981). Further extension of that anthropological research focused, described and analysed an impoverished pastoralism (Hogg, 1986, 1990) and the phenomenon of Boorana migration and settlement in urban areas (Hjort, 1979). In Isiolo, one of those urban areas, the Waso Boorana encounter people from different ethnic and religious groups. It was in the urban context that manifestations of traditional Waso Boorana religious practices began to reappear in the 1970s, against the background of such Muslim syncretic religious practices as the ayyaana cult (Dahl, 1989). The ayyaana cult has been considered 'not only as a social bridge' but also as 'an idiom for the adaptation of different worlds of belief to each other' (Dahl, 1989: 164).

In this article I explore the historical processes that have framed adaptation and change in the religious affiliation of the Waso Boorana. In the next section I refer to changes in the religious affiliation of the Waso Boorana during colonial times. Between the 1930s and the 1950s most of them became Muslims, and thereafter they were presumed to be Muslims by other groups in Kenya. Owing to their interaction with the Somali, they underwent a process of'somalisation' (Baxter, 1966). In the second part of the article I refer to historical processes that have taken place in the post-colonial period (1963-92). In this second period of conversion the Waso Boorana have kept their Muslim public rituals but have continued to stress their traditional practices. I suggest that the reasons for this process of religious diversification throughout their history are to be found in their own way of diversifying their herds, in order to face drought, famine and political changes. Therefore, from research into the Waso Boorana, I argue that the study of conversion in Africa during the twen- tieth century cannot be limited to changes in religious affiliation from a local religious tradition to a world religion. African processes of conversion are fluid, and they also include processes of reconversion to religious practices socially present in the eras preceding the world religions.4

CONVERSION I: COLONIAL TIMES, 1932-62

The Waso Boorana live around the river Waso Nyiro in the North Eastern

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Province of Kenya and they represent several thousand people. They are one of the Oromo-speaking peoples of East Africa, who include nearly 20 million people (Braukamper, 1989: 127; Fukui and Markakis, 1994: 2). In the republic of Kenya the Boorana represent a small segment of the total population, living mainly in northern Kenya around Marsabit and Moyale. They are part of the Cushitic-speaking peoples who in the 1979 census made up 3-4 per cent of the total population (Ministry of Information, 1988: 9).5 Their way of life reflects a high level of sedentarisation around small towns and business centres, and physically they are concentrated in settlements called manyatta.6 The Waso Boorana look after animals, an activity which constitutes their way of life and their livelihood. Therefore each manyatta has a few members who as shepherds move around with their animals outside the towns and the manyatta.

The term Waso Boorana refers to the Boorana living in the Waso area. While Isiolo town has somehow been assumed to be part of urban Waso Boorana life (Hogg, 1981), or has been used to illustrate aspects of Waso Boorana life (Dahl, 1979), I assume that the religious practices of urban and peripheral Boorana differ in some respects. Therefore in this article (following Dahl, 1979: 25):

Waso will be used as an expression denoting that part of Isiolo District which is situated east of Gotu-i.e. the area regularly used by Borana. Waso does not include the panhandlelike appendix to the district in which the district capital, Isiolo Town, is situated.

I refer specifically to the geographical areas near the river Waso Nyiro, particularly Garba Tulla and Merti Divisions.

The Boorana of the river Waso Nyiro area came originally from Ethiopia and northern Kenya, their numbers probably being already large by the end of the last century. The Shoan conquest of southern Ethiopia triggered migration towards the south of Ethiopia. Furthermore, drought and famine forced Boorana migrations into the Northern Frontier District. The Boorana occupied parts of the area and settled at the wells in Wajir (Baxter, 1978b: 70).7

Many fights occurred between Boorana and Somali (Schlee, 1989: 30) till in 1932 the British moved a group of Boorana into Isiolo District. A group of Boorana from Wajir were escorted into the Waso area by the British police and settled there. It is estimated that 1,500 Boorana were escorted into the area (Hogg, 1981: 25) to end the 'Muslim-Pagan feud', as the conflict at the wells in Wajir was called by the British (Aguilar, 1993a: 4). The British feared a holy war between the Muslim Somali and the pagan Boorana.8 I consider this historical event as the beginning of the Waso Boorana community in Kenya.9 Shortly after it, in 1934, the Samburu were moved north of the Boorana and the Boorana-Somali dividing line on the map moved west- ward. The Boorana took possession of the area near the river Waso Nyiro and remained close to the Somali.

The geographical and political changes which culminated in 1934, and the final setting of colonial boundaries, created an isolated people who gradually lost their connections with Ethiopia and the rest of the Oromo and became closer to the Somali. While some Waso Boorana have moved across

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geographical borders over the years, and have visited relatives in northern Kenya or even Ethiopia, they have nevertheless been ritually isolated. The sud- den isolation (created by the fixing of boundaries in 1934) of the Waso Boor- ana relates to the fact that a whole settlement could not go from the Waso area to spatially constructed sacred places in which their traditions were being re- enacted and where Waso Boorana could be initiated into adulthood.

Prevented by their isolation from Ethiopia from celebrating the festivals of initiation and life with the rest of the Boorana, the Waso Boorana adopted Muslim practices.0l In that sense, as in some historical processes in Ethiopia, conversion to Islam assumes the replacement of the gadal1 ritual structures of the Oromo by other systems of ritual with their own practices (Braukam- per, 1988, 1992; H. S. Lewis, 1965: 131). The identity of the Waso Boorana changed from being part of the Oromo gada system to a local way of being Oromo. Although the colonial administration had considered the Boorana as 'pagans' (followers of their own traditional religious practices) at Wajir, even at that time there were already Boorana converts to Islam (KNA/WAJ/ 1923, 2, 1). Already in 1939 the colonial records reveal 'an appreciable part of the tribe already islamized' (KNA/ISO/1939, 1), while in 1952 75 per cent of the Waso Boorana and Sakuye are reported as Muslim (KNA/ISO/1952, 1).12 Between their arrival in the Waso area and the 1950s most of the Waso Boorana had become Muslims. In a period of thirty years their religious affiliation changed from a situation in which there were almost no Muslim Boorana to one where a predominant majority considered themselves Muslim (Dahl, 1979: 26-7). By the end of the colonial period in the Northern Frontier District the Boorana rather than the Somali were in control of the Waso area, and they were considered by the colonial power as a Muslim community.

WASO BOORANA CONVERSION REASSESSED

In trying to understand the process of religious change among the Waso Boorana during the colonial period, four ideas need to be addressed: (1) the process of somalisation, (2) the missionary factor, (3) the military option and (4) the intellectualist approach. The first idea refers specifically to the Waso Boorana, the other three have been put forward as possible ways of explaining African conversion to world religions.

Somalisation The idea of the 'somalisation' of the Waso Boorana (Baxter, 1966) can be verified by comparing the Waso Boorana with those of northern Kenya. The Waso Boorana way of dressing (cf. pictures in Reyes-Crotez, 1994a, b, c) resembles that of the Somali (cf. pictures in Baxter, 1978b: 83, 90) or Ethiopia (cf. pictures in Buchholzer, 1959: 80, 144) and not that of the Boorana of Mar- sabit (cf. pictures in Bartels, 1983: 381, 383; Van de Loo, 1991). Besides adopt- ing Somali dress, the Waso Boorana also adopted temporarily during the colonial period some Somali social structures in order to retain control of the grazing areas assigned to them by the British (Aguilar, 1993a). Through one of them, Somali clienthood (shegat),13 the Somali were able to claim access to grazing and water under the protection of the Waso Boorana, who in return could expect Somali co-operation in the event of violent conflicts with the

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Samburu. Through such clienthood the Waso Boorana could also secure the co-operation of the Somali in dealing with the colonial administration; the Waso Boorana regarded the Somali as successful in dealing with the British (Dahl, 1979: 243-4).

The British viewed the Somali as good traders and certainly as disciplined men who trained well as policemen and scouts for service in the Northern Frontier Province. In the Waso area the Somali were favoured by the British administration before the settlement of boundaries in 1934 as the colonial officers struggled to keep the peace between the Somali and the Waso Boorana. Before the definition of boundaries violent clashes between Boorana and Somali had taken place as the Boorana resisted conversion to Islam and therefore harassed the Somali, who were influencing conversions. In the words of Godana Boru:

When the Boorana came into the area they were not Muslim. After coming to this area they became Muslim. Those who first converted, around the Merti area, were dumped into the river, where the crocodiles were. Those people died, but the crocodiles did not eat all of their bodies. People reported to the District Officer (Bwana Res),14 who decided to take action and punish some Boorana. The whites imposed peace by force. No Somali was supposed to be touched. Little by little our fathers began to join in prayers with the Somali and they became very serious Muslims. [GTHT/MAT/1992, f.n. 67-815]

From a historical point of view the District Officer maintained order in the area of his administration, and therefore the Boorana who gradually converted to Islam were not physically punished by their own peers any more. The colonial administration certainly encouraged their conversion to Islam, as District Officers were aware that in the past, at the time of initiation festivals, Boorana initiates raided non-Boorana camps and killed enemies (any non-Boorana) in order to attain adult status in the community (Schlee, 1985: 22).

From a sociological point of view the two communities interacted to the point where there was symbiosis at the local level (Aguilar, 1993b), enabling Somali and Boorana clans to co-operate in order to maintain their control of grazing and water. Threatened at times by the Samburu, or by new regulations imposed on them by administrative officers, the Boorana made their grazing areas (deda) flexible in order to accommodate Somali herds, gain support from the Somali and keep the colonial administration content with the peaceful situation of the Waso area. Somali and Arab merchants were reluctant to trade with non-Muslims, and heads of Boorana households therefore began using the mosque as a meeting place where, after prayers, trade relations could be developed and strengthened through common religious beliefs, a common phenomenon in parts of West Africa (Cohen, 1969: 5, 23, 156). It is in this sense that 'conversion need not reformulate one's understanding of the ultimate condition of existence, but it always involves commitment to a new kind of moral authority and a new or reconceptualized social identity' (Hefner, 1993: 17; Jordan, 1993). With Baxter I would therefore argue that the major factor in the conversion to Islam of the Waso Boorana was their 'somalisation'.

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The missionary influence In the history of the conversion of the Waso Boorana to Islam the missionary factor is absent. There is nothing in the colonial records to suggest that Mus- lim missionaries preached to the Waso Boorana or that there were chains of Swahili or Arab traders interested in their conversion. The main traders in Garba Tulla during the colonial era were members of a Catholic Asian (Goan) family, the Perera. They were converted to Islam on their arrival in the area in the 1930s, as they found it difficult to trade with the Somali and Boorana, being Christians themselves (GTHT/TOW/1988, m.a.). Their children born during the colonial period in the Waso area were brought up as Muslims and currently control the trade of the area. Islam was therefore not represented by an organised missionary crusade but spread through trade routes and by a process of symbiosis between the Somali and the Boorana of the Waso area.16

The military option The 'military option' as a strong influence has been described as 'the sole position the African could take in order to survive as a human being' (Mudimbe, 1988: 48) and is usually associated with colonisation (Peel, 1977: 112). In the case of the Waso Boorana, it is clear that the British did not force them to change their beliefs or religious affiliation.

The intellectualist position One of the longest-running debates on conversion in Africa has involved the so-called 'intellectualist position', which has its roots in the debates of the nineteenth century (Lawson and McCauley, 1990: 33 f.; Skorupski, 1976) but 'is still alive and well' (Lawson and McCauley, 1990), and has been revitalised by Horton (1971, 1975, 1982, 1993). Horton (1971: 101) argues that explanation, prediction and control are the main processes of thought associated with the traditional African cosmologies. To that effect, religious events and the particular systems surrounding those events help Africans to explain how things happen in their societies. Horton examines the African cosmologies, and identifies two areas of representation: action and interpre- tation. On one side of Horton's representation of African cosmologies there is a supreme being, who by his mere presence explains how people came into existence. The relationship between the people and their supreme being is distant. He stands apart and his presence is not felt in the daily events of a village.

Horton's ideas would be expressed in Boorana terms through the Boorana association with a God who lives in the heavens; the word Wagga in the Oromo language expresses the idea of God and sky at the same time. That supreme being is invoked by the people at large festivals where their future is at stake, e.g. initiation ceremonies, rain-making events, etc.

On the other side of Horton's representation of African cosmology there are plenty of lesser beings. They are important for the smooth running of daily village affairs and social relations. They mingle with humans and are agents of supernatural events in society.17 People are bound to relate to those lesser beings rather than to the supreme being, who is not relevant to their daily lives. People act, live and exercise their 'explanation, prediction and control' in a microcosm.

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Horton postulates that religion has cognitive importance, it helps people to make sense of their reality. As a result, Horton argues, upon the arrival of the colonial powers in Africa, people had once again to exercise their 'explanation, prediction, control'. Africans were not in control of their own local realities any more. Their microcosm had collapsed and been absorbed by a larger cosmos brought in by the colonial powers. They had to look for new explanations in order to reconstruct their cosmology, Horton represents the world religions as 'catalysts'. Change was already on the way and the arrival of the colonial powers was the factor needed to accelerate the process of change from microcosm to macrocosm. In this new order of things the supreme being tends to be identified with a religion of moral concern and communion. The new order becomes the accepted norm of religious cosmology and an acceptable structure for the African people.

While Horton's approach has been criticised as very static, artificial and lacking any concern for history as an intellectualistic model (Lawson and McCauley, 1990: 36), this experimental model is in some respects useful if we are to grasp the initial impact of the arrival of other gods in Africa. Horton stresses the importance of the microcosm, while others have stressed the importance of the world religions (the macrocosm) rather than the local religious system, so-called traditional religion (Fisher, 1973, 1985). In that sense Horton's model has been further criticised for ignoring the possibility of a 'genuine religious transfer' (Fisher, 1985: 153), for ignoring the whole area of power relations (Ifeka-Moller, 1974) and for comparing syncretic societies rather than 'histories' (Peel, 1987: 109).18

Horton's approach is limited but nevertheless (and without ignoring the issues raised by others) useful in the case of the Waso Boorana. Peel's comparison of 'histories' on the other hand would require further investigation of other Oromo groups such as the Orma of the river Tana (Ensminger, 1992), a task beyond the scope of this article.

In the case of the Waso Boorana, in order to use Horton's categories, I take the cosmology spelt out by Bartels (1983) as an example of the cosmology assumed in the 'old days' by the Boorana people. The Oromo religious system has a supreme being, Wagga, who has the same attributes as the supreme being in any world religion.19 Nevertheless Wagga as 'divinity' has 'countless particular manifestations' in the world (Bartels, 1983: 89). There are also ayyaana spirits (Aguilar, 1994a; Bartels, 1983: 112ff.; Dahl, 1989; Megersa, 1992) or 'special divinities' (Knutsson, 1967: 48) which are manifestations of good or evil. The 'divinity' is also present in beings such as Maram, a female who is invoked and addressed at birth rituals (Bartels, 1983: 124).

This Oromo cosmology sounds very much like the microcosmic dimension put forward by Horton. I would argue that the Waso Boorana had to change their way of explaining the world because of their isolation from the other Boorana in Ethiopia. From a microcosm, that of the Oromo people, the Waso Boorana had to change to a macrocosm, a larger British and Somali construction of the world. Their lesser beings, the ayyaana, and the manifestations of 'divinity' were identified with spirits and manifestations in the Islamic/Somali religious system, for example the jinn (Qur'an VI: 100).

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They were assumed to be still effective and present in an Islamic tradition coming from Ethiopia which integrates them in a synchronic way in the so-called ayyaana cult in the Waso area (Aguilar, 1994a). In that current religious practice elements of Islam and traditional Oromo religion stress the power and actuality of the 'lesser beings'. There is ritual opposition to the absoluteness of Allah, as posed by the Islamic tradition.

I would argue that in the case of the Waso Boorana there was a rational approach to the problem of power, manifested in their political relations with the British and the Somali during the colonial period. They became 'somalised' as their cosmological order was taken away through the establishment of political and tribal boundaries in the Northern Frontier District. The Waso Boorana assumed that 'Somali culture offered an alterna- tive model which was successful, attainable and vigorous' (Baxter, 1966: 242; cf. Hogg, 1981: 29).

Islam, for its part, came as an agent of change. I do not fully agree with Horton's view of Islam as only a 'catalyst'. Islam had the power to take the initiative, as traders and clerics were present in the markets of Isiolo, Garba Tulla, Mado Gashi, Merti and other Boorana settlements in the Waso area. Fisher's view, applied to the case of the Waso Boorana, com- plements Horton's ahistorical perspective. Regarding Fisher's periods of conversion to Islam, the Waso Boorana have accepted Islam, the 'mixing' has also taken place, but the so-called 'reform' period has not been successful. Even when 'holy men' of Islam have tried to implement a second general conversion to Muslim orthodoxy they have not been successful. The reasons for the failure can be found only in the respect the Waso Boorana still have for their own traditions (Ada Boorana). When messengers of the Kallu came in 1978 to appoint councillors (jalaba) one Islamic teacher tried, without success, to prevent the people from being involved with their 'pagan ways' (Hogg, 1981: 20). Thus in terms of Fisher's periods of conversion the Waso Boorana are still going through their 'mixing' stage. Needless to say, there are few signs that the Waso Boorana are going to move from their 'mixing' stage to a 'reform' stage.

While the Waso Boorana responded rationally to the social and political changes of colonial times, the independence of Kenya in 1963 brought further changes and new challenges to their own cosmology and their religious affiliation.

CONVERSION II: INDEPENDENCE, WAR AND FAMINE, 1963-92

With Kenyan independence in 1963 a new chapter in the history of the Waso Boorana opened. It is a chapter of their history which is not yet closed but which has forced more changes in their life style and their religious practices.

At the time of Kenya's independence there was concern about the future of the Northern Frontier District. The main question was whether the District should be allocated to Kenya at independence. The problem arose because of the size of the Somali population living in the Northern Frontier District at the time:

Almost half of the people were Somalis. With the half-Somalis they included 62 per cent of the population within the district. The Boran and related tribes who formed

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the largest group included only 22 per cent of the population. The remaining 16 per cent included a number of small tribal groups of varying origins. [Perkins, 1968: 250]

Therefore a commission of inquiry was appointed by the British government in October 1962 (Hoskyns, 1969: Perkins, 1968: 254).20 The task of the commission was 'to ascertain and report on public opinion in the Northern Frontier District' regarding the unification of the Somali people and hence the annexa- tion of the District to the new Somali republic. By December 1962 the commission had reported that five of the six administrative districts favoured secession and union with the Somali republic.21 In March 1963 Britain announced that the Northern Frontier District would become the seventh province of Kenya.22 After a boycott by the secessionist leaders of the general elections of May 1963 there was no solution to the Somali problem.23 The Somali government wanted the whole Northern Frontier District while the British government was ready to hand only certain parts of it over to Somalia.24

That situation led to a persistent state of guerrilla warfare, which increased in scale with the assassination of the District Commissioner of Isiolo District and Chief Hajji Galma Diida in 1963 near Mado Gashi (Hogg, 1981: 47). The violence has lasted to the present day, even though officially ended in 1969.25 In 1969 'the Kenya government announced its intention to lift the emergency regulations but this intention was never carried out' (Ibrahim, 1992: 15).26 That particular state of emergency (1963-69) is known as the shifta war.27 During that period the Kenyan government tried to enforce law and order in the area, in the context of systematic disruption of peace through attacks on vehicles, the planting of mines on roads and shooting at the police and the military.28 Given the situation, the Waso Boorana were concentrated in camps (daba) and a policy of sedentarisation was enforced.29 Thousands of animals died, as they could not be put out to graze.30 Thousands more were killed by the army in a desperate attempt to control movement and therefore shifta activities in the area.31

At the time of the movement for unification with a greater Somalia the Waso Boorana were warned by Somali politicians that were the Waso area to be given to Kenya their way of life would be destroyed, the Bantu people from Meru town would pierce the Boorana's ears and they would all be bap- tised by Christian missionaries. The Waso Boorana feared that the British would leave all administration in the hands of the Kikuyu. Older people in Garba Tulla remember that before the emergency began Islamic leaders appealed to the Boorana elders for support in the event of a confrontation with the Bantu-speaking people of Kenya. The Boorana sided with the Somali out of fear and out of solidarity with their Muslim brothers. Arms were distributed in different settlements by the Somali and arms also arrived from Ethiopia as a gesture of solidarity with the Waso Boorana from the Boorana of southern Ethiopia.

When the District Commissioner of Isiolo was killed the Somali manipu- lated the announcement and accused the Bantu of beginning the slaughter of Boorana. When Kenyatta's government decided to enforce law and order in the Waso area, and part of the Kenyan army settled in Isiolo and the Waso area, the local Somalis moved back to Garissa and Wajir.32 The Boorana

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therefore faced the loss of their animals, constant insecurity and as a result sickness and famine.

During the conflict the Muslim religious leaders (Boorana and Somali alike) were moved out of the Waso area, as they were accused of agitation by the authorities. As a result, during these years of unrest, the Waso Boor- ana (for the most part unable to read and write) had no religious elders to lead them in prayer and to instruct their young in the Islamic faith. When peace returned in 1969 and the Boorana moved back to their old lands a strong process of religious diversification began.

The causes of that process lie first in a communal reaction against the Somali and therefore Islam after the shifta war. The Waso Boorana had lost their animals and therefore their livelihood. The loss was associated with their support for the Somalis on the grounds of Muslim brotherhood. They realised that when the soldiers moved into the Waso area the Somali had moved out and left them. Questions were also raised by Waso Boorana leaders about the benefits of practising Islam and being associated with the Somali, who were distrusted by Kenyatta's administration.33 As a consequence of the emergency period and distrust of Islam and the Somali there was a general lack of religious instruction in the manyatta. The Garba Tulla community sent a dele- gation of Boorana and Sakuye to Ethiopia in the 1970s in order to ask for help from Boorana clans. They brought back some material help, but also a renewed sense of pride in their language and traditions, a product of the climate of Oromo nationalism in southern Ethiopia at the time. New jalaba (councillors) were appointed to resolve disputes, with the authority to organise communal efforts to survive the famine of the 1970s (GTHR/KOR/1992, f.n. 46).

In this unfavourable climate towards the Somali and Islam, during the post-war famine efforts were made by the Roman Catholic and Methodist Churches to alleviate hunger through food aid programmes. The Methodist Church also built a secondary school and an orphanage. Events such as these gave rise to a situation in which Islam and Christianity interacted for the first time in the daily life of the Waso Boorana. New traditional ritual specialists arrived in the area and sacred enclosures for the ayyaana cult were built in centres such as Garba Tulla, Malka Daka and Merti (Aguilar, 1994a). Women became prominent in traditional practices at the local level (Aguilar, 1994b), given the number of households whose male head had been killed or had never returned (Aguilar, 1994c). As women took charge of traditional ritual roles their children began experiencing traditional Boorana religious practices at home (Aguilar, 1994e), while attending primary schools set up by the government, the Roman Catholic mission and the Islamic foundation (Agui- lar, 1994f). With this process of diversification still under way, any future studies of religion in the Waso area will have to take account of the fact that even if the Waso Boorana are regarded as Muslims by the rest of Kenya there are Catholic and Methodist Waso Boorana too. As children attend government schools, one would certainly expect to see more Christians and traditional practitioners among them in the future.

RELIGIOUS DIVERSIFICATION: UNITY IN DIVERSITY

With such developments, and the reaffirmation of traditional religious

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practices as part of Waso Boorana socialisation and life, some pressing questions need to be posed. Is this variety of religious practice and change a product of chance and fate? Is there a possibility of greater understanding of this process of change? If so, is there a local principle that would afford Waso Boorana society the continuing possibility of variety in their religious experience? As the intellectualist position accounts for the relation between the Waso Boorana and the Somali in colonial times, and their initial change of religious affiliation, the second period of conversion to religious diversity needs also to be explained. I would myself tend to assume that the variety of religious practice in Waso Boorana society may reflect a wider Boorana principle which in itself could account for social unity in diversity without any rigid uniformity of religious practice. The need is to seek further understanding of the social foundations and local categories of Waso Boorana society rather than solely among outside, i.e. Western categories.

So far the anthropological analysis of Waso Boorana religious practices has shown that animals are used in order to ritualise community gatherings (e.g. naming and funerals) and to express particular changes in social roles and community relations, as in the case of marriage (Aguilar, 1993b, 1994f). Animals are used for communal rituals but they also constitute the foundations of Waso Boorana material subsistence.

I would suggest that the Waso Boorana organisational patterns relating to herds and animals constitute a particular way of organising daily social relations and therefore of keeping the Peace of the Boorana (Nagaa Boorana). Keeping the peace is the ultimate concern of every member of the Boorana community, adult or child, man or woman (Aguilar, 1993c,d 1994f; Aguilar and Birch de Aguilar 1993). It follows that in keeping the peace the Waso Boorana achieve a firm foundation for a proper relation with God and the supernatural world. Bearing this second point in mind, I would argue that their pattern of thought when it comes to herd management provides the foundation for their management of ritual activities and ritual choices. Therefore, I would suggest, an exploration of the division of stock between village and camp could be one approach to interpreting the variety of religious experience to be found in the Waso area. While one is aware that the Waso Boorana are age-conscious because of their former affiliation to the gada system, one is also aware that they have a common interest in the livestock which constitutes the foundations of social relations in the community.34

With the limitations on mobility in the Waso area, a Boorana grazing community (deda) can be identified as households that habitually use the same pastures (GTHT/MDO/1992, f.n. 20). The deda follows the usual Boorana strategy of dividing its flocks and herds into sub-units of fora and hawicha animals.35 The hawicha animals correspond to the herd of milking animals kept near the manyatta. They provide milk for children and, at the same time, a few animals for slaughter if the need arises. The hawicha herd leaves the manyatta for watering and grazing and is kept in an enclosure when it returns. The water it needs is usually near the manyatta. Thefora herd is constantly on the move and consists of dry stock, cows out of milk, aged or immature stock. It also has some milch cows in order to provide the herds- men with sustenance. The fora herd can also be divided in two: the oxen

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stay in areas where they can build themselves up and the female stock goes into areas helpful to fertility and milk yield.

This division of flock and herd is the process which Dahl (1979: 216) calls diversification as a 'strategy'. It is clear that the strategy of diversification provides a household with the assurance that should anything happen to the herds the remaining animals can eventually reproduce the lost stock. Diversification is also related to the fact that 'adult siblings are likely to be distributed widely across the land' (Baxter, 1978a: 164). According to this strategy, animals can be entrusted to siblings and therefore kept secure in other parts of the district. This strategy of diversifying the herds and their location has intensified with the increase in shifta attacks.36

When it comes to religious practices, I would suggest, the Waso Boorana have undergone the same process of diversification. The process has emerged from particular responses needed by the Waso Boorana community throughout their history. Religious practices are of the utmost importance in any society. In the case of the Waso Boorana religious practices sustain the Peace of the Boorana. In their own understanding, the Nagaa Boorana has to be preserved for the sake of life, prosperity, and society as such.37 Reli- gious practices are not unrelated events at which the Waso Boorana become religious people; such religious moments express the thin line between life and death, prosperity or famine, being Waso Boorana or being something else. Through their own history, therefore, the Waso Boorana have tried to maintain religious continuity, which in the end has generated change as well. That change 'for Boran, means rearranging components of their traditional culture and economy, and incorporating new components, to meet changed circumstances' (Hogg, 1981: 371). Religious diversification has been a sensible and rational communal response to the need to keep the Peace of the Boorana. A variety of religious practices have been accepted by a community used to diversifying for survival, in order to keep the peace at community level. On the other hand that diversity of ritual moments has helped to keep the flow of blessings in the manyatta and therefore maintain the right relationship between the Waso Boorana community and God.

In summary, I have argued in this article that historical processes of conversion need to be assessed not only from the point of view of one of the world religions but also in terms of the adaptability of a local religious tradition or the committed preaching of a group of missionaries. The discus- sion of local categories related to social organisation can provide another category for understanding religious change. Conversion from a local tradition to a world religion does not happen once and for all but is constantly taking place through historical processes at different levels of a particular society.

As the case of the Waso Boorana illustrates, a process of religious change (conversion) does not necessarily equal an evolutionary process from traditional and local forms of religion to the practices of a world religion or even a lack of belief in God (secularism). In the case of Africa, conversion certainly reflects the close relation between religious practice and social organisation, at a village level as well as in the urban centres. The study of religious diversification in the Waso area of Kenya points to the continuing need for a diversity of plausible explanations and factors to be assessed in the

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RECONVERSION AMONG THE BOORANA 537

study of religious change in Africa. Such religious change may involve a shift from affiliation to a world religion to a local religious tradition, a fluid process that means constant re-evaluation in terms of religious practices and religious discourse.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Fieldwork in Garba Tulla, Kenya, was conducted during 1987-88, 1990 and 1992 with a grant from the Society of the Divine Word and an additional fieldwork award from the School of Oriental and African Studies, London. I am grateful to the team of the Garba Tulla Catholic Mission, who facilitated my research, and to Paul Baxter and Paul Spencer, who have commented extensively on the material.

NOTES

1 More East African pastoralists have converted to Islam than to Christianity. The issue of a semi-nomadic life therefore plays an important part in any understanding of processes of conversion in East Africa. One cannot ignore the fact, though, that distance and sedentarisation have been factors that have increased conversions to Christianity. One must recognise that Chris- tianity and Islam have their own dynamism, and that sociological and historical processes do not account for every process of conversion.

2 The United Methodist Free Church began work in Kenya in 1862 (Thurston, 1991: II, 799). In 1907 it became part of the United Methodist Church. In 1913 the Methodist mission was established in Meru. That year B. J. Wolfendale wrote, 'At Meru we are not far from the Boran country, which had been and is claimed by the Council of Missions as the objective of our mission' (WMMSA, B. J. Wolfendale, 1913-15, p. 2). The claim goes back to 14 November 1860 at Level Street Chapel, Manchester, where the Connexional Missionary Committee met and invited Dr Krapf to speak on the possibilities of work in Kenya. Thereafter 'the evangelisation of the Gallas' became a pursuit that obsessed the Methodist missionaries. The Boorana or Oromo (called Galla in the archives) were portrayed as 'the finest and most numerous tribe in the whole of Africa' (WMMSA, Rev. George Martlew, p. 1).

In the case of the Roman Catholic Church missionaries established themselves in the Waso area in the late 1960s (Aguilar, 1992; Tablino, 1992). Even during colonial times Catholic priests belonging to the Consolata Missionaries from Italy used to visit pastoral communities in the Northern Frontier District.

3 Some Waso Boorana have become Roman Catholics in Merti since the establishment of the mission there in 1970 (Aguilar, 1992; Tablino, 1992). Nevertheless they are only a pocket of Catholic Waso Boorana by comparison with the larger number who reside in Marasabit and Moyale in northern Kenya.

4 I have avoided the use of the term 'African traditional religion', as it is 'a product of the para- digmatic status accorded in religious studies to the Judeo-Christian tradition and of the associated view of religion as text' (Shaw, 1990: 339; also Baum, 1990; Hackett, 1990; J. R. Lewis, 1990). 5 The total population of Kenya at the time of the census on 24 August 1979 was 15,327,061, with a provisional estimate for the 1989 census of 21,400,000 (Europa, 1993: 449).

6 The word ola is the proper word for a settlement in the Boorana language. Nevertheless, the word used in everyday life by the Waso Boorana in Garba Tulla is manyatta. The use and meaning of this particular word have to be distinguished from those of the Maasai. Only moran warriors can live in a Maasai manyata (plural manyat) (Mol, 1978: 102). While manyatta is assumed in a Kenya to be a Swahili word, it does not appear in the Swahili dictionaries. Manyatta is a foreign loan word from the Maasai language (Rechenbach, 1967: 285). 7 The wells at Wajir were deep, permanent and therefore very important to the Boorana and Somali.

8 While the fears of a holy war were probably without foundation, violence between Somali and Boorana had been endemic at the Wajir wells. In 1931 a combined force of Sakuye and Boorana horsemen had killed twenty-one Somalis, and the booty had been 4,500 sheep and goats (Aguilar, 1993a).

9 While the escorting of a group of Boorana into the Waso area coincided with the settling of geographical and political boundaries, the Boorana were already in control of most of Isiolo District by the 1920s (Hogg, 1990: 20).




10 Baxter (1978b: 87) has suggested that the gada ceremonies have not been held in Isiolo Dis- trict since the 1930s. According to my own interviews, and the testimony of elderly people in Garba Tulla, such ceremonies were never held in the Waso area.

1l In the case of the Boorana, traditionally speaking, leadership and organisation depended on the gada system and on the successive and organised taking-over of leadership and responsi- bility every eight years by a particular generation. The gada system differs from a true age-grad- ing system in that all sons follow their fathers, moving up a grade at fixed intervals, without regard to their actual age. The system applies to men only. In the past it gave the Boorana a full social and political structure, owing to the fact that each grade of the system gives every person a title with particular rights and duties attached.

12 The Sakuye are one of the three groups of Boorana present in the Waso area and in Isiolo District. The Sakuye 'claim descent from Somalia but have for about 150 years been the allies of the Borana' (Dahl, 1979: 16). While the Boorana Gutu (who consider themselves Boorana proper and constitute the larger group in the Waso area) are involved with cattle, the Sakuye have traditionally sustained a camel economy. The third group of Boorana, the Wata, are hunters and gatherers (Baxter, 1978b: 71).

13 Through the shegat a Somali group could seek the protection of another group on the promise that, if allowed to remain in the area which the other group occupied, they would support their hosts in the event of war (I. M. Lewis, 1955: 116; 1961).

14 Bwana Res is the name used by Boorana in Garba Tulla to remember Gerald Reece, Dis- trict Commissioner of Isiolo, subsequently Provincial Commissioner of the Northern Province (Chenevix-Trench, 1993: 188) and finally Governor of British Somaliland. The Boorana nick- named him Fars' Adi because he rode a white horse; he also acquired a reputation as a man's man (diira beek') because he rode and walked hard, and always listened to the Boorana elders (P. T. W. Baxter, personal communication).

15 The term 'Garba Tulla Historical Texts' (GTHT) refers to oral interviews conducted in Garba Tulla during 1992. The cassettes and summaries of them have been catalogued chronolo- gically in the manner outlined by Sobania (1993: 117).

16 In the case of Christianity, Methodist missionaries did not fulfil their initial dream of reaching the Boorana, while Roman Catholic priests were denied access to the Northern Frontier District. During the Second World War Roman Catholic missionaries were not allowed into the Northern Frontier District. The Roman Catholic priests of the Consolata Missionaries (being of Italian nationality) were suspected by the British colonial administration of informing the Italian government about military movements and strategic points in the Northern Frontier District of Kenya. The creation of Catholic missions in Isiolo and Merti took place only in the 1960s (Aguilar, 1992).

17 Farris (1984) has applied Horton's model to assess the relationship between the Maya indians and the conquistadores. It is an interesting analysis because Farris creates a new middle level in order to explain syncretic processes, including semi-private devotions to family patrons.

18 Peel (1987: 112) uses this particular approach with clear results when trying to understand processes of religious change among the Yoruba and the Asante.

19 The pre-Islamic conception of the Cushitic God/Sky has many elements in common with Allah, one of the reasons why Islam was so readily adopted by the Somalis (Rigby, 1966: 276).

20 Two people were appointed, a Nigerian, G. M. C. Onyiuke, and a Canadian, Major Gen- eral M. P. Bogert. From 22 October to 26 November 1962 they visited the area in question and talked to people. They also received envoys of the different peoples involved in the discussions in Nairobi.

21 Opinion among the inhabitants of the Northern Frontier District was divided along religious lines, 'between Muslims who desired union with Somalia and Christian and pagan tribes- men who wished to remain in Kenya' (Perkins, 1968: 254).

22 Announcement by Duncan Sandys on his visit to Kenya in order to settle constitutional disputes.

23 Political resistance by Somalis had already begun with the creation of the Somali Youth League in 1947 (Hoskyns, 1969: 27) and can be traced back to the beginnings of the colonial administration in Kenya (Turton, 1972: 120-1).

24 The territory the British offered Somalia included Wajir, Mandera and the Somali portions of Moyale and Garissa.

25 Peace was restored between Kenya and Somalia on 28 October 1967 through the Arusha Memorandum but irregular forces continued fighting till 1969 (Hogg, 1981: 46).

26 In 1992, owing to the forthcoming presidential elections, the Kenyan government lifted the

538




emergency in the Eastern Province. The violence continued, and even increased when ethnic Somalis were authorised to graze in the Waso area.

27 The word shifta means 'bandit' and derives from Amharic (Hogg, 1990: 30, Schlee, 1989: 51).

28 The military records or archival material of those years are not available to the public at the Kenya National Archives. There is very little about the conflict in history books (e.g. Markakis, 1987: 182-91; Orwa, 1989: 232-3). I have relied mainly on interviews conducted in Garba Tulla in 1987, 1988, 1990 and 1992.

29 This period of the shifta war is known to the Boorana as Gaaf Daaba, 'the time of stop' (Hogg, 1981: 47, his spelling).

30 Between 1963 and 1970 the camel population of the district declined by over 90 per cent, from 200,000 to 6,000, the small livestock population by over 90%, from 500,000 to 38,000, and the cattle population by about 7 per cent, from 150,000 to 140,000 (Hogg, 1990: 22).

31 The term shifta is still used of anyone guilty of killing or stealing with violence in the Waso area (Aguilar, 1993d). After the political collapse of Somalia on 27 January 1991 (Omar, 1992: 203, 206) many defeated Somali soldiers entered Kenya (Oba, 1994: 22) and several of them passed through the Waso area. They were termed shifta, as some of them used their weapons in order to steal goods from the Waso people. There is even a term in use, 'Boorana shifta', which relates to Waso Boorana who steal from the Somali refugees in order to deter any further Somali shifta attacks.

32 The Kenyan government spent '$70,000,000 in unplanned-for military expenditure' between 1964 and 1967 (Orwa, 1989: 232). The Kenyan army grew from about 6,500 in 1963 to 16,000 in 1967 (Orwa, 1989) in order to cope with the shifta emergency. 33 Since the shifta war the Somalis in Kenya have been monitored closely, and any ethnic Somali with Kenyan citizenship is still suspect of being a shifta (Ibrahim, 1992).

34 Drought and loss of stock have not reduced their interest in animals. On the contrary, almost any other outside interest may be pursued in order to foster pastoralism. While every family has outside interests, and members of a family will even work outside the Waso area, eventually they invest their earnings in more stock, which is kept for them in the Waso area. Educated Waso Boorana invest their savings in animals (Baxter, 1978b: 76). The animals are kept in their home grazing areas, and are cared for by the firstborn of a family.

35 While the division refers in general to cattle, the same ranching technique can be used for camels and small stock.

36 While I was conducting fieldwork in 1992 the shifta stole animals from different locations. As a result, those who had animals with relatives in different parts of the Garba Tulla Division did not lose all of them through a local shifta raid.

37 Knutsson (1967: 180) describes the world disorders that can take place if the Peace of the Boorana is not kept through failure to hold the ritual festivals properly (cf. Baxter, 1978a: 181, 1978b: 73).

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ABSTRACT

The Boorana of the Waso area of north-eastern Kenya settled there in the 1930s. Upon the settling of colonial administrative boundaries in 1934 they became isolated from the rest of the Boorana in northern Kenya and Ethiopia. Thereafter a process of 'somalisation' took place through which they replaced their Oromo ritual moments with Islamic practices. By the 1950s most of the Waso Boorana had converted to Islam, and since then have been considered Muslims by the rest of Kenya. Neverthe- less recent research has shown that there has been a revival of traditional religious practices among them. The article divides the history of the Waso Boorana into two periods: (1) from their settlement in the Waso area to the events leading to Kenya's independence (1932-62) and (2) from Kenya's independence to the 1990s (1963-92). It is in this second period in their history that the Waso Boorana began

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a process of religious diversification. Traditional religious practices revived in their settlements and distrust emerged of Islam. The article argues that there has been a reconversion to traditional practices, based on a local principle, the Waso Boorana division of herds.

RESUME

Les Booranas des environs de Waso au Nord-Est du Kenya se sont installes dans cet endroit dans les annees 1930. Apres l'etablissement des frontieres administratives coloniales en 1934, ils ont ete isoles du reste des Booranas du Nord du Kenya et d'Ethiopie. Par la suite, les Booranas devinrent plus proche de leur voisins somaliens et, diu a ce processus de "somalisation", ils ont remplace leurs rituels oromo par des pratiques islamiques. Lorsque les annees 1950 sont arrivees la plupart des Booranas de Waso s'etaient converti a l'islam et depuis ce temps la ont ete consideres comme musulmans par le reste du Kenya. Neanmoins, des recherches recentes ont montre qu'il y a eu un renouveau des pratiques religieuses traditionnelles parmi eux.

Cet article divise l'histoire des Booranas de Waso en deux periodes: 1) depuis leur colonisation de Waso jusqu'aux evenements conduisant a l'independance du Kenya (1932-62), et 2) depuis l'independance du Kenya jusqu'aux annees 1990 (1963-92). C'est dans cette deuxieme periode de leur histoire que Les Booranas de Waso com- mencerent un processus de diversification religieuse. Les pratiques religieuses furent renouvellees dans ces colonies et il en ressorti un manque de confiance en l'Islam. Cet article suggere qu'il y a eu une reconversion aux pratiques religieuses traditionnelles, basee sur un principe local, la division des troupeaux des Booranas de Waso.

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Conversion

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