Nomads in the Shadows of Empires African Social Studies Series

Nomads in the Shadows of Empires African Social Studies Series Editorial Board Martin R. Doornbos, International Institute of Social Studies, The Hague Preben Kaarsholm, Roskilde University Carola Lentz, University of Mainz John Lonsdale, University of Cambridge VOLUME 30 The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/afss Nomads in the Shadows of Empires Contests, Conflicts and Legacies on the Southern Ethiopian-Northern Kenyan Frontier By Gufu Oba LEIDEN • BOSTON 2013 Cover illustration: Delegates of the Northern Frontier Political Party representing Northern Peoples United Association (NPUA), hosted by Emperor Haile Selassie in Addis Ababa, February 1962. Left: Haji Wario Guracha, leader of NPUA, right: Abba Jillo Araru, secretary general of NPUA, middle: Emperor Haile Selassie. Photo used by the permission of the family of Abba Jillo Araru. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Oba, Gufu, author. Nomads in the shadows of empires : contests, conflicts and legacies on the southern Ethiopian- northern Kenyan frontier / by Gufu Oba. pages cm. -- (African social studies series ; volume 30) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-90-04-24439-9 (pbk. : alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-90-04-25522-7 (e-book) 1. Nomads-- Ethiopia. 2. Nomads--Kenya. 3. Pastoral systems--Ethiopia. 4. Pastoral systems--Kenya. 5. Land use, Rural--Ethiopia. 6. Land use, Rural--Kenya. 7. Ethiopia--Politics and government--19th century. 8. Ethiopia--Politics and government--20th century. 9. Kenya--Politics and government--19th century. 10. Kenya--Politics and government--20th century. 11. Ethiopia--Relations--Kenya. 12. Kenya--Relations--Ethiopia. I. Title. II. Series: African social studies series ; v. 30. GN650.5.E8O33 2013 963.0086918--dc23 2013021424 This publication has been typeset in the multilingual “Brill” typeface. With over 5,100 characters covering Latin, IPA, Greek, and Cyrillic, this typeface is especially suitable for use in the humanities. For more information, please see www.brill.com/brill-typeface. ISSN 1568-1203 ISBN 978-90-04-24439-9 (paperback) ISBN 978-90-04-25522-7 (e-book) Copyright 2013 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Global Oriental, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers and Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. This book is printed on acid-free paper. <UN> <UN> This book is dedicated to the memory of my father Oba Sarite Kura (1891–1996) <UN> <UN> <UN> <UN> CONTENTS List of Illustrations ................................................................................................... ix Preface ........................................................................................................................ xi Acknowledgements ...............................................................................................xix Abbreviations..........................................................................................................xxi 1. Introduction �� 1 2. Pre-Colonial Shifting Resource Borders and Ethnic Relations, 1800–1908 ��11 3. The Marking of an Imperial Frontier: Two Borders, Two States, 1898–1909 ��33 4. Tax Extractions, Imperial Relations and Responses by Frontier Nomads, 1908–1935 ��59 5. Transfrontier Grazing and Watering Rights: A Proxy of Border Contests, 1908–1935 ��89 6. Tigre Frontier Banditry: A Legacy of Imperial Conquest, 1908–1934 �� 115 7. Negotiating Ethnic Conflicts: States and Feuding Nomads, 1911–1935 �� 137 8. Fascist Italy’s Conquest of Ethiopia: The Southern Front, 1935–1937 �� 157 9. A New Imperial Neighbor on the Frontier: The Dilemma of Coexistence, 1936–1939 �� 185 10. War, Contests and Conflicts: A Brief Collapse of an Imperial Frontier, 1939–1942 �� 209 11. The Return to Imperial Frontier Politics: The British and Ethiopia, 1942–1948 �� 231 12. Jeegir Banditry: Rebellion by Frontier Nomads, 1941–1943 �� 255 <UN> <UN> viii contents 13. Compensating Victims of Banditry in 1943: States and Pastoralists �� 283 14. Political Legacies of Shifting Politics ................................................. 313 15. Summary �� 327 Glossary .................................................................................................................. 335 Bibliography .......................................................................................................... 341 Index........................................................................................................................ 353 <UN> <UN> LISTS OF ILLUSTRATIONS 1. The Southern Horn of Africa ...........................................................................12 2. Pre-colonial major ethnic communities in the Southern Horn of Africa ......................................................................................................14 3. Pre-colonial locations of historical Events in Southern Horn of Africa ......................................................................................................19 4. The imperial borders in the late nineteenth century...............................41 5. The provisional borders of the southern frontier showing the ‘International’ Maud Line (i.e. the Red Line) and the ‘British’ Gwynn Line (i.e. the Blue Line) .............................................. 54 6. The southern Ethiopian and northern Kenyan frontier showing localities of historical importance from 1908–1948 .................................................................................................. 95 <UN> <UN> <UN> <UN> PREFACE This work was originally conceived as a regional study on the Horn of Africa, focusing on the nexus between the environment, states and nomads. I realized that the scope of this project was far too wide, and would not do justice to topical issues concerning nomads and imperial states in the context of partitioned frontier communities. The choice was whether to examine all the frontiers of northeastern Africa or focus on just one frontier to capture the political dynamics over time. The choice to opt for the latter was a better way to realize at least part of the original research topic. My choice was the southern Ethiopian-northern Kenyan frontier. In writing this book, I have more than merely scholarly motivations for documenting the relationships between nomads and imperial states on the southern Ethiopian−northern Kenyan frontier. This frontier was the home of my grandparents, their parents and their forebears. Like other nomads in this region, my grandparents experienced shifting pre-colonial resource frontiers that defined ethnic grazing lands in the southern Horn of Africa. Their resource frontiers were divided into ritual and non-ritual lands, with the ritual lands serving as core territories, in which were located the pastoral settlements, the major grazing lands, and the wells used by people and their livestock for centuries. The non-ritual resource frontiers—also called the ‘frontiers of the fools’ (Oba Sarite Kura, inter- view, 1992a)—were situated in a no-man’s land. They were not only sepa- rated from the ritual lands, they also formed resource frontiers with neighbouring ethnic groups. Across these geographical spaces, my grandparents, like others before them, migrated from old resource areas and occupied new ones, giving up those in the ‘frontiers of the fools’ as the situation warranted. My grandparents and parents experienced the partitioning of the frontier region between the empire of Ethiopia and the British East African Protectorate of Kenya. Mass migrations of pastoral populations from the Horn of Africa in the early twentieth century, combined with the process of imperial expansion, dislocated them from some of their historical grazing lands. The ‘frontiers of the fools’ disappeared, after the arrival of the imperial powers, when the tribal territories were incorporated into the imperial states. Finding themselves caught up in the fluctuating political

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