Age-sets, households and the organization of pastoral production: the Ariaal, Samburu, and Rendille of northern Kenya
Fratkin, E.M.
Research in economic anthropology, Vol 8: 295-314
1987
Document Number: 257981
This essay focuses on the pastoral production activities of three contiguous nomadic societies in northern Kenya, the Ariaal, Samburu, and Rendille. Their different productive activites are in part determined by the different herding environments they occupy, with Samburu concentrating on cattle production in the highland plateau region, the Rendille specializing in camel raising in the lowland desert, and the Ariaal engaging in both cattle and camel production along the highland/lowland interface that separates these two larger regions. Furthermore, these various pastoral adaptations are associated with differences in the socail organization of production, particularly in the deployment of settlements, and variations in the inheritance of livestock. Experienced elders with extensive kin ties to other settlements search for lost animals; lmurran (men aged 21-35) supervise livestock camps, repair wells, and defend herds; adolescents and younger males and females perform the unskilled but tedious task of tending the grazing animals; married women and adolescent girls perform a wide variety of domestic tasks, including house construction, milking domestic livestock (except camels), and firewood and water collection.