Aspects of Turkana Leadership during the Era of Primary Resistance

Datos Bibliográficos

ID8978331
AutoresJohn Lamphear (DePauw University, autor de correspondencia)
Año1976
Volumen17
Número2
Páginas225-243
Fecha de publicación1976-04-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaThe Journal of African History (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0021-8537 • E-ISSN: 1469-5138
EditorialCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0021853700001304
OpenAlexW2137778011
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas25
Referencias citadas10

After a considerable period of conflict with nineteenth-century traders, hunters and ‘explorers’, the Turkana of northwestern Kenya actively resisted the occupation of their country by the Imperial forces of British East Africa and Uganda during the second and third decades of the twentieth century. At first, this primary resistance was largely in the hands of war-leaders, notably Ebei, the most important military leader of the southern sections. Bitterness engendered by Hut Taxes and other unpopular British policies led to the brief ascendancy of Koletiang, an influential southern diviner, until he was imprisoned in 1911. Again the resistance leadership fell to the military until especially brutal ‘punitive actions’ in 1915 had the effect of consolidating resistance in the north. At this point, Lowalel, another powerful diviner, became the spiritual patron of the war-leaders and their followers, reaffirming the close co-operation which traditionally had existed between religious and military leaders in Turkana society. So charismatic and innovative was Lowalel's leadership that he amassed armies several thousand strong and was joined by other peoples including the Merille and Dongiro, as well as by the forces of the Ethiopian Empire, in resisting the extension of British colonial rule

Ancient history · British Empire · Cartography · Charisma · Charismatic authority · Colonialism · Economic history · Empire · Ethnology · Fell · Geography · Militarism · Political science · Politics · Punitive damages · Resistance (ecology · African history and culture analysis · African history and culture studies · History · Law