Aspects of Turkana Leadership during the Era of Primary Resistance

Dados Bibliográficos

ID8978331
AutoresJohn Lamphear (DePauw University, autor correspondente)
Ano1976
Volume17
Fascículo2
Páginas225-243
Data de publicação1976-04-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoThe Journal of African History (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0021-8537 • E-ISSN: 1469-5138
EditoraCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0021853700001304
OpenAlexW2137778011
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas25
Referências 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