Pokot
a people of the Savannah

In the savannahs of north-western Kenya that spread all the way to the border with Uganda, live the Pokot, a people of shepherds, a tribe numbering just over 200,000 individuals.

The semi nomadic Pokot shepherds live traditionally removed from progress – a way of life that has remained substantially unchanged over the centuries. Yet today even among the Pokot many ancient traditions, usages, customs are changing as lifestyles adapt to the advent of present-day progress.

The origins of the Pokot are lost in time; they belong to the Kalenjin, the large southern Nilotic group of people. Probably between the 7^th- and 5^th-century BC, they emigrated from the lands of the Nile valley, pushed out by invaders coming from Southern Arabia, and reached an area north of present day Kenya.

It was here that they encountered Cushitic-speaking peoples who originally came from Ethiopia and had settled in this area following a succession of migratory waves that had first started in 2000 BC.

It is likely that the Pokòt emerged from the coming together of these peoples.

Their land is called the Karapokot, the land of the Pokot – a semiarid land, a savannah, that spreads across an area between an altitude range of 900 to 2,500 metres above sea level.

The vagaries of the weather affects the life of the Pokot whose livelihood depends on stock raising. Unfertile land, scarcity of pastures and chronic lack of water force the Pipatix – "the cow people", in the Pokot language – to be constantly on the move in the quest for new pastures for their cattle.

But other dangers as well affect the Pokot.

Never-ending conflict with neighbouring peoples, namely the Turkana, the Nandi or the Karimojong in nearby Uganda – all shepherds like themselves and all foes. In the often bloody clashes that occur as all try to wrest from each other cattle, the main source of livelihood for all involved, traditional weapons such as bows, arrows and lances come with automatic rifles that are now making their appearance.

Due to the continuing conflict, the dearth of pasture, the breakout of epidemics and recurrent famines, a group of Pokot, starting from the early 1900s, started to move up the slopes of the Cherengani Hills seeking better conditions of life. They ultimately settled an area located at a height of over 3,000 metres where they found a milder climate as well as more regular rainfall.

Here they took up farming and become sedentary. This new group is called the Pipapax, "the corn people".

The environment thus created two completely different lifestyles within a single tribal group – within a people who speak the same language and share the same origin and culture.

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