History
Famine and Drought
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- Published on Saturday, 30 June 2007 22:56
According to Ochieng’ (1986:8), “in Kenya, as in many parts of Africa, droughts have always acted as catalytic precipitants of famines, while the real cause of famines lie hidden in mistaken human policies and environmental deterioration”. We have already seen how colonialism, through its economic and labour policies, compounded by the war, created a crisis in Gusii peasant agriculture, making food supply so meager and easily liable to be blown out of proportion by drought.
Famine and pestilence followed hard on the heels of the war. The 1918/19 famine, locally known as the famine of Kengere apparently after the many towering church bells in the area, and possibly due to the mission’s role in distributing famine relief was also precipitation by an anti-colonial movement among the Gusii- known as the Mumbo cult. Ogot and Ochieng’ (1972:149-171) have shown that the Gusii adopted the cult of Mumbo from the Luo and used it effectively to continue their struggle against the British up to 1954. According to the teachings of the Mumbo cult, the white man was destined to go and the Gusii be left alone. In addition to this, Sakawa, the renowned Gusii prophet, had prophesied that one day the white man would go back to his country. It was this mumbo that was behind the 1914 revolt. “The year 1917 is traditionally remembered by the Gusii as the year of prophets” (Ogot and Ochieng’, 1972:169). In this year, great many mumbo prophets rose to tell their credulous compatriots to keep their hoes indoors since wimbi could come by itself and fill their pots and granaries. The days of the Europeans were said to be numbered, and taxes and other “burdensome jobs” could disappear with then.
They promised people food and told them not to cultivate. With no crops in the field, no food in the granary, and the failure of rainfall in 1918 the Gusii suffered the worst famine remembered to date. According to one informant the Mumboites were to blame.
By 1917, there were Mumboites like Obino, Intware, Nyakundi and Ogwora and his wife. They said that … food and cows without horns (Nyamogumo) will come from the river/lake. Leave your hoes put them in the house and wimbi will come”. We did as the Mumboites said. “Where then is the food? Ho! By the time we started cultivating in 1918 … famine was sweeping across the country. The Mumboites are the ones who deceived people that food would come” (Onchoke, O.I., 1989).
