Exactly 70 years ago today (August 16, 1946), a young Maasai hurled a spear that killed the new Narok District Commissioner at a deeply resented compulsory cattle purchase in the Loita Hills.
Karambu ole Sendeu, 24 to 30 years old, was hanged for the murder of Hugh Murray Grant on January 28, 1947. This followed a trial, psychiatric assessment and appeal. He calmly admitted guilt and was impassive throughout the trial.
Why did the Karambu throw the spear that tore through the back of the DC, pinning him in the dust of the collecting pen?
The immediate reason: Despite entreaties, Grant refused to give back Karambu’s cherished bullock, the pet he had nursed and cherished after its mother died. The bullock Lemelelu was black, with long horns and a white-tipped tail. But Lemelelu had just been branded property of the British Protectorate of Kenya, when Karambu rushed to the scene. Other favourite cattle had been returned, at the request of elders, but Karambu was too late.
“Hapana…Hapana…Hapana.” No explanation. Was Karambu unable to explain? Was the translator from Maa to Swahili (which Grant spoke fluently) unable to convey the meaning and desperation of the entreaty? Was Grant unmoved, exasperated? He was not considered a harsh man.
Lemelelu was to be slaughtered, its meat tinned for British settlers and British subjects back home suffering hunger after the war. There was a huge single-buyer purchase scheme that some administrators had come to realise
was no longer viable and in fact counterproductive. There was no longer a great cattle surplus. People were hard-pressed and angry.
This was Karambu’s only bullock. He had only 10 cows left, having sold 25 others to the government.
“When I was refused my animal back, I stood and thought about it and it was then my mind went wrong and I was as in darkness and overtaken by madness,” Karambu said in a statement. He spoke in Maa, translated into Swahili,
then English. He waited 20 minutes before hurling the spear.
That was the reason -- on the surface.
However, Rupert Watson explores larger reasons in his brief (106-page ), highly readable Culture Clash -- The Death of a District Commissioner in the Loita Hills. He uses the killing to shed light on the colonial experience.
After the killing and hanging, the administration had feared massive unrest since the community had resisted both the cattle quota purchase and the government. That didn’t happen. Karambu had been promptly surrendered by his brother and didn't resist. The Maasai, fearing collective punishment, paid compensation in cattle to Grant’s widow.
“With both the British and Maasai so resolutely convinced of the superiority of their respective ways of life, was it not almost inevitable that a tragedy of this nature would happen somewhere, some day?” Watson writes.
He explores Anglo-Maasai relations and the forced relocation of population from the best grasslands to accommodate white settlers. In June 1911, perhaps 11,000 humans, 200,000 cattle and more than one million sheep migrated in what Watson calls a “trail of tears for a promised land” for a much enlarged Southern Maasai Reserve.
He describes the onerous cattle purchase policy. On the day of the killing, the Maasai, previously compliant, had sent no cattle. Grant reluctantly had to use his requisition powers to fill a quota.
Watson describes Karambu’s trial in detail, drawing extensively on testimony and documents. Karambu was impassive, sitting on the cement floor.
“At the root of the tragedy” he writes, “lay a coloniser’s scheme for compulsory acquisition of cattle from members of a tribe which not only set unmatched store by its independence but also imbued its cattle with a near-spiritual significance.”
Not much is known about Karambu,
son of a revered, ferociously anti-British laibon sent into exile. Karambu was no longer a warrior and had just graduated to junior elder, but probably retained his moran ways. He was single and childless. He had a temper but was not volatile. Watson speculates Karambu had just returned from an ol pul, or meat camp and might have ingested potent herbs that could have impaired his judgement and made him feel reckless and invincible.
In 1921 Grant served with the King’s African Rifles, returned to Kenya as a farmer and in 1930 became District Commissioner in Mandera. He had several postings, moving to Narok with his family in March 1946.
Watson, born in England, has lived in Kenya for more than 35 years. He has practiced as a lawyer, mediator, naturalist and writer.
