Barako Gomo

Gabra Historical Texts (1978-1982) Number: GHT011

Maikona

January 17, 1978

INTERVIEWED BY: Paul W. Robinson TRANSLATION BY: Wata Guyo Ibrae

“During Chin Tite Guracha, my father was a child, but I have heard stories. My father was living at that time. How cattle had died, how cattle died during Chin Tite Guracha, I have heard. During the time of Chin Tite Guracha cattle were completely destroyed. People became poor. All cattle died from them. People became poor and lived in the bush. People lived in the bush. They ate honey from the bush. People lived in the bush. They lost all animals and depended on the bush. That is what is said.”

(Barako Gomo)

Biography

These three conversations (GHT011, GHT012, and GHT013) introduce Barako Gomo and Denge Guyo, whom I met in the desert settlement of Maikona in January 1979. Maikona was—and remains—a bleak, windswept, blisteringly hot place where water from the surrounding plains, lava fields, and hills emerges in a series of springs and shallow wells. It is one of the most important permanent watering places in Gabra country and lies at the meeting point of rangelands traditionally shared by the Gabra, Rendille, and Samburu. Over the course of three consecutive days I first interviewed Barako alone, then Barako and Denge together, and finally Denge by himself. I cannot now remember why the conversations unfolded in that order, but in retrospect the sequence proved to be one of the most illuminating in the entire collection.

Barako belonged to a generation that stood between the older nomadic pastoralist world of their fathers and forefathers and the rapidly changing realities of twentieth-century northern Kenya. Born in the 1920s, Barako (and Denge) grew up during a period marked by prolonged drought, livestock epidemics, intermittent raiding, and continued pastoral migrations across northern Kenya and southern Ethiopia in search of pasture and water.

Barako emerges most clearly from these conversations as a remarkably observant pastoralist. Living in Maikona, Barako spent much of his life moving livestock across the grazing lands of the Hurri Hills, Torbi, and the wide grassland expanses of the Dida Galgallu plain. His knowledge was rooted in long experience: where animals grazed, how rainfall affected pasture, when diseases appeared, how herds responded to drought, and which signs warned of danger. He described livestock diseases with the precision of someone who had witnessed their effects repeatedly over many decades.

Yet Barako was more than an accomplished herdsman. He was also a steward of historical memory. He remembered the past through its consequences for people, livestock, and the land, revealing how closely environmental knowledge and historical knowledge were intertwined within Gabra life. His recollections of droughts, disease, and changing patterns of movement demonstrate that pastoral experience itself constituted a way of understanding history.

The three Maikona conversations also reveal something of Barako’s character. He was measured, thoughtful, and unhurried in his responses, speaking with the quiet confidence of someone who had spent a lifetime ‘being’ rather than ‘performing’. When joined by Denge Guyo in the second conversation, he did not compete for authority but instead encouraged, confirmed, and occasionally expanded Denge’s recollections. Together, the two men demonstrated that Gabra historical knowledge was often created collaboratively, through conversation rather than solitary narration.

Interview Summary

Interviewed at Maikona in January 1979, Barako Gomo presents a detailed account of pastoral life centered on livestock management, grazing movements, and animal disease. After identifying his birth year within the Gabra calendar system and describing the extensive grazing areas he utilized during his lifetime, he focused much of the interview on livestock health and the environmental challenges faced by pastoral families.

Barako extensively described camel and cattle diseases, discussing symptoms, mortality, seasonal occurrences, and the ways in which pastoralists interpreted and responded to these. His observations revealed a sophisticated body of practical veterinary knowledge developed through long experience with livestock.

The interview also contains recollections of earlier epidemics remembered through named years and transmitted across generations. Barako recalled stories associated with Chin Tite Guracha and other periods of major livestock mortality, linking personal memory to wider collective history. Throughout the discussion, historical events were viewed largely through their effects on herds and pastoral livelihoods.

Overall, this interview provides valuable insight into the environmental and livestock dimensions of Gabra historical memory. Rather than focusing primarily on genealogy or political history, Barako’s account emphasized the practical realities of sustaining herds in a variable and often unforgiving environment.

Conversation notes

The Maikona Conversations (GHT011–013)

Editor’s Note: The three Maikona interviews (GHT011–013) were recorded over three consecutive days in January 1979. Each is presented here as an independent archival record with its own transcript, audio recording, and metadata. Together, however, they form a single extended conversation between Barako Gomo, Denge Guyo, and the interviewer, and are best appreciated as a sequence.

Three conversations, two voices

The three conversations involving Barako Gomo and Denge Guyo are best understood as a single unfolding encounter rather than as three independent interviews. Together they allow readers/listeners to observe not only two knowledgeable elders but also the different ways historical understanding develops through individual reflection and shared conversation.

Conversation One (GHT011) introduces Barako Gomo on his own. Readers encounter a youngish elder in his 50s, whose observations were firmly grounded in the practical realities of pastoral life. The discussion established many of the themes that would continue through the following conversations while also revealing Barako’s calm and deliberate manner of explanation.

Conversation Two (GHT012) broadens the discussion as Denge Guyo joined the conversation. The interview became more than the sum of its parts. Each one’s memories stimulated further memories, ideas were expanded rather than repeated, and readers are able to witness the collaborative character of oral historical knowledge. The conversation itself is evidence of how understanding is often created collectively.

Conversation Three (GHT013) allows Denge to speak independently. Having first encountered him in dialogue with Barako, readers can now appreciate the distinctive qualities of his own voice. Themes introduced earlier continued, but they were developed from a different perspective, completing a sequence that is both coherent and richly varied.

Taken together, these three conversations illustrate one of the strengths of this collection. They show that oral history is not confined to a single form. Sometimes one elder spoke alone. Sometimes two elders remembered together. Sometimes a conversation begun in company continued in solitude. Each of these dynamics contributed something different to our understanding.

As you read and listen across all three conversations, notice not only what each elder remembered, but how their different voices complemented one another. Together they demonstrate that historical knowledge often grows through conversation itself—a process in which individual experience, shared memory, and thoughtful dialogue combine to create a richer understanding than any one voice could provide alone.

A Relational and Methodological Lament

Finally, let me add a personal historical note and lament. At the end of the conversation, the following exchange took place:

QUESTION: ARE THERE ANY OTHER OLD MEN WHICH YOU WANT TO TELL ME, WHOM I CAN ASK SUCH THINGS AND WHO HAVE HEARD OF MANY THINGS?

BARAKO: A certain old man, a very old man of the age of our fathers–other than Dabasso Idho. For every cycle of a year – let us say if this year is bad, one can remain for eight or nine years and then the bad year comes back, or if this year is a good one, can remain for eight or nine years and come back again, an old man who knows such things – he is not here (in Maikona) – but he is in this area. There is a certain old man.

QUESTION: WHAT IS HIS NAME?

BARAKO: Kushi.

QUESTION: KUSHI ROBA?

BARAKO: Kushi Roba.

QUESTION: WHERE IS KUSHI’ S OLA?

BARAKO: The ola of Kushi is there. Slightly far away. It is in the hills.

I had for a few months been hearing the name, Kushi Roba. He was reputed to know and understand cycles of time and events more than anyone else.

Wata and I pressed Barako for more details of the location of Kushi’s ola. So, just before dawn, Wata and I awoke, filled our water containers, and drove a kilometer or two to where the lava boulder fields began. We left the Land Rover, and began to walk towards where Barako had indicated, Wata paid close attention to the geographic and place descriptors he had been given. We met an occasional herdsman who either affirmed our route or corrected our direction. After six or so hours of trekking our on a cloudless day that was rapidly getting exceedingly hot, and over lava rubble, we began to see signs of an encampment (camels, goats, and sheep browsing and grazing) and then saw an ola in the distance. It turned out to be Kushi Roba’s.

We found the elderly man in his man desse (tent). He offered us stools upon which to sit but remained just inside the doorway. He was very gracious, offering us fresh milk, but no tea. He soon told us that the young men and women had gone the previous evening with the camels to Maikona and that the ola was totally out of water until they returned – likely not before the next morning.

He asked why we troubled ourselves to walk to his ola, and we explained our hope to see him and to talk about cycles. He was amenable but told us he could not talk to us without his eldest son being present – and of course his son was where we had just come from! Reluctantly we turned back to begin the six-hour hot and dry trek back to Maikona.

I never met Kushi Roba again. His detailed knowledge is gone and lost. It is one of my life-long regrets.

Forty-eight years later, in 2024, Wata met Kushi’s eldest son Ruchi in Bubisa town across the Dida Galgallu expanse from Maikona. Ruchi remembered his father telling him of Wata’s and my visit to their ola. Ruchi had learned some of his father’s knowledge of cycles, but relatively little.

Original Transcript

Transcript (pdf.)

Interview Recording

🎧 Listen to interview part 1

🎧 Listen to interview part 2

Kenya National Archives Reference