Dabasso Idho

Gabra Historical Texts (1978-1982) Number: 002

Kalacha

October 10, 1978

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

“You will talk of things which you know. You cannot talk of things of which you do not know. What a father tells somebody could just be a story.”

Biography

Dabasso Idho was an elder of the Gara section of the Gabra and a member of the Karbayo clan. When interviewed at Kalacha in October 1978, he was eighty years old. He was born in 1898, ayear remembered in the Gabra calendar as Ahad Adun Dote (the Sunday year in which the sun died)—named for a total eclipse of the sun. Dabasso belonged to a generation whose lives bridged the world before colonial rule and the profound transformations of the twentieth century. His memories, and those inherited from his parents, gave him an unusually longhistorical perspective

Dabasso’s childhood was spent within a still-mobile pastoral world. His memories reached back to accounts told by parents who had lived through the devastating livestock epidemics remembered as Chin Tite Guracha, when cattle died in enormous numbers from what would be recognized as rinderpest. From his parents he learned stories of migration, warfare, famine, and recovery that connected his own life to an earlier generation. His father, he recalled, owned both cattle and camels, though camels were more numerous and ultimately enabled many Gabra families to survive livestock disasters that devastated cattle-dependent peoples.

Dabasso spent much of his life as a pastoralist. His descriptions of drought management, livestock movements, scouting expeditions (aburu), and the organization of fora camps are practical and detailed, reflecting firsthand experience rather than secondhand knowledge. He spoke knowledgeably about grazing areas extending from Kalacha toward Dukana, Uranura, Wano, Gus, and Sololo, indicating a lifetime familiarity with the wider pastoral landscape of northern Kenya.

His second interview (GHT003) also reveals that Dabasso was not simply an elder but a ritual leader. He identified himself as a Qallu, the hereditary ritual head within his lineage. He explained that the office was passed through his clan and stated directly, “Myself. I am a Qallu.” He described how he had by then transferred the position to his son, continuing a lineage that would pass from father to son into future generations. As Qallu he had presided over rituals, appointed officials such as the Hayyu and Jalaba, guided people through Gada transitions, and exercised moral and ceremonial leadership within the community.

Recognizing Dabasso as Qallu changes how his earlier observations are understood. Throughout the interviews he spoke both as an observer of Gabra institutions and as someone who had exercised one of their highest traditional offices. His emphasis on the authority of the Qallu, the sacred character of custom, and the inherited responsibilities of leadership reflected lived experience rather than abstract description.

In personality, Dabasso was thoughtful, patient, and occasionally witty. He frequently corrected our translations, challenged those questions he thought imprecise, and insisted that statements be rendered accurately. He spoke with the confidence of someone accustomed to being listened to, and with the care of someone who wanted his words recorded accurately. He was equally careful not to exaggerate his knowledge, repeatedly acknowledging when events occurred before his birth or when information had come only through the testimony of parents and elders.

Taken together, the interviews portray Dabasso Idho as more than an informant. He was a bridge between generations: a pastoral elder born in the nineteenth century, a ritual leader within the Qallu tradition, and a guardian of historical memory whose life connected the world before colonial rule with the rapidly changing northern Kenya of the late twentieth century.

Interview Summary

In this interview, 80 year old Dabasso Idho reflected on the history he learned from his parents and elders. He began by discussing his own birth in 1898, a year remembered for a total solar eclipse, before turning to broader questions of Gabra origins, migration, warfare, livestock disease, trade, and pastoral life. Throughout the interview, Dabasso demonstrated a careful concern for historical accuracy, repeatedly distinguishing between events he witnessed himself and those passed down through family memory.

Much of our discussion focused on conflicts remembered from earlier generations, including attacks by the Turkana, struggles involving the Rendille and Samburu, and the role the colonial administration played in ending cycles of inter-group warfare. Dabasso also recounted stories associated with Marsabit mountain, the displacement of Gabra and Borana populations, and the leadership of various Gabra leaders.

The interview contains especially valuable testimony concerning major livestock epidemics and environmental crises. Dabasso recounted what his parents told him about chin tite guracha, the devastating rinderpest epizootic that decimated livestock herds across the region in the late 1880s, and described how different communities survived the disaster. He also discussed later epidemics such as bovine pleuropneumonia (sombes) and reflected on the resilience of camel-based pastoralism.

Toward the end of the interview, Dabasso turned to pastoral practices of the time (1970s) describing drought coping strategies, seasonal migration, scouting expeditions to locate pasture, and the organization of fora grazing camps. The interview provides a rich combination of historical memory and practical knowledge that linked major regional events to the daily realities of Gabra pastoral life.

One of the most revealing moments occurs when Dabasso paused the interview to reflect on the nature of historical knowledge itself: “You will talk of things which you know. You cannot talk of things of which you do not know. What a father tells somebody could just be a story.” His caution illustrates both his intellectual honesty and his awareness of the challenges involved in preserving oral history.

This conversation is particularly valuable because it preserves the perspective of a man born in the nineteenth century whose parents remembered the catastrophe of chin tite guracha and the final period of widespread inter-community warfare before colonial rule. Dabasso offered keen insight into how historical events were remembered, interpreted, and transmitted across generations within Gabra society.

Conversation notes

This first of four conversations with Dabasso Idho (GHT002) serves as an introduction not only to him but also to his distinctive style of reasoning that characterizes all four interviews. Historical events, family experience, pastoral practice, and ritual life were not isolated topics butinterconnected elements of a coherent social world

Dabasso was deeply conscious of the limits of orally remembered historical knowledge. Early in this interview he gently challenged my assumptions, reminding me that stories passed from fathers and mothers might be “just stories” and that an honest elder should not claim knowledge he did not possess. This caution was repeated throughout all our conversations. He often carefully distinguished between events he had witnessed, events he had heard from his parents and matters about which he could not speak with certainty.

Dabasso’s responses flowed. One idea naturally led to another, revealing relationships that might not have been apparent in the original questions. This pattern became a hallmark of all our subsequent conversations.

Many of his assumptions were unstated. There was a self-evident tone to many of the practices he described, possibly because they formed part of his everyday pastoral life. Later interviews, both with Dabasso and with other elders, provided opportunities to appreciate just how sophisticated these seemingly ordinary practices actually were.

Looking back from the perspective I have of the completed collection of interviews, this initial conversation with Dabasso established many of the conceptual foundations that he and others would continue to develop over the next several years.

Allow me here to preface my second session with Dabasso (GHT003) that took place the next day and was a continuation of this first conversation. I learned that even a brief familiarity we were developing with each other allowed both of us to move beyond basic descriptions toward deeper explorations. In this interview, rather than repeating earlier material, Dabasso expanded and refined ideas he introduced during the first conversation.

One of the strengths of our second interview was the increasing confidence with which Dabasso explored complex subjects with which I was only just beginning to learn. His historical recollections became richer, his recounting of social relationships acquired greater nuance, and his explanations began to shift from simply describing events to examining their significance.

Readers may notice a greater ease between Dabasso the teacher and me as a student. The discussion increasingly resembles an ongoing conversation rather than a formal interview, allowing new insights to emerge through dialogue rather than direct questioning.

Nearly three years later, in November 1981, I spoke again with Dabasso Idho (GHT025 and GHT026). By the time of those interviews, both of us had changed. Our conversations then reflected an established personal and intellectual relationship. Earlier themes reappeared, but these were reconsidered in light of new questions and broader reflection. Dabasso increasingly drew together ideas that had gradually emerged across time and space.

The final interviews are best read alongside the first two. This is because as a whole, they demonstrate the cumulative nature of long-term ethnographic conversation. Trust, familiarity, and mutual curiosity made possible conversations that neither of us could have imagined during our first meeting.

It is interesting to reflect how memory itself functions here. Rather than simply recalling the past, Dabasso continually evaluated it, comparing earlier conditions with contemporary realities and inviting reflection on continuity and change. For me, this series of interviews was especially valuable because it affirmed and confirmed that oral history is not static. Memories remain alive and are continually interpreted in relation to subsequent circumstances.

Across four conversations recorded over several years, Dabasso Idho emerges as one of the most reflective voices in this collection. He was not simply a custodian of historical memory or a narrator of personal experience. Rather, he consistently sought to explain the principles that lay behind events. His conversations invite the listener (or reader) to think with him rather than merely learn from him.

Finally, his importance within this collection extends beyond the interviews themselves. Decades later, his eldest son, Dalacha Dabasso, contributed his own reflections (GHT.010.2023-2024, GHT.011.2023-2024, & GHT-KSP.003.2025) at over 100 years of age, creating one of the collection’s most remarkable intergenerational conversations. Together, father and son provide an exceptionally rare opportunity to observe both continuity and change across nearly a century of Gabra experience.

Original Transcript

Transcript (pdf.)

Interview Recording

🎧 Listen to interview part 1

🎧 Listen to interview part 2

Kenya National Archives Reference