Shamo Isako Ali – I

Gabra Historical Texts (2023-2024) Number: GHT003

Malabot

January 12, 2024

STUDY TEAM: Paul W. Robinson & Wata Guyo Ibrae 

CONVERSATIONIST & TRANSLATION: Wata Guyo Ibrae 

“We have come to those years that are difficult to remember [because] we now stay in one place for many years and we do not move around.” 

(Shamo Isako Ali) 

Biography

Shamo Isako Ali was sixty-eight years old when Wata Guyo Ibrae interviewed him at Malabot on January 12, 2024. He is a member of the Noles clan of the Algana section of the Gabra. The two conversations recorded that day form GHT.003 and GHT.004 (2023–2024).  

Shamo grew up in a highly mobile pastoral household. He remembers his father moving with the family and their livestock across a wide area that included Gorai and Oboq in Ethiopia, Maikona, Bubisa, the slopes of Marsabit, and areas around Lake Turkana. Shamo continued moving with livestock into adulthood and described permanent settlement as a comparatively recent development in his own lifetime. He dated the end of regular movement by his ola to shortly before the Kokai massacre of 1997.  

 

His account of the years since 1980 is consequently grounded not only in remembered events but in his family’s and his own movements with livestock through the rangelands. Places, rains, pastures, livestock losses, and conflict frequently entered his chronology through recollections of where he and his animals were at the time. In his second conversation with Wata, Shamo reflected directly on the consequences of the transition from mobility to settlement and on the increasing unpredictability of rainfall. 

Original Transcript

Transcript (pdf.)

Interview Recording

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Synopsis

In this first of two conversations with Shamo Isako Ali, Wata Guyo asked him to reconstruct the Gabra calendar from 1980 onward, identifying the names and events by which successive years were remembered. Their conversation moved through years of rainfall and drought, livestock disease, conflict, and movements across the rangelands, drawing repeatedly upon Shamo’s own experiences as a pastoralist. 

Shamo’s chronology emerged through an extended exchange between Shamo and Wata, as they worked together to recover names and events, sometimes correcting earlier recollections or identifying several names associated with a single year. Shamo frequently recalled where he and his livestock were living or grazing, where rains had fallen, and how animals were moved in search of pasture. He also remembered raids and fighting involving neighboring communities, including the loss of his own sheep and goats during a period of conflict with the Turkana. 

 As the conversation approached more recent years, Shamo found it increasingly difficult to distinguish one year from another. He explained to Wata that this was because he and his livestock had now remained in one place for a long time with little to differentiate one from another. His observation brought the conversation from the reconstruction of remembered years to the changing circumstances in which those memories are formed and recalled. 

Interview Summary

This is the first of two interviews conducted with Shamo Isako Ali at Malabot on January 12, 2024. Wata began by asking Shamo to reconstruct the sequence of Gabra years after 1979, identifying remembered year names, rainfall, drought, disease, conflict, and other events associated with them. 

The reconstruction developed through conversation between Shamo and Wata. Shamo sometimes hesitated, corrected himself, or initially remembered an event from the wrong cycle. Wata supplied possible names and events, which Shamo confirmed, rejected, modified, or supplemented. Individual years sometimes acquired several possible names according to the events remembered. In discussing the Monday year of harambee, for example, Shamo and Wata recovered additional names associated with the beating of a police officer and the killing of Ali Shinne by the Dassanech. 

 Rainfall remained central to Shamo’s chronology, particularly the relationship between Ganna, Agaya, and out-of-season rains. He repeatedly connected rainfall to pasture and livestock. A rain might be significant because it generated enough pasture to satisfy animals, while even light rainfall could provide sufficient grazing. Failed rains led to movement toward places where pasture or scattered showers remained. During the dry Talassa year remembered for the Kalacha dust storms, for example, livestock survived by being moved to alol (areas with pasture but no water), while Shamo’s own animals were taken toward Lake Turkana. 

 Shamo frequently located remembered years through his own movements and experiences with livestock. During the severe Arba drought that followed, he remembered moving toward Bulluq, where some showers had fallen. He recalled where his ola was during other years, where livestock were grazing, and where his own sheep and goats were taken in raids. During one period of extensive fighting with the Turkana, his entire flock of sheep and goats was stolen at Moite: “I lost everything. Not a single sheep was left.” 

 Conflict and livestock raids involving the Dassanech, Turkana, Rendille, and others also marked particular years, often contributing to the names by which those years were remembered. 

 As the chronology approached more recent decades, Shamo found it increasingly difficult to name and distinguish some of the later years. He explained to Wata, “We now stay in one place for many years and we do not move around.” 

Notes

This interview differs from the two preceding calendar reconstructions in the extent to which remembering became a collaborative process. Shamo did not simply recite a settled chronology. He and Wata worked through names, events, uncertainties, and corrections together, sometimes arriving at several possible names for a single year. The resulting calendar preserves both a remembered chronology and something of the process through which that chronology is recovered. 

Shamo’s observation that recent years were more difficult to remember because “we now stay in one place for many years and we do not move around.” Earlier years in his account were repeatedly differentiated by movement: where their encampment was, where rains had fallen, where pasture could be found, where livestock were taken, or where conflict occurred. As regular movement has diminished in more recent years, one of the ways in which years had been distinguished from one another may also have weakened. 

 The significance of Shamo’s observation extends beyond the mechanics of reconstructing the calendar. It suggests a relationship between mobility, landscape, and historical memory itself. The changing pastoral life that Shamo describes may therefore be changing not only what is remembered, but some of the ways through which memories of years are organized and recalled.