The Scattering Time

This is a study of the responses, especially the armed resistance, of the Turkana people of north-western Kenya to British colonial administration in the early twentieth century. From their first encounters with the colonial vanguard in the 1890s to the final surrender of the great Diviner, Loolel Kokoi, in 1926 many Turkana resisted imperial conquest. Even after the imposition of colonial rule, they continued to oppose the administration through a variety of strategies. This is the first full study of the pastoral Turkana people. In exploring their responses to European colonialism John Lamphear makes extensive use of oral sources, as well as archival and published material. His analysis is also intended as an exercise in military history, and it addresses the fundamental question of why some African societies met the European advance with armed resistance while others did not. The Scattering Time makes an important contribution to the historiography of the imperial conquest of Africa and especially Kenya.