The Fringe Communities

The chronicles state that the migrants fled the island in three distinct bands. Each was named for the time of its departure. Thus, the black, white, and red clans left at night, dawn, and sunset, respectively. The three colors providing one of the tribe's earliest social divisions; these identities are retained today.

A second type of fission, this one economic, began soon after the migration began. Once the Ngaa were well launched on their journey up the Tana River, three increasingly distinct groups emerged. The main body of migrants remained close to the river, using its waters to reestablish their traditional herding, agricultural, and fishing economy. Their political and judicial institutions also stayed unchanged. The system of Kiamas continued to function, resolving conflicts within each age-set precisely as before. The ritual specialists continued to prophecy, curse, divine, and heal, maintaining contact with ancestors through the medium of dreams and providing direction to the flight.

The authority of those institutions, however, did not apply equally to all members of the society. Over time the change in economic conditions forced at least two sections of the community into positions of increasing estrangement. They did not split off from the main body but developed increasingly distinct identities of their own, which forced them gradually onto the community's fringe.

Aturi: The Ironsmiths

This process can be envisioned most clearly by examining the economic evolution of the Aturi, or ironsmiths. While on Mbwaa, traditions

suggest, their craft was considered neither mysterious nor exotic. The iron they used was derived from iron sand, a magnite with a black metallic luster. It was easily visible, thus simple to collect; during heavy rains noticeable quantities were washed out of streambeds, gullies, or even pathways and could be quickly gathered. It also occurred in permanent watercourses, where it could be gathered in sufficient quantities for smelting.^[14] Iron ore was thus both abundant and accessible. It was smelted through the use of a triangular goatskin bag, which when filled and compressed formed an adequate bellows.

Like other coastal Bantu, the smiths of Mbwaa did not form a single clan. Rather, each clan had its own ironworkers, often from one family, who drew apprentices from among its own or others' sons. Relations between the smiths and other islanders were evidently cordial, because traditions state they participated in feasts and were allowed to marry whom they pleased. Within an economy of abundance their craft lacked mystery. Land was limited, but every family had its source of iron sand. More important, there was enough for all.

Every one of these conditions changed with the commencement of the migration. Since land was now limitless, boundaries were now unknown. The traditions that had established them, thereby protecting sources of supply, had disappeared. More important, the lower regions of the Tana River area through which the migrants passed revealed no iron sand at all, precisely when the psychological need for iron-tipped weapons must have been strongest.^[15] This need was not only military but supernatural. Iron was believed to have a life force of its own, an intrinsic power to either harm or protect men. Without it neither hunters nor warriors could face the wilderness with confidence.

The ironsmiths thus extended their search. Banding together for the first time in tribal history, they moved away from the security of the river and began to search inland. Over time, small, scattered supplies of ore were discovered, but these failed to provide the smiths with their former sense of security. To protect what little had been found, the smiths jointly sought that security within the supernatural, developing rituals and practices that had no precedent in island tradition. In consequence, these rites progressively estranged them from the cultivator/herders that made up the mainstream of the migrants.

A-Athi: The Hunters

The same type of transformation occurred among those families who from the beginning of their migration had chosen to hunt wild game or

gather honey, rather than fish, herd, or farm. Tradition records nothing of either meat or honey hunting in Mbwaa, suggesting it did not occur. Once on migration, however, the lack of grain or livestock must have led men from the poorest clans to seek new sources of food.

Banding together in the same manner as the ironsmiths, they formed themselves into hunting bands (A-Athi; sing: Mwathi or Mu-Athi) sharing whatever was scavenged or speared. As the regions nearest the river were exhausted, they penetrated deeper and deeper inland. As their proficiency grew, they spent more and more time apart from the main community, developing customs, rituals, and even vocabularies known only to themselves.

As their estrangement from the river migrants intensified, the hunters found themselves in the same position as the ironsmiths. Their very successes raised the problem of preserving sources of supply. A-Athi clan traditions speak, even today, of the joy with which the first hives were discovered ("in tree caves"), as well as of the feasts that took place once substantial wild game had been found. Their inevitable second thought, however, was to protect what was found. A beehive could be stripped by any passerby; "mainstream" herders or cultivators could swiftly disperse concentrations of game.

Consequently, both ironsmiths and hunters gradually drifted away from the migrants' communal tradition. For herders and cultivators, people of the migrant mainstream, the patterns of social control could continue unchanged, for the simple reason that land for both farming and grazing was unlimited, thus needed no protection. The same was not true for either hunters or smiths. The commodities they sought, and perceived as prerequisite to their own survival, were undependable, limited, and could be rapidly depleted once found.

Both groups thus reacted by expanding the traditional curse, extending and reshaping it to fit their economic needs. On Mbwaa, cursing was a private affair, used to ritualize and thereby resolve conflicts between individuals. Only the council of ruling elders, acting in concert against a recalcitrant individual, was permitted to intensify the impact of a curse by reciting it collectively.

Now, both smiths and hunters adapted the tradition to their needs. The smiths, drawing on their beliefs in the intrinsic power of iron, adapted a communal form of cursing to its creation. Gathering their entire band around a single blazing fire, they began a chant in time to the systematic pound of their hammers against a single giant forge: "Let he who touches iron be as dry [hot] as this piece that I strike. Let he who

touches iron be as dry [hot] as my hammer itself. No more trouble. No more trouble."

The curse was intended, of course, to be heard by the entire community. It would then strike at anyone who felt guilty. Having "troubled" any member of the smiths in some fashion, individuals would develop appropriate physical and mental symptoms. The community would react by isolating the victims, and the entire process of ritualized reconciliation would begin.

The hunters followed a similar pattern. Successful kills or the discovery of hives would be followed by nighttime feasts of meat or honey. These would ostensibly be set "in the bush." In fact they were always within earshot of the settled community. A curse was chanted by the entire company, followed by a single meaningless sound intended to carry through the night air to every migrant hut.

The words of the hunters' curse followed mainstream tradition. No specific names were mentioned. The proposed punishments were both socially appropriate and physically visible ("he who touches [this hive] . . . let his arm shrivel"). Only the crime had changed, and with it the intent of the curse itself. Formerly an instrument of personal vengeance, it was transformed into one of economic protection, levied by increasingly deviant minorities against the mainstream community itself.

The duplication of other mainstream social institutions occurred in turn, as both hunters and ironsmiths followed the logic of what each had begun. The casting of curses to protect a single group required the emergence of specialists unique to that group to deal with the consequences as well as Kiamas (councils of elders) subsequently to reconcile the persons most concerned.

In consequence hunters and smiths developed a "duplicate" series of councils (Kiama Kia A-Athi: council of hunters; Kiama Kia Aturi: council of ironsmiths) for each of its age-sets, patterned precisely like those of the mainstream but outside of its control. Similarly, each group created its own class of ritualists who prophesied, cursed, divined, and healed only among members of their own subcommunity.

Thus a curse, with its attendant condition of impurity, could be imposed by members of the "mainstream" cultivator-herders, the hunters, or the smiths. Victims had to appeal to specialists from the appropriate group for physical and mental relief and thereafter to that group's ruling council for judgment, restitution, and eventual reconciliation. A honey thief, for example, had to deal with the ritualists and rul-

ing elders of the A-Athi hunters; a livestock thief, with those of the mainstream.

Over time the progressive estrangement among these groups was formalized by the creation of taboos, forbidding members of one occupation to share food and drink with those of the other two, thereby eliminating what is perhaps the single most important act of Bantu hospitality. Men who ate wild game, for example, were forbidden to touch cow's milk or millet, even in the form of beer. Those who did not were forbidden to consume the meat of wild animals. The smiths followed similar patterns. In consequence both groups found themselves ritually barred from the meat feasts and beer drinking that were the core of social interaction within the mainstream community. Although still part of society, they were restricted to its fringes, a development that would significantly affect the evolution of Meru history.