Why Into The Desert?

The decision of a coastal, water-oriented group of migrants to leave the security of their only known source of water and march into what they perceived as desert is so striking as to require further examination. The existing oral evidence suggests two possible reasons.

Tradition declares the decision was based on their fear of recapture, either by the Nguo Ntuni or by other peoples they might meet along the river route. At the beginning of their flight the migrants were fully conscious of their own military weakness. They had few warriors, and these were armed only with small bows, wood-tipped arrows, and iron knives. They were further burdened by the need to defend their livestock and eventually their growing crops.

The result was a series of half-formed settlements along the river bank. Huts were established, crops sown, and food gathered from the surrounding lands and river. Nevertheless, their fears eventually caught up with them, as their very immobility led them to expect the Nguo Ntuni to reappear. Predictably, one or another of their ritual specialists prophesied their foe's appearance, and the entire group seized their goods and fled, leaving half-ripened crops behind.

A related reason may have come from their reliance on prophecy. Since the first moments of flight every stage of the Ngaa migration had been guided by their prophets, in contact with communal ancestors through the medium of dreams. During the final period of their march along the river, prophetic dreams had shown their former captors searching along its opposite (northern) bank for a crossing that would permit their recapture. Fear of this in turn engendered further prophecies in which the hardships of travel in a "desert" would be followed by entry into a more promising land, where they could live in peace and economic plenty. One of these, recalled only among the elders of Igembe region, is as follows:

Tutigatura rwanda rururu kenya na kenya indi tukauma guntu guku na tukinye nthugure iingi injega nkukuki.

(We shall not be in this desert forever, but shall leave this place and get to better land.)

Gikiri giakwa kia mithega gigantongeria guntu kuu kweru. Tugiita tukauma naja tukamba nthiguru ngeni na antu banao tukabona ndweene iinyingi na tubenge baumeku na n'gombe cia tugataa.

(My magic gourd will direct me to the new place. As we leave, we will settle in a foreign land, whose people we will defeat in battles and whose cattle we will seize.)^[13]

Of course, more than fear and prophecy might be required to force a riverine people into a true desert. In fact, no such desert existed. Had the Ngaa moved either north or west from any point on the lowest reaches of the Tana, they would not have encountered desert in the

sense of an ecological wasteland but an area of light bush and scattered trees, broken by several seasonal river systems and a large number of permanent papyrus swamps.

The traditions, when examined closely, suggest precisely this type of terrain, declaring that the first area crossed after leaving the river was open, stony, and nearly treeless but with sufficient foliage ("white" grasses) for livestock to graze. Thus, though the migrants may have been catalyzed by the power of prophecy as tradition suggests, they may equally have decided to follow an existing seasonal waterway. The seasonal river Laga Buna, which drains into the lower Tana at Kibusa, provides one such possible route, and there are several others.