Elephant Hunting in 19th-Century Kenya: Kamba Society and Ecology in Transformation

Abstract

The last few decades before the beginning of the colonial era in Kenya witnessed a period of rapid social and political change as Kenyan peoples were drawn into the web of international commerce culminating in the Scramble for Africa. Behind the coast where the convergence of African and alien was most intense, the Kamba peoples of Kitui and Machakos districts appear to have been decisively influenced by long distance trade and the opportunities and challenges which it presented.' The Akamba emerged as major participants in the caravan trade that increased with the tempo and extent of the northern coastal trade. They operated at every level of this commerce as porters, caravan leaders, and organizers, reshaping their social and political institutions according to the dictates of profit and commercial advantage.2 And at the base of this economic transformation of Kamba society was the production, transportation, and sale of elephant ivory. It is all the more remarkable then, that the chief method for the procurement of ivory for sale by Kamba local merchants and caravan traders has been so frequently ignored: Kamba elephant hunting.