Writing Biographies of Boorana: Social Histories at the Time of Kenya's Independence

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Periodical article

Title:	Writing Biographies of Boorana: Social Histories at the Time of Kenya's Independence
Author:	Aguilar, Mario I.
Year:	1996
Periodical:	History in Africa
Volume:	23
Pages:	351-367
Language:	English
Geographic terms:	Kenya Ethiopia Somalia
Subjects:	Boran biographies (form) Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) History and Exploration
External link:	https://www.jstor.org/stable/3171948
Abstract:	The time leading to Kenya's independence was a turbulent one for the Muslim Waso Boorana of Isiolo District. They were part of a larger group of seminomadic pastoralists who made up most of the population of that colonial administrative segment of northern Kenya known as the Northern Frontier District. As a result they lived in a territory claimed by ethnic Somali to be part of the newly created Somali republic. The historical reconstruction of events in the Waso area from 1960 to 1963 cannot be restricted to archival material, that for the most part portrays a very general and external view of events by colonial administrators. Any history of the Waso Boorana must take into consideration the biographies or traces of historical events in which Boorana were involved. The present article considers in particular the biographies of Daudi Dabaso Wawera, who in 1963 was District Commissioner of Isiolo, and Chief Hajji Galma Diida, both of whom were killed in a Somali ambush in June 1963. Notes, ref.