Lmala, Lmasin (pl)

Most people translate the milking containers into the English, “calabash.” While there are a couple milking containers that are made from gourds, most are made from carved wood. There are a little more than twenty shapes for lmala the are still in common use. There may be some containers that no longer exist as the increasingly severe and frequent droughts, beginning in the early 1970s, has decimated the herds of cows. Cows are now gone from the Samburu Lowands. The land no longer supports cows, and both goats and sheep can no longer survive on the limited grasses and shrubs. Camels are the newly important herd animal.

Large swaths of Samburu land suffer sheeting erosion in which all slopes have been washed clean of all topsoil, so rainy season means more erosion rather than green grass.

I have recorded each existing shape within the Lowland community I work, including a written definition of the container including where it fit into the culture of Samburu milk consumption.

An example of a Samburu milking container.

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Published by William Rubel

I am an author who writes about traditional food and foodways. My book, The Magic of Fire (2002) is about hearth cooking. I have written an introductory history of bread, Bread, a global history (2011) and am currently writing a history of bread for the University of California Press. Other areas of interest include wild mushrooms, and specifically the treatment of Amanita muscaria in the historic record. I also write about Early Modern British Gardens, and for a more general audience, I write for Mother Earth News on bread, gardening, and more. I have an ongoing research project into the smoke-cured fermented milk of the Kenyan Samburu tribe. I am a co-director of the Samburu Lowlands Research Station, Lengusaka. I am the founding editor (1972) of Stone Soup, the magazine of writing and art by young people.

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