Noun.
Pronunciation: kool-ay uhn-juh-lott’-ee.

Both a food and a medicine, kule njuloti is the combination of kule nairewa (fresh milk still warm from the cow) mixed with cow blood in a 1:1 ratio. As a food, this strengthening mixture is reserved for the murran (warriors). As a medicine, anyone can consume it who has experienced an injury and blood loss, including women after childbirth. (Menstruating women do not consume njuloti.) Whether consumed as a food or medicine, shake after mixing. The blood collection system is described below.

Murran make njuloti when in the bush, where milk is scarce, as women make kule saroi for their children. Saroi may also be made when milk is plentiful, because it is a food that many enjoy. Because this milk is hard to digest, murran usually consume it in the evening so they can digest it when asleep. However, if it is a day when they can rest for some hours, some murran make consume njuloti in the morning.

I am told that the milk and blood mixture can make you hot and sweaty, so people do not like to consume it and then go out in the sun. In my personal experience, I did not feel hot and sweaty. But I drank and enjoyed this milk without having been advised to rest for some hours after consuming. (I suspect this was a trick was played on me by my late friend John.) After drinking two cups of it, I walked a couple of kilometers and then vomited the moment I got near where I was staying.

The herds were kept around the manyatta during the long rains. After the long rains, the main part of the herd was moved to better pasture, anticipating the drought between the long and short rains. Beginning in January and until the milk flowed more freely after the short rains, the main herds were grazing in better pasture, wherever that could be found. Only a few cows were retained at the manyatta to feed the family. Thus, in the months of January and February, this milk made from 1:1 milk and blood was fed to the children, the blood nutritionally making up for the dearth of milk.

To collect blood, cows are bled by tying a rope around the neck and then shooting an arrow into their jugular vein. The blood spurts out in an arc, and is caught in the lmala ngoiti. When this small container (capacity between 1 and 1 1/2 cups) is full, the rope is removed, and in a single gesture, the wound is rubbed with dirt. The blood is immediately stirred with a stick. The stick is removed from the milk after stirring, and in a single gesture, the clot that forms at the base of the stick is flung to the dogs.

When mixed with kule naoto (perfectly fermented milk), the milk-blood product is called saroi. It is drunk by boys who have just been circumcised.

“When you drink njuloti and saroi, you don’t eat anything. You don’t even drink water.” — Longhiro Lekudere in conversation with William Rubel, Jan. 24, 2025.

Return to the Stages of Milk Fermentation.

This is the draft manuscript of the Samburu Milk Project, © 2024 William Rubel. 

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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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