Noun
Pronunciation: koo-lay see-kee’-ree-uh
Donkey milk.
The Samburu don’t eat donkey meat. They don’t drink its milk. The Turkana do eat donkey, and there is even a butcher for donkeys in Baragoi. Like foods other cultures use to clarify their cultural identity, such as the frog legs eaten by the French, kule sikiria is called “Turkana milk.” This rejection is more akin to Jewish Kosher laws, as the reason the Samburu don’t eat donkey is that they don’t eat animals with a single hoof — thus, they would not eat horse or zebra.
Kule sikiria is used by Samburu as medicine for children with whooping cough, and topically where the skin has come into contact with millipede toxin.
Return to the Stages of Milk Fermentation.
This is the draft manuscript of the Samburu Milk Project, © 2024 William Rubel.
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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Samburu Research 