Noun
Pronunciation: XXX
Lmala for butter making, filled with cream fermented to the ngorno stage.

The nyatio is made from a large, round gourd rather than the more common carved wood most lmalasin are made from. It is cleaned with water or, preferably, cow’s urine rather than the burning botanicals used with other lmalasin. The urine is thought to help the milk separate. The nyatio is filled between one-half and two-thirds full. The two handles on either side, one longer than the other, facilitate hanging and shaking the container to churn butter. (Can you use camel milk? Leave your answer in the Comments below.] 

Hung from the center beam of the ngaji [Is this the mother’s hut? Leave remarks in Comments below], the nyatio is shaken to produce ngorno (butter).

Nyatio are made from a huge gourd purchased from the Massai, the gourd’s circumference being that of the circle defined by the arms of a big man. Rather than capped with a skin lid, the nyatio is topped by a wooden stopper, not hollow, which has been made from a light wood, such as loishimi.

Draft: used for churning butter, made of loishimi, gourd; the wooden stopper is made of loishimi and is not hollow (query fact check the stopper).  

Description

Container capacity: variable

Return to Types of Milk Containers.

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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