Images of Milking Containers — Lmala

Lmala

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, large ones, that no longer exist as the loss of large herds of cows over the last forty years starting with the big drought of the early 1970s has eliminated the need for large containers.

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.

Samburu County, Kenya

Samburu County is a region in the north of Kenya, largely populated by the Samburu tribe, a group of nomadic pastoralists closely related to the Maasai living a traditional life on common land. The Samburu speak northern Maa, though everyone speaks Swahili and everyone who has been to school also speaks English. The area is changing very rapidly with traditional culture practices declining rapidly.

Samburu Research is an American organisation with Kenyan partners, formed by William Rubel in collaboration with local Samburu friends and colleagues. Together we work with local communities to research and document Samburu culture for the benefit of current and future generations, and to communicate those research outputs to the local community as well as to the outside world.

Lmala

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