Nandi People - Social Organisation

Social Organisation

The Nandi have had a well structured 'political' system revolving around what might be referred to at the Nandi Bororiet. No other Kalenjin community organised themselves in the Bororiet (pl. bororiosiek) system. The Nandi political life was ordered around 'bororiet' which is distinctly different from oreet (clan) but is probably an expanded form of the advanced order of the 'kokwet' or village system. As explained earlier, people of the same oreet were not necessarily restricted to one bororiet. However, some families were advised, perhaps to avoid recurrent catastrophes, not to live in certain bororiet. A case in point is the long-standing banning of Kap Matelong (and all Kipkenda?) from inhabiting Chesumei which is populated by the relatively obscure but conservative borioriosiek of Cheptol, Kapno and Tibingot.

The Nandi bororiet may be taken as a 'primitive' (not intended to offend, but purely for lack of a better word) model of multipartyism. For it was largely around one's bororiet that vexing, bethrotals and circumcission ceremony attendance were based. It might sound alien to the reader that competition among bororiosiek was more intense than among oratinwek. It would seem, therefore, that with the advent of Christianity and the consequential thinking that what was traditional was backward, the disappearance of bororiet became inevitable. The recent resurgence of Nandi nationalism has brought to the fore the social tenets and socio-cultural-political organisational strata. Among these are the realisation that the current level of complacency, laziness and pedestrian attitude to life that is prevalent among the youth has been inspired by a lack of cementing social identities like the bororiet system. Was bororiet, then, a form of a political system? Hence, could we safely albeit without provoking a sense of unjustified pride, say that the bororiosiek were actually a system akin to the modern day multi-party system?

People could and still change bororiet, due to migration, without necessarily changing their oreet. This is where I consider bororiet as a form of a political party. For example, if one's family lived in one bororiet but was haunted by repetitive deaths that pointed to a curse, a ceremony reminiscent of 'Kap Kiyai' was performed to allow the family to change their bororiet by 'crossing a river' in the context of 'ma yaitoos miat aino' which literally means that death does not cross a river (body of water). This elaborate ceremony was called 'raret' (rar means trim or cut off). If you find a family with a name Kirorei then you probably have a family case of bororiet change which came about as a result of 'rareet' (chopping off). People changed bororiet as a result of migration to another koreet, emeet (region). This seems common for some bororiosiek and not others, however. For example an individual who moved to Kabooch could retain the unique identity, leading perhaps derogatively, to the reference of skin rashes that develop on kids heads as 'Kaboochek'. This was understood to mean that the rashes did not infect and blanket the whole head but developed in isolated but closely related colonies! The Matelong family, originally of KapSile, changed their bororiet because of a calamity which has been discussed elsewhere in this blog.

Another instance of change of bororiet is a shameful perhaps spiteful defection 'martaet' which means somebody deserts his bororiet for another. This brings to mind names such as Kimarta. Within each Bororiet were siritoik or sub-bororiet.