At a time when nations are reclaiming stolen cultural artefacts, a collection of Samburu cultural objects has returned to its origins. Writer and researcher Rhodia Mann, an avid chronicler of Northern Kenya’s pastoral communities for decades recently, donated her entire collection to a new museum in Samburu County.
The repatriated artefacts are at the Rhodia Mann Museum of Samburu Culture at Sasaab, a lodge in the Westgate Community Conservancy.
“Everything came from Samburu and returning them is like a full circle of what I have done for many years.”
There is no national or county museum in Samburu, so the partnership with The Safari Collection is, she says, the best solution for the items.
Several years ago, Rhodia, 82 years, tried donating some of the Samburu objects to the National Museums of Kenya “but they said it was too tribal for a national museum,” she said.
Riccardo Tosi, chief development officer at The Safari Collection said, “The collection of artefacts and their story is a fitting way to maintain a quickly disappearing culture.”
The museum was completed in May 2024 and Sasaab plans an official launch later in the year.
Rhodia Mann poses at Samburu Museum signpost.
Photo credit: Pool
The Safari Collection manages five lodges in Kenya, operating on the ‘4Cs’ pillars of community, conservation, commerce and culture.
The Samburu Museum highlights the cultural and community contexts underpinning their sustainable travel principles. Much less is known about the Maa-speaking Samburu, their history and cultural objects compared to the Maasai. Samburu elders who visited the museum “were surprised to see these artefacts were still around because the traditions are slowly disappearing,” said Riccardo.
Previously, the collection was at the International School of Kenya, ostensibly for students to learn about local culture but essentially inaccessible to anyone else.
Cool ambience pervades the museum interior with ochre-coloured walls and thatched roof. All the artefacts are labelled with their Samburu names and uses, the information and photos gathered over the years.
A unique njipi head necklace worn by male initiates has strands of Venetian glass beads representing the eight Samburu clans, beetle wings and feathers hanging down the back.
There are brass coil earrings, stoppered gourds for storing milk, and a pair of aluminium-covered iron tweezers for plucking hair. A glass-front display cabinet titled The Homestead contains a rare mporro collar necklace traditionally given to brides by their mothers.
Cultural objects at the Rhodia Mann Samburu Museum - photo courtesy Rhodia Mann.
Photo credit: Pool
“I received it from my Samburu adoptive mother as she didn’t have a daughter. Even the elders agree it’s very rare now,” said Rhodia.
A cowhide samburr bag fastened with thongs was used to carry the personal belongings of a woman. It was also gifted to Rhodia by her Samburu mother. “It is the only one I ever saw,” said Rhodia, who is of Polish and Romanian heritage.
Her love for the Samburu culture began at 10 years old while travelling with her father into the Northern Frontier District. Born in 1942, two months after her Jewish parents arrived in Kenya, Rhodia is named after Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia), “where I was conceived when my parents were living at a refugee camp.”
Her father, Igor Mann, was a veterinarian but could not practice in Kenya as his credentials were not recognised by colonial authorities. Instead, he worked as a meat inspector in what became the Kenya Meat Commission and was later employed at the Kabete veterinary department, charged with developing the livestock industry in Northern Kenya.
On her first trip to Samburu with her father in 1952, they visited a manyatta. “While my father was learning about cattle and diseases, I enjoyed the company of the women and children, and I never forgot it.”
Beginning in the early 1990s, Rhodia worked as a safari guide for various tour companies.
“And during my free time I would run up to Maralal to learn something new.” She attended traditional weddings and initiation ceremonies and watched blacksmiths fashioning spears and knives the traditional way. She also developed a close relationship with a well-regarded female healer called Ntaipi who eventually became her adoptive ‘Samburu mother’.
Rhodia is grateful to have had the opportunity of researching the Samburu culture.
“I’m sure there is more I haven’t found out, but what I have learned is like a precious jewel,” she said.
She hopes that young Samburu people will be inspired by the museum to preserve their cultural legacy.
