Pastoralists and cattle are intertwined but not kin; indeed as a projection of kin relations they serve to reinforce, to sanctify and to provide an external point of reference for the world of kin and social relations. And this they do by being alien, by being the other, perhaps an intimate other with whom there is mutual embodiment and for whom there is empathy and affection. But as Broch-Due acknowledges, cattle are killed, sacrificed, consumed, and castrated, and rocks are thrown at them in herding. They may be dreamed about, sung to, praised in poems or prose, but are they revered in their afterlife, as ancestors? In addition, as other commentators have mentioned, as Ferguson elaborated in his notion of the Bovine Mystique, and with male-owned cattle being theorized as the first form of private property by Engels–wrong but not to be dismissed–love and affinity for cattle is differentiated along gender lines.

I would suggest, however, that her story raises two issues that seem central to her argument but, perhaps because of space, are underexplored. The first is the role of the sacred and divine as a source for the interweaving of animal and human lives. Turkana, like Maasai, believe in an omnipotent divinity who is ever present in humans and nature and expresses pleasure and anger through natural events like rain and thunderstorms. While the Divine works through humans, and certain humans are viewed by others as being especially saintly or holy because of their actions and ideals, I wonder if Turkana believe that the Divine also works through or is reflected in the beauty or power of certain livestock? (We know that other kinds of animals – like chickens and fish – have historically elicited feelings of disgust, if not loathing, among many pastoralist groups.) Perhaps rather than a dyad of humans and animals, we should consider the relationship as part of a triangle including, if not encompassed by, the Divine?

Second, the brief mention of Emong’s wife speaks to the centrality and complexity of gender – of both humans and animals – to this story. A man’s pride in the handsomeness and virility of his bull, a woman’s fierce effort to protect her children, the power of a wife to influence her husband – these gendered interactions all shape the shared lives of Turkana and their cattle in the present and the possible pathways of those lives in the future.

Dorothy Hodgson
Professor & Chair
Department of Anthropology
Rutgers University

But the theme that Broch-Due ends with, that anthropology has an important role to play in challenging Western notions of a universal human experience of animals, is, in my opinion, even more important. I would like to take it to its logical conclusion by arguing that if there is a universal human animal relationship it is the one which exists in most of the world, i.e. the non-western non-industrialized societies. In contrast to members of industrialized societies, who have very little contact with wild or farm animals, members of agricultural and subsistence cultures have regular contact with animals during childhood, the period during which humans develop empathy and identification with others. If we are alienated from animals it is because we do not grow up with them, not because our philosophers told us so.

In this light the U.S. experience with pets looks very similar to that of Emong and his prized bull. Pet owners will go to great lengths to keep their animals alive, including costly medical treatments that may do little to prolong life. As with Emong, for those animals with which we associate closely our empathy leads us to consider them as almost human and act accordingly.

I was having a similar conversation (about Tuareg men and camels) with one of my Tuareg friends just a couple of weeks ago, trying to confirm information I had collected in my earlier field work in Niger. The Tuaregs in rural areas of northern Niger have been pretty much off-limits since I left there in 1986, when the first shots of the rebellions rang out in a small town near my research area. Since then there have been several rebellions, and now al Qaeda has infiltrated, targeting Europeans and Americans in the heart of my research area.

I am lucky to have Tuaregs from my research area who have emigrated to the U.S. and live nearby in New York and New Hampshire. And so I was at a Tuareg wedding just a few weeks ago, in New Hampshire, and nearly all of the Tuaregs from northern Niger who live in Canada and the north-eastern U.S. were on hand for the celebration. There was a lull between the ceremony and the feasting, and my friends took me aside to exchange the news. I wanted to ask them whether Tuareg men dream about their camels, as I was told back in the 1980s. There was some discussion among them, and the consensus was yes, Tuareg men do sometimes have dreams about their camels, and they provided some examples. I needed this information for a lecture I was asked to give by a colleague here at the University of Massachusetts, Boston where I teach, for a class on “Dreams and Dreaming,” in the Anthropology Department.

Not only do Tuareg men sometimes dream about their camels (for example, their camels saving them by fleeing from desert djinns at night, or riders falling off their camels and being trampled), but Tuareg men also compose songs about them, like the Turkana. For example, in one song I collected, a young man’s camel “knows where his sweetheart is,” and navigates there under a new moon, without any guidance from the rider, who is unable to see familiar landmarks due to the lack of light. From the Tuaregs’ perspective, the camels understand their owners; they are psychic, and connected with the supernatural. Not all Tuaregs would agree with this, but I would not expect unilateral agreement on every issue, and I feel that this is normal. The fact that some Tuaregs think this way is of great interest, and opens a door to understanding Tuareg values.

Tuareg men, of course, take all pains to treat their camels well, and decorate them with the most expensive and lavish of neck ornaments, bridle dressings, saddles and saddle bags. Some will spend hours training their camels to “dance” to the women’s drumming and singing in community gatherings. They will even spend large amounts of money on magical amulets for their camels (worn about the neck) to protect them from danger, illness, and the mischievous djinns.

It is the supernatural aspects of the man-camel relationship that I find interesting, and I wonder if Vigdis Broch-Due might have more to say about Turkana and their spiritual beliefs in connection with the livestock? There may also be a gender difference in the way that Turkana feel about their bulls.

People’s feelings for animals varies enormously, not only from culture to culture but within the same culture.

I believe that Vigdis Broch-Due’s story about Emong illustrates some important truths about the Turkana. It was pointed out that his wife did not share Emong’s enthusiasm for the bull, and badgered him until he sold it when they couldn’t afford it any more. But in every culture there are differences between individuals, often between genders, and I would not expect a unilateral adoration of bulls among the Turkana. Hearing just this one story might raise some doubt, but from my own experience among Tuaregs, I sense that it is probably representative of the feelings of many Turkana men.

It is true also that Americans really don’t have any feelings about cows; and for lack of experience with any cows, why should they? Most Americans do not really associate cows with the packaged meat that we buy at the store, and know practically nothing about commercial cattle or the treatment of cows in the process of butchering. For Americans, cows are an icon of a way of life – the small family farm – that has now pretty much entered the realm of folklore and a bygone day.

The animal rights people have selectively chosen certain animals to “save” with their projects and media – and to save them primarily for the viewing pleasure of non-native tourists. Vigdis Broch-Due has rightly brought attention to the paradox that Turkana lands were taken from them by do-gooders to save selected animals, without regard for the livelihood and feelings of the people who have inhabited these lands for millennia.

Barbara A. Worley
Anthropologist

I am not convinced, however, that the gap of which Broch-Due speaks is as great as is made out in the essay. That there are great gaps among human beings in their conceptualizations (and resultant treatments) of other animals is surely true. But is it necessarily an East/West divide? The particular comparison that jumped to mind as I read the essay was between Emong’s caring for Lokorimeyen and the way many Americans care for, and think about, their pets. The “backgrounds” are utterly different, of course; but in terms of respect, empathy, solicitousness, and so forth, is there really that much difference?

By the same token, remember that the story is about Emong. Meanwhile, his wife “had pushed him mercilessly to get rid of the bull because she simply could not bear his obsession any more and they needed the money for the children.” So is this really a story about Turkana as such?

Furthermore, the essay takes for granted the identity of the bull and cows as “cattle.” According to my dictionary, that term derives from a word for “property.” The article acknowledges that these animals (or is it goats alone?) are also killed: both for meat, albeit “only in important ceremonies,” and for divination. So even the contradictoriness that is a hallmark of Western human attitudes towards animals is apparently to be found among Turkana.

My perhaps cynical view of the matter is that human beings will always use other animals (and for that matter other humans) as they want (and/or need) to, and at the same time conceptualize the animals in whatever local (and sometimes individual) ways will most facilitate that use. How could it be otherwise? But perhaps some of these ways are more true to the sensibilities of the animals and hence more conducive to their welfare and autonomy as they themselves would conceive it. I think insights from both East and West could help us here.

Yet even that observation may be somewhat beside the point (or perhaps illustrative of the point!) of Broch-Due’s essay, which seems to be primarily concerned with the ill effects of Western conceptualizations on human beings, and specifically, on nonWesterners whom Westerners are attempting to aid (by Western lights).