# Tana River and Lamu hinterland: Pokomo, Orma, Aweer and delta land

The Tana-Lamu hinterland is river, forest and security frontier: Shungwaya traditions, Pokomo floodplain farming, Orma pastoralism, Aweer forest life, slave raids, delta land pressure, 2012 massacres and Linda Boni militarisation.

*This story part of: Kenya: from the Swahili coast to the republic*
*This story parallel: The colonial map of Kenya: neglected regions and regional inequality*
*This story continues: The peoples Kenya forgot: Taita, the Tana, the foragers, and the Nubians*
*This story parallel: Dorobo is not one tribe: Okiek, Yaaku, and Kenya's forest peoples*
*This story part of: Ecology and environment*

## c. 1500 — Orma descend from Oromo herders who moved south

The Orma are the southernmost branch of the Oromo, descended from Borana groups who moved south from the Ethiopian highlands with their cattle. Oral history traces them to a sub-group that broke into the related Orma, Wardei and Munyo identities during the migration. They are a Muslim, cattle-keeping people who settled along the Tana River. The details and dating of this migration are debated.

*Source: Mombasa, the Swahili, and the Making of the Mijikenda*

*Source: From Slaves to Squatters: Plantation Labor and Agriculture in Zanzibar and Coastal Kenya, 1890-1925*

*Source: Transitional Justice*

## c. 1500 — The Shungwaya origin tradition

Like the Mijikenda of the coast, the Pokomo tell of an ancestral homeland called Shungwaya, somewhere to the north near the Somali coast, from which they were driven south by raiders. Historians treat Shungwaya as a real memory of migration wrapped in legend, not a fixed place and date. It remains a founding story rather than a documented event.

*Source: The Kaya Complex: A History of the Mijikenda Peoples*

*Source: Mombasa, the Swahili, and the Making of the Mijikenda*

*Source: From Slaves to Squatters: Plantation Labor and Agriculture in Zanzibar and Coastal Kenya, 1890-1925*

*Source: Transitional Justice*

## c. 1600 — Pokomo settle as Bantu farmers along the Tana River

The Pokomo are a Bantu people of the Sabaki group who farm the narrow fertile strip along the Tana River. Their traditions trace migration from Shungwaya, a legendary homeland placed on the southern Somali coast, a story shared with several coastal peoples but debated by historians. They settled into a riverine life shaped by the Tana's floods and soils.

*Source: Mombasa, the Swahili, and the Making of the Mijikenda*

*Source: From Slaves to Squatters: Plantation Labor and Agriculture in Zanzibar and Coastal Kenya, 1890-1925*

*Source: Transitional Justice*

## c. 1600 — The Aweer as hunter-gatherers of the Lamu hinterland

The Aweer, known to outsiders by the exonym Boni, are a Cushitic-speaking people who lived by hunting, gathering, and collecting honey in the forests between Lamu and the Somali border. Most of their food came from wild plants, roots, and honey, with hunting adding meat. Their Aweer language belongs to the Cushitic branch of Afroasiatic.

*Source: Mombasa, the Swahili, and the Making of the Mijikenda*

*Source: From Slaves to Squatters: Plantation Labor and Agriculture in Zanzibar and Coastal Kenya, 1890-1925*

*Source: Transitional Justice*

## c. 1700 — Aweer use honeyguide birds to find wild honey

The Aweer are known for working with the greater honeyguide bird, following its calls and answering with whistles to locate wild bees' nests in the forest. Honey was both a staple food and a trade good. This partnership with a wild bird is one of the best-known human-animal cooperations in Africa.

*Source: Mombasa, the Swahili, and the Making of the Mijikenda*

*Source: From Slaves to Squatters: Plantation Labor and Agriculture in Zanzibar and Coastal Kenya, 1890-1925*

*Source: Transitional Justice*

## c. 1700 — Pokomo farmers and the gasa council on the Tana

The Pokomo are Bantu farmers strung out in villages along the Tana River, living off its floods to grow bananas, rice and other crops on the banks. Their society was ordered by age-sets and by the gasa, a council of senior elders that settled disputes and spoke for the community. They were riverbank cultivators in a land otherwise ruled by herders.

*Source: Mombasa, the Swahili, and the Making of the Mijikenda*

*Source: From Slaves to Squatters: Plantation Labor and Agriculture in Zanzibar and Coastal Kenya, 1890-1925*

*Source: Transitional Justice*

## c. 1700 — The Ilwana of the middle Tana

The Ilwana, also called Malakote, are a small Bantu-speaking farming people of the middle Tana around Bura and Hola. Living among the far more numerous Cushitic Orma, they took on much of their herder neighbours' language and custom. They are one of the river's least-known communities, easily lost between larger groups.

*Source: Mombasa, the Swahili, and the Making of the Mijikenda*

*Source: From Slaves to Squatters: Plantation Labor and Agriculture in Zanzibar and Coastal Kenya, 1890-1925*

*Source: Transitional Justice*

## c. 1800 — Aweer flee inland from coastal slave raids

Aweer tradition holds that they retreated deep into the Boni forest to escape capture during the East African slave trade along the coast. The forest hinterland offered cover from raiders operating out of the Lamu and Somali coast. This flight shaped their settlement in the remote woodland where they later remained.

*Source: Mombasa, the Swahili, and the Making of the Mijikenda*

*Source: From Slaves to Squatters: Plantation Labor and Agriculture in Zanzibar and Coastal Kenya, 1890-1925*

*Source: Transitional Justice*

## c. 1850 — Orma build a cattle economy on the Tana River

By the mid-nineteenth century Orma herders had settled in the Tana River country, keeping hardy Boran cattle in a landscape marked by tsetse and seasonal flooding. Milk and cattle sat at the centre of their economy and social life, and they moved herds between wet-season and dry-season grazing. The river and its floodplain were vital for water and pasture.

*Source: Mombasa, the Swahili, and the Making of the Mijikenda*

*Source: From Slaves to Squatters: Plantation Labor and Agriculture in Zanzibar and Coastal Kenya, 1890-1925*

*Source: Transitional Justice*

## c. 1900 — The long Pokomo-Orma contest over the river

Farmers and herders on the Tana have long competed for the same narrow strip of watered land. The Pokomo plant crops on the banks, while the Orma need to bring cattle to the river to drink, especially in drought. This clash of farming and grazing along one river has been a recurring source of tension for generations.

*Source: Mombasa, the Swahili, and the Making of the Mijikenda*

*Source: From Slaves to Squatters: Plantation Labor and Agriculture in Zanzibar and Coastal Kenya, 1890-1925*

*Source: Transitional Justice*

## 1976 — Reserves and hunting bans restrict Aweer forest use

The gazetting of the Boni and Dodori national reserves, together with Kenya's hunting ban, cut the Aweer off from lands and game they had long relied on. Forced toward settlement and farming in a dry, marginal area, many faced food insecurity. The community's foraging economy was steadily squeezed.

*Source: Mombasa, the Swahili, and the Making of the Mijikenda*

*Source: From Slaves to Squatters: Plantation Labor and Agriculture in Zanzibar and Coastal Kenya, 1890-1925*

*Source: Transitional Justice*

## August 2012 to 2013 — Orma and Pokomo clash over the Tana delta

Between August 2012 and January 2013 the Tana River delta saw repeated deadly clashes between Orma herders and Pokomo farmers over land, water and grazing routes, sharpened by local politics ahead of elections. Militias from both sides carried out attacks on villages, and according to news and human-rights reports well over a hundred people were killed and more than a hundred thousand displaced. Investigators pointed to competition over delta resources and political incitement as drivers.

*Source: Mombasa, the Swahili, and the Making of the Mijikenda*

*Source: From Slaves to Squatters: Plantation Labor and Agriculture in Zanzibar and Coastal Kenya, 1890-1925*

*Source: Transitional Justice*

## August 2012 — The Tana River massacres

In August 2012, raids and reprisals between Pokomo farmers and Orma herders in Tana River County killed more than a hundred people, including women and children, in some of Kenya's worst communal violence in years. The bloodshed carried into early 2013 and was sharpened by drought, land disputes and looming elections. Old competition over the river had turned into mass killing.

*Source: Mombasa, the Swahili, and the Making of the Mijikenda*

*Source: From Slaves to Squatters: Plantation Labor and Agriculture in Zanzibar and Coastal Kenya, 1890-1925*

*Source: Transitional Justice*

## September 2015 — Operation Linda Boni traps the Aweer between soldiers and Al-Shabaab

In September 2015 Kenya launched Operation Linda Boni to flush Al-Shabaab fighters from the Boni forest near the Somali border. The Aweer were barred from entering the forest during military operations, blocking foraging and trade and leaving families without food aid. Caught between the militants and the security forces, the community's survival grew more precarious.

*Source: Mombasa, the Swahili, and the Making of the Mijikenda*

*Source: From Slaves to Squatters: Plantation Labor and Agriculture in Zanzibar and Coastal Kenya, 1890-1925*

*Source: Transitional Justice*

## c. 2015 — Pokomo farmland pressed by irrigation schemes and land deals

Pokomo farmers face pressure on their riverside land from large irrigation and plantation projects, upstream dams that alter the Tana's flow, and competition with herders for the delta. Reduced flooding and land allocation disputes threaten a farming system that depends on the river. The community remains among the more marginalised in Kenya's coastal hinterland.

*Source: Mombasa, the Swahili, and the Making of the Mijikenda*

*Source: From Slaves to Squatters: Plantation Labor and Agriculture in Zanzibar and Coastal Kenya, 1890-1925*

*Source: Transitional Justice*

## 5 January 2020 — US counterterrorism presence at Manda Bay

An al-Shabaab assault on Camp Simba at Manda Bay in Lamu County kills three Americans and destroys aircraft, exposing the scale of the US military and counterterrorism presence hosted in Kenya. The base supports surveillance and operations against militants in Somalia. Supporters frame the cooperation as shared defence against a real threat, while critics say hosting foreign forces draws Kenya deeper into external military agendas.

*Source: Mombasa, the Swahili, and the Making of the Mijikenda*

*Source: From Slaves to Squatters: Plantation Labor and Agriculture in Zanzibar and Coastal Kenya, 1890-1925*

*Source: Transitional Justice*