Just north of the Equator, where the Great Rift Valley provides some of the most spectacular scenery in Kenya, lies Samburuland, the home of a race of proud, tough, semi-nomadic pastoralists. Like their more famous relatives the Maasai, they continue to withstand efforts to impose alien culture and live their lives very much as they have always done. Samburu culture revolves around cattle--which gives a man status in the community and form the bride-wealth which will enable him to buy a wife from a good family. Cattle are also a key feature over ceremony, from the circumcision which every young man must undergo to the important age-set ceremonies which take place only once every fourteen years.
