Word: turkana
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...years since independence, African women have discovered that although they have gained the right to vote and to seek positions of leadership, the rigid customs and dictates of their tribal societies have not kept pace with the times. The nomadic Turkana women of East Africa still perfume their bodies over fires of scented wood. The Hausa wives of northern Nigeria still amass huge fortunes in the form of thousands upon thousands of Japanese-made enamel bowls, which they cram into their huts, causing at least one Hausa husband to complain bitterly: "I don't even have enough room...
...Zubin Mehta, the temptation was irresistible. Vacationing with his wife in northern Kenya, the Los Angeles Philharmonic's conductor was treated to a native concert by members of the Turkana tribe. Mehta listened intently to the rhythm: the click of bottle-cap anklets on wildly swinging legs, the imperious clatter of bamboo sticks, the thunderclap of hands, the keening from scores of female throats. Then, having convinced himself that he had picked up the beat, he raised his practiced arm and for a few fascinating measures conducted some of the world's oldest and most primitive music...
...strewn with jagged chunks of volcanic lava that wear out shoes in two weeks. The lake's strand is an equatorial desert (average temperature: 105 degrees) blasted by winds of hurricane force. Its inlets are infested with crocodiles and surrounded by lions, vipers and cobras. Its inhabitants, the Turkana and Suk tribesmen, are dying off. Not surprisingly, only a few white men have ever explored the lake. One of them is Actor William Holden, who was camping there last week...
Nobody can guess how long it may drag on, how far Mau Mauism may spread, how infectious its example might prove to be. What thoughts pass through the minds of Samburu, Turkana, Wakamba or Masai tribesmen as they watch the white man harried by the hitherto despised and pacific Kikuyu? What thoughts down in Central Africa, where the British plan a political federation opposed by the natives, or in Uganda or the Belgian Congo? In South Africa, the Negro-hating Boers use the Mau Mau's terror to win support for even more brutal suppression of the nonwhites. Kenya...