This page offers a developing bibliography of sources concerning the Marakwet and related neighbouring communities. Please do feel free to contact us to suggest new references and information. Where possible, click the links below to find further information/access to the relevant reference.
Bibliography A-Z by author:
Adams, W.M. (1996) ‘Irrigation, erosion and famine: visions of environmental change in Marakwet, Kenya’ in M. Leach and R. Mearns (eds.) The lie of the land: Challenging received wisdom on the African environment. Oxford: James Currey, pp. 155-167
Adams, W.M. and Watson, E.E. (2003) ‘Soil erosion, indigenous irrigation and environmental sustainability, Marakwet, Kenya’ Land degradation and development 14: 109-122
Adams, W.M. and Anderson, D.M. (1988) ‘Irrigation before development: indigenous and induced change in agricultural water management in East Africa’ African Affairs 87: 519-535
Adams, W.M. et al. (1997) ‘Water, rules and gender: Water rights in an indigenous irrigation system, Marakwet, Kenya’ Development and Change, 28: 708–730
Beech, M.W.H. (1911) The Suk: their language and folklore. Oxford: Oxford University Press
Bianco, B. (1996) ‘Songs of Mobility in West Pokot’ American Ethnologist 23: 25-42
Bianco, B. (1992). The Historical Anthropology of a Mission Hospital in Northwestern Kenya. Ann Arbor, MI: University Microfilms International
Bianco, B. (1991) ‘Women and things: Pokot motherhood as political destiny’ American Ethnologist 18: 770-785
Blackburn, R.H. (1974) ‘The Okiek and their history’ Azania 9: 139-158
Bollig, M. (2000) ‘Staging social structures: ritual and social organisation in an egalitarian society: the pastoral Pokot of northern Kenya’ Ethnos 65: 341-365
Bollig, M. (1998) ‘Moral economy and self-interest: kinship, friendship, and exchange among the Pokot (N.W. Kenya)’ in T. Schweizer and D. R. White (eds.) Kinship, networks and exchange. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 137-157
Bollig, M. (1990) ‘An outline of pre-Colonial Pokot History’ Afrikanistiche Arbeitspapiere 23: 73-91
Brown, J. (1989) ‘Pokot’ in J. Barbour and S. Wandibba (eds.) Kenyan pots and potters. Nairobi: Oxford University Press, pp. 53-58
Cappon, J.C. et al. (1985) District Atlas Elgeyo Marakwet. Iten: Arid and Semi-arid Lands Development Programme, Ministry of Planning and National Development (Kenya)
Caretta, M.A. (2015) East African Hydropatriarchies: An analysis of changing waterscapes in smallholder irrigation farming. Published PhD thesis, Stockholm University (https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:853702/FULLTEXT01.pdf)
Caretta, M.A. (2014) ‘Hydropatriarchies and landesque capital: a local gender contract analysis of two smallholder irrigation systems in East Africa’ The Geographical Journal: 181 (4): 388-400
Caretta, M.A. and Börjeson, L. (2015) ‘Local gender contract and adaptive capacity in smallholder irrigation farming: a case study from the Kenyan drylands’ Gender, Place and Culture, 22 (5): 644-661
Caretta, M.A. et al. (2015) Labour, Climate Perceptions and Soils in the Irrigation Systems of Sibou, Kenya & Engaruka, Tanzania. Stockholm: Department of Human Geography, Stockholm University
Conant, F.P. (1966) ‘The external coherence of Pokot ritual behaviour’ Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London Series B, 251: 505-519
Conant, F.P. (1965) ‘Korok: a variable unit of physical and social space among the Pokot of East Africa’ American Anthropologist 67: 429-434
Crazzolara, J.P. (1973) A Study of the Suk (Pokot) Language. Bologna: Editrice Missionaria Italiana
Critchley, W.R.S. (1979) Chesongoch Agricultural Project 1977 – 1979. Final Report. Chesongoch Catholic Mission
Daniels, R.E. (1982) The Extent of Age-Set Coordination among the Kalenjin. Paper presented at the 25th Annual Meeting of the African Studies Association, 7th November 1982, Washington, D.C.
Davies, M.I.J. and Moore, H.L. (2016) ‘Landscape, time and cultural resilience: a brief history of agriculture in Pokot and Marakwet, Kenya’ Journal of Eastern African Studies 10 (1): 67-87
Davies, M.I.J. (2015) Archaeology in Eastern Africa. Oxford Bibliographies in African Studies. DOI: 10.1093/OBO/9780199846733-0170
Davies, M.I.J. (2015) ‘Economic specialisation, resource variability, and the origins of intensive agriculture in Eastern Africa’ Rural Landscapes: Society, Environment, History 2 (1): Art. 3
Davies, M.I.J. (2014) ‘Don’t water down your theory. Why we should all embrace materiality but not material determinism’ Archaeological Dialogues 21 (2): 153-157
Davies, M.I.J., (2014) ‘The temporality of landesque capital: farming and the routines of Pokot life’ in N. T. Håkansson and M. Widgren (eds.) Landesque capital: the historical ecology of enduring landscape modifications. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press, pp. 172-196
Davies, M.I.J., Kipruto, T. K. and Moore, H.L. (2014) ‘Revisiting the irrigated agricultural landscape of the Marakwet, Kenya: tracing local technology and knowledge over the recent past’ Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa 49 (4): 486-523
Davies, M.I.J., Dupeyron, A. and Moore, H.L. (2014) ‘Mobile internet technologies and the possibilities for public archaeology in Africa: Marakwet, Kenya’ Antiquity Project Gallery 88: 340
Davies, M.I.J. (2013) ‘Clan and lineage based societies in African archaeology’ in P. Mitchell and P. Lane (eds.) The Oxford Handbook of African Archaeology. Oxford: Oxford University Press
Davies, M.I.J. (2013) ‘Forced Moves or just Good Moves? Rethinking environmental decision making among East African intensive cultivators’ in M. I. J. Davies and F. N. M’Mbogori (eds.) Humans and the environment: new archaeological perspectives for the 21st century. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 57-76
Davies, M.I.J. (2013) ‘Stone cairns across eastern Africa: a critical review’ Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa 48 (2): 218-240
Davies, M.I.J. (2012) ‘Some thoughts on a ‘useable’ African archaeology: settlement, population and intensive farming among the Pokot of northwest Kenya’ African Archaeological Review 29(4): 319-353
Davies, M.I.J. (2010) ‘From platforms to people: rethinking population estimates for the abandoned agricultural settlement at Engaruka, northern Tanzania’ Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa 45 (2): 203-213
Davies, M.I.J. (2009) An applied archaeological and anthropological study of intensive agriculture in the northern Cherangani Hills, Kenya. Unpublished DPhil thesis, University of Oxford
Davies, M.I.J. (2009) ‘Wittfogel’s dilemma: heterarchy and ethnographic approaches to irrigation management in eastern Africa and Mesopotamia’ World Archaeology 41 (1): 16-35
Davies, M.I.J. (2008) ‘The irrigation system of the Pokot, northwest Kenya’ Azania 43: 50-76
Davies, M.I.J. (2008) ‘A childish culture? Shared understandings, agency and intervention: An anthropological study of street children in northwest Kenya’ Childhood 15 (3): 309-330
Davies, M.I.J. (2006) Outline of an applied archaeology of Pokot and Marakwet agriculture. Paper presented at the 18th Biennial Meeting of the Society of Africanist Archaeologists, 23rd June 2006, University of Calgary
Davies, M.I.J. (2006) ‘The archaeology of the Cherangani Hills, Northwest Kenya’ Nyame Akuma 66: 16-24
Davies, M.I.J. (2005) The genesis and implications of intensive agriculture: a consideration of evidence from East Africa Unpublished MSt. thesis, University of Oxford
Dietz, T. (1991) ‘Crisis survival strategies: a summary of concepts and an example from the semi-pastoral Pokot in Kenya and Uganda’ in J. C. Stone (ed.) Pastoral economies in Africa and long term responses to drought. Aberdeen: African Studies Group, pp. 86-108
Dietz, T. (1987) Pastoralists in dire straits: survival strategies and external interventions in a semi-arid region at the Kenya-Uganda border: West Pokot, 1900-1986. Amsterdam: Institute Voor Sociale Greographie, Universiteit van Amsterdam
Dietz, T. and van Haastrecht, A. (1982) Market Integration in Elgeyo Marakwet and West Pokot: Comparing Households and Locations. University of Nairobi: Institute of Development Studies, Working Paper No. 392
Dietz, T., van Haastrecht, A, and Moore, H.L. (1987) Locational Development Profile: Endo, Mokorro and Embobut Locations, Elgeyo Marakwet District, Kenya. Iten: Regional Development Research for the Arid and Semi-Arid Lands Programme, Elgeyo Marakwet
Edgerton, R.B. and Francis P.C. (1964) ‘Kilipat: The Shaming Party among the Pokot of East Africa’ Southwest Journal of Anthropology 20: 404-418
Ehret, C. (1971) Southern Nilotic history: linguistic approaches to the study of the past. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press
Hogg, R. (1984) Pokot traditional irrigation and its future development. Unpublished consultancy report, Kapenguria, A.S.A.L.
Huntingford, G.W.B. (1953) The Southern Nilo-Hamites. London: International African Institute
Kigen, G. et al. (2013) ‘Current trends of Traditional Herbal Medicine Practice in Kenya: A review’ African Journal of Pharmacology and Therpeutics 2 (1): 32-37
Kigen, G. et al. (2014) ‘Ethnomedicinal Plants Traditionally Used by the Keiyo Community in Elgeyo Marakwet County, Kenya’ Journal of Biodiversity, Bioprospecting and Development 1: 132
Kigen, G. et al. (2016) ‘Ethnopharmacological survey of the medicinal plants used in Tindiret, Nandi County, Kenya’ African Journal of Traditional, Complementary and Alternative Medicines 13 (3): 156-168
Kipkore, W. et al. (2014) ‘A study of the medicinal plants used by the Marakwet Community in Kenya’ Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine 10 (1): 24
Kipkorir, D. and Kareithi, J. (2013) ‘Indigenous Irrigation and Food Security in Tot Division, Kerio Valley, Kenya’ Journal of Anthropology & Archaeology 1 (1): 12-27
Kipkorir, B.E. (2009) Descent from Cherang’any Hills: Memoirs of a Reluctant Academic. Nairobi: Moran (E.A.) Publishers
Kipkorir, B.E., Soper, R. and Ssennyonga, J.W. (eds.) (1983) Kerio Valley: past, present and future. Nairobi: Institute of African Studies, University of Nairobi
Kipkorir, B.E. and Welbourn, F.B. (1973) The Marakwet of Kenya: a preliminary study. Nairobi: East African Literature Bureau
Kurita, K. (1983) ‘A preliminary report on the economic activities of the Pokot and the Marakwet’ in Kipkorir, B.E., Soper, R.C. and Ssenyonga, J.W. (eds.) Kerio valley: past, present and future. Nairobi: Institute of African Studies, University of Nairobi, pp. 61-74
Meyerhoff, E.L. (1981) The socio-economic and ritual roles of Pokot women. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Cambridge
Meyerhoff, E.L. (1982) ‘The Threatened Ways of Kenya’s Pokot People’ National Geographic 161: 120-140
Moore, H.L. and Davies, M.I.J. (2011) Marakwet Community Heritage Mapping Project, Kenya: Report on the first season of fieldwork, April-September 2011. Unpublished project report
Moore, H.L. and Davies, M.I.J. (2013) Marakwet Community Heritage Mapping Project, Kenya: Report on the second season of fieldwork, April-December 2012. Unpublished project report
Moore, H.L. and Davies, M.I.J. (2014) Marakwet Community Heritage Mapping Project, Kenya: Report on the third season of fieldwork, April-December 2013. Unpublished project report
Moore, H.L. (2011) Still Life: Hopes, Desires and Satisfactions. Cambridge: Polity Press
Moore, H.L. (2009) ‘Epistemology and ethics: Perspectives from Africa’ Social Analysis, 53 (2): 207-218
Moore, H.L. (2007) The Subject of Anthropology: Gnder, Symbolism and Psychoanalysis. Cambridge: Polity Press
Moore, H.L. (1996) Space, text and gender: an anthropological study of the Marakwet of Kenya. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Moore, H.L. (1988) Feminism and Anthropology. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press
Moore, H.L. (1986) Space, text and gender: an anthropological study of the Marakwet of Kenya. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Nangulu, A.K. (2001) Food security and coping mechanisms in Kenya’s marginal areas: The case of West Pokot. Unpublished PhD thesis, West Virginia University
Nyamwaya, D. (1983) ‘Coping with Illness among the Pokot of Kenya’ Curare 6: 181-196
Nyamwaya, D. (1982) The Management of Illness in an East African Society: A Study of Choice and Constraint in Health Care among the Pokot. Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Cambridge
Östberg, W. (2004) ‘The Expansion of Marakwet Hill-Furrow Irrigation in the Kerio Valley of Kenya’ in M. Widgren and J. E. G. Sutton (eds.) Islands of Intensive Agriculture in Eastern Africa. Oxford: James Currey, pp. 19-48
Östberg, W. (2014) ‘Irrigated fields are wives: indigenous irrigation in Marakwet, Kenya’ in N.T. Håkansson and M. Widgren (eds.) Landesque Capital: The Historical Ecology of Enduring Landscape Modifications. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press, pp. 197-214
Östberg, W. (2015) ‘Life Among the Marakwet’ Kenya Past and Present, 42: 53-67
Peristiany, J.G. (1975). ‘The Ideal and the Actual: The Role of Prophets in the Pokot Political System’ in J. H. M. Beattie and R. G. Lienhardt (eds.) Studies in Social Anthropobgy: Essays in Memory of E. E. Evans-Pritchard by his Former Oxford Colleagues. Oxford: Clarendon Press, pp. 166-212
Peristiany, J.G. (1951) ‘The age-set system of the pastoral Pokot’ Africa 21: 188-206, 279-302
Peristiany, J.G. (1939) The social institutions of the Kipsigis. London: Routledge
Pollard, G., Davies, M.I.J. and Moore, H.L. (2015) ‘Women, marketplaces and exchange partners amongst the Marakwet of northwest Kenya’ Journal of Eastern African Studies 9 (3): 412-439
Raymond, G. Jr. (ed.) (2005) Ethnologue: Languages of the World. 15th ed. Dallas, TX: SLL International
Schneider, H. (1967) ‘Pokot Folktales, Humor, and Values’ Journal of the Folklore Institute 4: 265-318
Schneider, H.K. (1958) ‘Pokot Resistance to Change’ in W.R. Bascom and M.J. Herskovits (eds.) Continuity and Change in African Cultures. Chicago: Phoenix Books, pp. 144-167
Schneider, H.K. (1957) ‘The subsistence role of cattle among the Pakot and in East Africa’ American Anthropologist 59: 278-300
Schneider, H.K. (1956) ‘The Interpretation of Pokot Visual Art’ Man 56: 103-106
Soper, R.C. (1983) ‘A Survey of the Irrigation System of the Marakwet’ in Kipkorir, B.E., Soper, R.C. and Ssenyonga, J.W. (eds.) Kerio valley: Past, present and future. Nairobi: Institute of African Studies, University of Nairobi, pp. 75-95
Ssennyonga, J.W. (1983) ‘The Marakwet irrigation system as a model of a systems-approach to water management’ in Kipkorir, B.E., Soper, R.C. and Ssenyonga, J.W. (eds.) Kerio valley: Past, present and future. Nairobi: Institute of African Studies, University of Nairobi, pp. 96-111
Stump, D. (2013) ‘The archaeology of agricultural intensification in Africa’ in P. Mitchell and P. Lane (eds.) The Oxford Handbook of African Archaeology. Oxford: Oxford University Press
Sutton, J.E.G. (1973) The archaeology of the Western Highlands of Kenya. Nairobi: British Institute in Eastern Africa
van Haastricht, A., Dietz, T. and Schomaker, M. (1983) Locational Development Profile: Sook Location, West Pokot District, Kenya. Kapenguria: Regional Development Research, West Pokot/Elgeyo Marakwet
van Haastricht, A., Dietz, T. and Schomaker, M. (1986) Locational Development Profile: Wei Wei Location, West Pokot District, Kenya. Kapenguria: Regional Development Research, West Pokot/Elgeyo Marakwet
Watson, E. (2004) ‘Agricultural intensification and social stratification: Konso in Ethiopia contrasted with Marakwet’ in M. Widgren and J. E. G. Sutton (eds.) Islands of intensive agriculture in Eastern Africa. Oxford: James Currey, pp. 49-67
Watson, E. et al. (1998) ‘Indigenous irrigation, agriculture and development, Marakwet, Kenya’ The Geographical Journal, 164: 67-84
Widgren, M. (2000) ‘Islands of intensive agriculture in African drylands: towards an explanatory framework’ in G. Barker and D. Gilbertson (eds.) The archaeology of drylands: living at the margin. London: Routledge, pp. 252-267
Zaal, F. and Dietz, T. (1999) ‘Of markets, meat, maize and milk: pastoral commoditization in Kenya’. in D. M. Anderson and V. Broch-Due (eds.) The poor are not us: poverty and pastoralism. Oxford: James Currey, pp. 163-198
Marakwet Heritage 