Nayece and the Grey Bull

The Turkana say their whole nation began with one lost bull.

Long ago, in Najie, the land of the Jie, there was a great grey bull, an emong. One morning, it was gone.

Cattle were milk, wealth and pride. So the young men went after it.

They followed its tracks east, over hills and dry riverbeds, through burning sun and sudden rain.

At the edge of the high country, the tracks went down the escarpment to a wide land below.

There, where the Tarach river, an angolol, ran below a lonely hill, stood the grey bull, grazing.

Beside it was an old woman named Nayece, gathering wild fruit.

She showed them a green valley full of berries, and shared her fire, her akim, as the sun went down red.

The young men loved that land. They went home, and came back with more people and their cattle.

They stayed, and the people who stayed became the Turkana.

Today, the Turkana still tell of Nayece, the mother of their people, and her hill by the Tarach.

One lost bull, and a whole people found their home.

Historians place this journey in the 1700s. The Jie and the Turkana have been allies ever since.