[Time] Kenyan Tribes Wage a War With Bows and Arrows

[migueldiaz]

Original Time magazine photo essay is here. The captions of the pics below are:

Maasai warriors clash with members of the Kalenjin tribe on a hill overlooking the Olmelil Valley. The battles have been taking place daily and follow codified, age-old traditions.

A Kikuyu girl stands between two warriors armed with bows and arrows. Though political rivals Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga have established an uneasy truce, the violence inspired by the allegedly rigged election between them continues in the form of long festering land disputes.

The fights, which begin around dawn each day, are rarely interrupted by police.

Over 20 people have died in the fighting. This man, a Maasai shot in the face on the hill overlooking Olmelil Valley, survived.

The Maasai man is treated at a clinic in the town of Kilgoris.

A Maasai craftsmen holds freshly made arrows. The tips are made from re-fashioned 4-inch nails.

A Maasai man gives his fellow tribesmen instructions before they face members of the Kalenjin. The daily battles last several hours and are waged from a distance, with very few warriors engaging in close combat.

During the post-election violence, the tribes discovered that the bow and arrow was a more deadly alternative than the machete. "Before this conflict, arrows were mainly used for activities such as hunting," says a policeman interviewed by Agence France Presse. "This is obviously something very wrong and very new."

Says one Kalenjin, "Here, we believe in fighting on a battlefield. We don't go at night to attack. It's no good."

In addition to the bow and arrow, some of the warriors have adopted the slingshot.

A Maasai warrior returns to his village after fighting. "Nobody can remain at home doing nothing," says one warrior. "You have to go. One day, instead of going to church, everybody went fighting."

Looks to me that this a good scheme to wage an armed conflict ...