Motivations, Negotiations, and Animal Individuality:

Livestock Exchange of the Turkana in Northwestern Kenya

抄録

As East African pastoral societies are incorporated into a global order of markets and money, they attract considerable attention as to how their systems of livestock exchange articulate with the new system of commodity exchange. This study describes and analyzes livestock exchanges of the Turkana of northwestern Kenya, and differentiates their exchanges from monetary exchanges. The points discussed are: (1) in most livestock exchanges among the Turkana, an individual asks only in need and takes an animal from the partner with whom he is on good terms, and his“debt”is cleared much later; (2) although a kind of livestock exchange rate is recognized, heated and delicate negotiations finally determine“debt”payment, and each agreement is local, transitory, and non-universal; (3) epistemulogical examination of Turkana verbs for livestock exchanges reveals specific and definite motivations behind the exchanges; (4) each animal is individually identified, and its singularity supports the uniqueness of each social transaction in which the animal is transferred.