October 25, 2008 - The Pokot People

Warning: This blog may include content that may not be suitable for children or people who wear clothes.

On one of our long drives during my mission to Pokot, the educational officer told a story about a tribe/community in Pokot. I find this story very interesting and amusing so I want to share it with you despite…well you’re about to find out anyway. I’ll try to tell the story as I remember it.

I'll call the people of Pokot "the Pokots,even though there are other tribes in that region. The Pokots are pastoralists, as opposed to farmers. The have their sheep, goats and cows, and even though the soil in some parts of their land is very fertile they don’t tend to plant anything. As the educational officer put it: “It is the issue of bending over, they don’t believe in that”. Bending over, as in reaching to the ground with your hands to cultivate and plant the field, is not something that they will do. Pastoralists are used to standing around (not doing anything) and watching their livestock grazing. Some would say that the men are a bit lazy.

Anyway, the story I want to tell starts like this: The Pokots don’t believe in clothes. The men especially walk around naked and they don’t really own any clothes. Now and again they have to walk into town to the market to sell and buy what they might need. The town in this case is not inhabited by the original Pokots. They are business men, civil servants and small-scale farmers who are dressed normally and actually believe in clothes. Now, the men of Pokot are known for their exceptionally large organs, so things are kind of moving around down there when they walk around conducting their business. The chief of the town found that to be disgusting and unacceptable. The Pokots have a lot of respect and fear of the town chief. He called a meeting with them and dared any of them to walk around naked in town one more time; so they agreed that they have to wear pants when they go to town.

On their way back to the village from this meeting, the Pokots bought one pair of pants. They decided to hang them on a tree on their way into the village. Every time a man had to go into town, he would then take the pants from the branch and walk into town, conduct his business and return the pants at the tree so that the next man could go in without being arrested by the chief. The system worked for awhile. However, the Pokots are unfortunately not all the same height. Some are tall, some are short. And after a little while, the chief started to wonder: one Pokot man is wearing black pants far too long for his short legs and a few hours later another Pokot man is wearing black pants again, but this time only reaching his knees.

The chief started asking questions and learned about the pants on the tree business. He found it unacceptable, left town, found the tree and the black pair of pants, and confiscated them. The next day the Pokots couldn’t go into town! What should they do? They decided to send in a woman, who already wore a bit of clothes, to buy a new pair of pants. The woman agreed but came back with a pair of short ladies pants. The men were excited and unaware of any potential problems that this might cause.

The first Pokot man made his way into town wearing these ladies pants. To his surprise he got an unprecedented amount of attention, which was a surprise to him because he was wearing pants! Here we get back to the issue of the large organs. Because he was of course not wearing underwear, so the short pants were not able to fully cover the full length of his reproductive appendage, so to speak. The chief saw him and was absolutely furious, and the man had to flee town unable to conduct his business.

The end.

Later on and to this day, the Pokots bought more pairs of pants and use the same technique, but they hide the pants way into the bushes out of the reach of the chief.

KW