Dr. Somjee featured on the Violence Transformed website

"This is the first of two linked exhibitions that share some of the wisdom Dr. Somjee has accrued through four decades of work living with, and curating the material cultures, stories and rituals, of indigenous communities in East Africa. ....We have selected a sampling of illustrations from the first two books for this exhibit, organized into groupings representative of some key themes in the original novel: storytelling; healing the earth; beauty in material culture; the walking sticks; peace animals; peace drawn from the greeting of dawn, walking as a transformative ritual; peace is sharing with strangers and the enemy." 

The above are a few lines from the curator's statement, Dr. Shirland, Associate Professor of Art History at Brigewater State University & Violence Transformed Advisory Board Member.  See the full exhibition on  ViolenceTransformed.com . The picture is from the documentary on Peace Trees by Bruno Sorrentino and the illustrations are from the graphic novel Alama's Walk: The Oracle Speaks and Alama's Walk: Healing the Earth. 

Author/ Ethnographer Somjee reads a draft copy of the second Alama's Walk

 

Author/Ethnographer Sultan Somjee views a draft copy of the second book in the Alama’s Walk series. It is scheduled to be released in October 2022.

Alama’s Walk Healing the Earth is much larger, 150 pages compared to the first 90 page graphic novel. In this book Alama meets many new and interesting characters as he moves from his desert scrubland, to rich farmlands and villages. Along the way Alama hears more peace stories and meets both hospitable villagers and corrupt city officials. 

Alama’s Walk, The Oracle Speaks, the first graphic novel is now being used for training of peace and civic educators in the mitaani (slums) of Kenya.

All graphic novels are adapted from One Who Dreams is Called a Prophet, a book about a lone elder’s walk in pursuit of the last traces of Indigenous knowledge of Utu during conflicts. Utu in Swahili means the quality of being human or simply humanness or humanity. The walk resulted in cultivating conversations on reconciliation in a conflicted country, among diverse cultures, in diverse languages and diverse arts that led to the making of the Community Museums of Peace in eastern Africa. 

Each book has a running meme on Utu as viewed by 10 Indigenous cultures through elders’ memories, the environment, material culture, community stories, rituals and spirituality.   

Alamas Walk - Graphic Novel Reviews

I love this book!

“The images remind me of my childhood looking at pictures from African storybooks. They inspired me so much. I became a refugee at 11 and was shuttled from one refugee settlement to another around Africa. But the images of my African childhood stayed in my head. When I was still a child and safe in my ancestral land, I looked at the colourful pictures of Africa I could connect with. The graphic novel is truly a gift that I hope will reach far and wide amongst young African readers.

I want to send some copies to children in refugee camps in Africa, and to my nieces. This is gold. It's a treasure for us! I love the maps. For now, the graphic novel has been sending me to sleep remembering Africa. "

Njamba Koffi

author of Refuge-e: The Journey Much Desired.

I am grateful for the warmth of both the illustrations and the story

“I am struck by the layers of translation of embedded meaning enacted by the journey from physical objects like the walking sticks and leketyo, to written narrative inspired by them, to graphic illustration of both the words and the objects themselves. The sensory movements between and across emphatically material entity, written word, and drawing are so complex and intriguing. The sense of time and ambulatory tempo that I found so soothing in the book are terribly difficult to replicate in a much shorter graphic form of course but I found the passage of the day and Swahili time powerfully conveyed in Sadiq's illustrations - especially via the shadows on the earth. I also loved how richly saturated the colors are - the intensity of reds, oranges, yellows and pinks that vibrate from the pages and adumbrate sky and ground are so evocative, especially when seen in the gloom and rain of early January in England! I particularly like the way the notations of color in the ground have a textured patina to contrast the softer burnish of the sky - of course this helps suggest the physicality of natural features like sand and water, but it also adds to the sheer optical shimmer which is enveloping at points despite the modest page size. I am grateful for the warmth of both the illustrations and the story.”

Jonathan Shirland, PhD

Associate Professor of Art History

Department of Art & Art History

Bridgewater State University

MA 02325

Delightful story!

“This finely written and beautifully illustrated story reveals our age old yearning for peace and a sense of community. No matter your cultural background, geography or present day politics, Alama’s Walk - The Oracle Speaks is sure to gently tug on your heartstrings, give you pause for reflection, and help you realize once again the common humanity and simple desires we all share, and which bind us together. A truly refreshing read in these troubled times; Alama’s Walk is a story that transcends its East African setting and cultural heritage and speaks prophetically to all of us.”

Amazon reader review

Preview the graphic novel on Amazon

Material Culture in Alama’s Walk: The Oracle Speaks

Alama's Walk, The Oracle Speaks

From the early 1970s, I started collecting and documenting the material culture of Kenya across Indigenous communities for the Institute of African Studies at the University of Nairobi, and the National Museums of Kenya. Hundreds of objects passed through my hands. I studied and sketched them in my field books. And I learned what material culture meant to the people. Working closely with the illustrator, Sadiq Somjee, we bring that experience of Indigenous Africa into the story of Alama’s Walk: The Oracle Speaks. This is a book of fiction inspired by the resourcefulness of the Turkana, Pokot and Borana people who draw from their histories, languages, and cultures to create objects of art and function. They also draw from the resourceful nature of the scrubland desert of northern Kenya. 

Their walking sticks, attires, containers and ornaments are artfully designed for use and adornment. These objects also hold cultural aesthetic codes and carry social meanings.

The elders’ walking sticks are often crafted from sacred (or peace) trees. They support the elders while walking and are held between men to stop fights. They are exchanged among peers of the adversary groups during negotiations to close the conflicts. Thus, they are also known as peace staffs and have distinctive shapes and properties of the wood sensed by touch and sight. In the book, they have personalities and I have given them names in Swahili. I have made them peers of the protagonist, Alama, so he may speak with them as an elder to an elder, and to the readers to say who they are.

Alama the Seeker, carries a headrest to lay his head down at night and when tired during the day. He carries the headrest together with the milk gourd, and a snuff container made from cow’s horn. The woman with a shiny belt and the man in white, too, carry water or milk containers with the peace staffs that are characteristic of their cultures.

The skin attires of Ua and the woman with a shiny belt are distinct. In that, they have been fashioned with distinct cultural patterns that are made by shaving and trimming calf and goat hair on the skins. The women of the two neighbouring cultures also have particular styles of wearing their skin apparels that are different from each other. 

Similarly, the sets of ornaments on the two women show the richness of diversity of Indigenous adornment and colours of Africa. Some, like the waist belt leketyo is a highly respected object. It’s revered as sacred for it supports the womb that is life of the unborn. It’s also a powerful as a symbol of motherhood. I have seen the leketyo  dropped between two fighting young men and immediately the blows ceased. In fact, in several of the eight Kalenjin communities, the word for peace is the woman’s waist belt called leketyo.

Sultan Somjee 

Trees for Peace Documentary

In 2001 Sultan Somjee was named by the United Nations as one of the twelve exceptional “Unsung Heroes of Dialogue Among Civilizations.” Here is a short Vimeo documentary by filmmaker Bruno Sorrentino about Somjee's work as an ethnographer in East Africa.

Trees for Peace.mp4 from bruno sorrentino on Vimeo.

About "One who dreams is called a prophet" book

Alama, a nomad from the northern desert, sets out on a walk accompanied by Koko Kigongo, his walking stick. Along the journey, he meets women and men who are on a similar walk to find the Source of Peace. Like Alama, they are troubled by post-independence violence due to greed, misrule and corruption. Yet, the elders know that the Source of Peace lies in indigenous knowledge that lives in memories of every community of Yeta. But why can they not have peace? The dilemma confronts Alama. When they meet, the elders exchange their walking sticks and stories. 

Alama’s walk is inspired by the author ethnographer’s journey into the world of material culture, stories and nature that describe utu, Swahili for ‘being mtu’ or simply ‘being human’.