Samburu
The Samburu are a semi-nomadic tribal people, some 70,000 persons, in north-central Kenya. It is their custom transmit cultural knowledge in song.
Much of our service among the Samburu is medical. A few years ago, participants in a medical workshop — a workshop treating birthing hygiene — began singing to one another the new insights and knowledge they were receiving. “Remember to use a sterile blade when cutting the umbilical cord,” for example, was set to a traditional sing-song Samburu melody. Participants didn’t take notes. But they could sing. They preserved their medical discoveries in song.
In this section you will find several Samburu tunes that have emerged from this experiment in musical medical hygiene education. Some treat, in fact, umbilical cords, and the like. Others convey knowledge concerning the transmission of HIV and other STDs — an emerging problem in the Samburu tribal area. And so on.