The Good Days of Cowbell Technology: My Grandfather Narrates

Allow me to tell you the beauty of Kenyan rural homes and especially those who love the indigenous cows with dangling bells on their necks…

The bells kalenjins call Chepchingilit or otherwise Chepkorkongit leaves one admiring its functions.

The other day, I visited my grandfather in his rural home and with his unstoppable storytelling trait, he praised the old native culture and practices.

As the scholars put it, culture is all about customs, music, attire, food, artifacts and language sealing a community wholly.

In his 90s, Mzee Timothy Yebei describes it as a metal artifact strapped to a bull or goat’s neck basically to tell the position of the heard in the grazing fields. The smaller one (Chepchingilit) was strapped to a goat whereas Chepkorkongit belonged to the dominant bulls.

During the old good days, herds were driven to the free forests with the cowbells sending signals on their whereabouts.
“The bell with Lell-met (one of his cows) was bought by my father in 1928, it has been passed down from one bull to another,” narrates Mzee Yebei.

The bells also served as a security alarm in times of cattle raiding. However, the raiders inserted leaves in the bell to stop the metal rod from swinging.

The changing trends in our communities have kicked out the old farming practices for better production. The skyrocketing population has resulted in clearing of forest where pastoralist usually grazed their animals. Instead, farmers now keep up to three cattle with food supplements including nippier grass, unga feeds, and mineral salts among other manufactured products.

The use of these bells dates back to the incoming of Arab traders who exchanged their commodities for farm products including finger millet.