ABSTRACT
The reconstruction from observable cultural and linguistic facts is supplemented methodologically by the collection and interpretation of oral traditions. Everything that is handed down is handed down because it corresponds to a social or psychological interest and is thus, sociologically, of equal importance. But for both the historian and the sociologist the question of historical content arises: the former wants to know whether a tradition corresponds to historical truth, the latter, why, possibly, it does not. The lack of written historical sources, which for the earlier periods has forced to rely on speculative reconstructions, gives way in the sixteenth century to events that have been recorded in Ethiopian and Portuguese sources. Northern Kenya was of no economic interest and as long as it was shown in British red on the maps and a formal claim was maintained, the British were content. Hardly any roads or schools or hospitals were built in northern Kenya.
