Killing the Sheik

This chapter draws on the interlocking stories of the surviving relatives of a Somali sheik and of Samburu personally involved in killing him in the 1960s. Viewing the Sheik as a leader who used supernatural powers to orchestrate a bloody massacre, Samburu view his death as emblematic of their resilience in the face of loss—themes that replayed in conflicts in the late 1990s. The Sheik’s family and other Somalis, interpret these events in radically different ways, despite differing only nominally in their factual accounts of what happened. Through a reading of these two accounts—almost identical factually but with very different interpretations--I examine the fundamental misunderstandings through which violence is memorialized and which sow the seeds for future violence.