BOOK REVIEWS: Remembering Nayeche and the Gray Bull Engiro: African Storytellers of the Karamoja Plateau and the Plains of Turkana

According to its basic outline, the Gray Bull Engiro was captured along the banks of the Longiro River by Orwakol, the founder of the Jie polity, several hundred years ago. The second defines the Jie term for "history" or "historical traditions" (eemut), and explains how performers weave themes of hunger, family conflict, and the dual capacity of all people for good and evil to create narratives that encourage dispute resolution (especially between the Jie and Turkana) and resource sharing. At a deeper level, however, he is making a profound argument about history itself--that the discipline as it is currently practiced is a Western construct, and that better understandings of how people such as the Jie conceive of the past may require historical research that diverges dramatically from our current methodologies. 1 Grand Valley State University Allendale, Michigan eatond@gvsu.edu