'The Beautiful One'

 

Encased in the dark rocks adorning the Chalbi desert, .daki. (The Beautiful One), would be offered in the melt of a high-noon sun by a Samburu woman of regal posture. She would then draw me to her in the royal song and dance of a young Borana sister who then turned my eye to Rendille adornment.

 

There, in the heat of the bespeckled Chalbi the art of the wire-wrap revealed itself. Since then, the .kan'tadora (the griot), .su'rusi (the seer). and .n'nyeva (the nurturer) have guided these hands in the ways of the .dakinnje. and together we resurrect .dakinjji, the new language of old.