By
Grace Kerongo
Nation Media Group
For over 100 years, the Nandi people of Kenya searched for the remains of Koitalel arap Samoei. Today, historians like Chao Tayiana Maina argue that the greatest barrier to bringing his skull home isn't just the thousands of miles between Nairobi and London, but the way history itself is coded.
The tragedy began in 1905. Koitalel, the orkoiyot (supreme leader) of the Nandi, agreed to meet British army colonel Richard Meinertzhagen to negotiate a ceasefire. Instead of a handshake, Koitalel was met with a bullet. In the ensuing chaos, his head was severed and taken to Britain as a grisly trophy of empire. This decapitation was a calculated move to break a nation's spirit.
