Just north of the Equator, where the Great Rift Valley provides some of the most spectacular scenery in Kenya, lies Samburuland. It is inhospitable country with a fierce climate, but it is home to a race of proud, tough, semi-nomadic pastoralists who, like their more famous relatives the Maasai, continue to withstand efforts to impose an alien culture, and live their lives very much as they have always done. The Samburu, traditionalists in a world of change, follow a rigid social structure in which, before the era of colonialism, chiefs were considered unnecessary. The guidance of an astrologer, the rule of the elders, the force of custom and, as a last resort, the power of a curse, were sufficient to maintain law and order.