The interchanges between Borana and Somalioids were not always one of conflict or outright domination by the Borana (even if they were the senior partners in the alliances).It was more complicated than that. When the Rendille were attacked by the Massai, the Worr Libin alliance, consisting of Borana, Ajuuraan and others sprang into action to help the Rendille to drive out the invaders. The Worr Libin “people of the mats” cultural, political and military alliance was perhaps the first east Cushitic camel herding alliance against an alien invader.The Somaliod people even helped the Borana against against the Warrdaya, thus a Somali vs Oromo binary dichotomy can not always be imposed on our understanding of these events between pastoralist. See Article and quote below:
“This form of control based on bounded surface areas and lines on the map differed greatly from earlier systems. Before the British, the Boran had established hegemony8 over much of northern Kenya. Many groups of lowland camel pastoralists, who spoke Somali-like dialects or had spoken such dialects before they adopted the Boran variety of Oromo as their form of speech, brought them regular presents to their ritual centres in what now is Ethiopia, from an economic perspective a very light burden, and received a blessing from the qallu, the ritual head of one or the other of the two moieties to which the Boran and all of their allies were associated. Also the age-grading systems (gada systems) of some groups took chronological clues from each other and involved ritual exchange (Schlee 1998a). Before the Boran influence, these groups of Lowland East Cushitic9 speakers had their own, independent gada type generation set systems that were – along with many camel-oriented rituals and a specific calendar – part of an earlier Proto-Rendille-Somali (PRS) complex of cultural features (Schlee 1989a). This picture of social relations is made up of both difference (Somali/Somaloid/Oromo speakers; cattle/camel husbandry, distinction along interethnic hierarchy) and interaction (co-residence in the same or adjacent areas, sharing of water points, economic exchange and ritual interdependence). It was a system organised along differences without separation. This interethnic system, the Boran-centred alliance known as Worr Libin (People of Libin), also had a military aspect. The Boran, jointly with their camel-keeping allies, repelled the Laikipiak Maasai who had ventured far into northern Kenya.
The Laikipiak Maasai are well known from the accounts of the Maasai civil war by early European travellers. These Laikipiak scattered after their defeat by the other Maasai (Thomson 1968 [1885]), and a large body of their warriors moved north from what is now the Laikipia District (with the district capital Nanyuki, 200 km north of Nairobi), took the whole of Rendille, people and livestock, as their spoil and divided them up among themselves, leading a brief and happy life as their superior force enabled them to do. However, when they wanted to move the whole Rendille society and make them follow to elsewhere, the Rendille warriors who had been hiding in the bush chased them away in a bloody battle.10 The Laikipiak then moved north, raiding cattle and driving large herds along, until they were beaten by the Worr Libin cavalry near Buna.11 A British compiler12 of the accounts of “some old men” gives 1876 as the probable date of the battle and Korondile as its place.13 Whatever the exact location might have been, it is clear that these Maasai had ventured far into the Boran heartland. The father of our informant Waako D’iriba14 took part in this battle, and Ido Robleh, the Ajuran leader, is also reported to have borne “the mark of an arrow got near Buna in one fight with them”.15 Apart from the Boran and the Ajuran, the other member peoples of the Worr Libin, the Garre and Gabra16 were also involved in these fights and the subsequent pursuit of the intruders and temporary solidarity was extended even to the Rendille, who stood outside this alliance.17 The only people who did not join the Boran in these fights were Warra Daya, who had had a bloody conflict with the other Worr Libin in the preceding decades and had withdrawn to the south18 where the Daarood Somali were to continue their decimation. Their remnants can be found among the Tana Orma.
As far as the Somaloid associate peoples of the Worr Libin are concerned, we can say that they were strongly engaged on the side of the Boran in the Laikipiak war, as they had been earlier in the Boran/Warra Daya conflict. The wars of the nineteenth century thus show that the alliance was then strong and functioning.19 We have had a closer look at these wars to ascertain that there was an accumulation of power, that there was an organisation, that there was ritual and military cooperation in this pre-colonial pluriethnic society. All this was achieved without districts and provinces”.