Towards the end of 18th century and through the 19th century, a series of droughts, plagues of locusts, epidemics, and in the final decades of the 19th century, a rapid succession of sub-continental epizootics affected these communities. There is an early record of the great Laparanat drought c.1785 that affected the Karamajong. However, for communities then resident in what is present-day Kenya many disaster narratives relate the start with the Aoyate, an acute meteorological drought that affected much of East and Southern Africa. Nile records distinctly indicate a start about 1800 while oral narratives and the few written records indicate peak aridity during the 1830s resulting in a notable famine in 1836. This arid period, and the consequent series of events, have been referred to as Mutai.