History of Kenya
Mrs.
Nardi's 9th Grade World History Class
Lenox Memorial High School, Lenox, Massachusetts
Land Alienation
Early on in
Kikuyu society, social and economic inequalities created an underclass
within the Kikuyu ridge systems. The business of survival and fertility
in Kikuyuland was a rough and tumble arena. In order to join the ranks
of the elder elite, one must be able to afford the fees required to join
the ciama. Hence, a ruthless system of economic disparity derived
from the centuries of struggle. Men who attained power and wealth were
hard-working and shrewd; they formed alliances with landless individuals
that might include marriage arrangements and livestock. The new adoptee
or tenant (ahoi) might labor clearing forests,
share his livestock, marry into the mbari and produce children
who were considered property of the mbari. In the book, Unhappy
Valley, John Lonsdale views
the Kikuyu as less a "tribe" in the traditional sense
than as of a group of “dynastic alliances of local mbari
(341). However, these alliances were far from egalitarian as Lonsdale
notes further,
Big men gave out or loaned livestock and areas of land in return for
service;
poor men got a start in manhood. To lead a successful colonization of
the
forest meant to multiply the rights of dependents in land. But dependents
were by no means equal. (339)
This translates into, as Lonsdale puts it, “a language of class” (339). In Kikuyuland, the men who could not pay their fees to join the ciama were called tuthuuri or “anti-elders”, and they were left out of the political process altogether. Furthermore, Lonsdale notes, that in the writing of Kikuyu history, there is “almost nothing” written about their plight or of the even less fortunate aimwo (people who have “suffered through the hard-heartedness of others” (342). In his examining Kikuyu proverbs, he finds few focused on sympathy for the poor who are considered “delinquent and worthless” (340). Thus, historically, during a time of famine, it was only the politically connected that survived.
The development of a significant underclass along with the religious divisions within the Kikuyu reveals the source of the beginnings of social and cultural disintegration that would continue to divide the Kikuyu prior to the final move toward initiation of armed rebellion. Along with missionary meddling, it takes the callous disregard of the Kikuyu landless by Kikuyu elder elite remaining in the reserves and inept and oppressive policies of British colonial administration regarding the "squatters" of the White Highlands to light the fuse of rebellion. That will take place in Olenguruone.
Highland "Squatters"
In 1926, the Crown Land Ordinance gave rise to what was known as the Kikuyu Reserves. This land in the Central Province was designated as the exclusive residence of the Kikuyu. After the colonial government drew the boundaries, Kikuyu were no longer able to expand their land holdings as they had done for centuries. Hence, the fixed acreage of the Kikuyu Reserves was tantamount to a system of apartheid. Also, this habitat left no room for the traditional githaka system of generational acquisition of land. In the work, Squatters and the Roots of Mau Mau, Tabitha Kanogo defines githaka as,
Under this system, each clan [mbari] established its ownership over
a
specified portion of land, with each clan member being entitled to land
within the githaka. Ahoi from another clan could acquire the right to
cultivate portions of the githaka in return for gifts to the clan elders[…]
The founder
[…] parcelled (sic) it out to his wives, married sons and ahoi.
(Kanogo 10)
The founder of the mbari
(or muramati) was considered the trustee and as the mbari
expanded, new mbari would be established. The Crown Land Ordinance
ended this traditional pattern of mbari expansion. Therefore,
a large minority of Kikuyu without land were forced to move to the White
Highlands in search of room for grazing cattle and cultivation.
In fact, similar land alienation would develop in the White Highlands.
As Renison Githege recounts in his article “Missionary State Relationships
in Colonial Kenya”, “…European settlement in Kenya
developed on large-scale estates and involved segregation, rather than
mixing, of the white and black races, with the former becoming master
and landlords” (Githege 111). Similar to the system in South
Africa, it was called “Kaffir farming”
(Kanogo 15).
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The adaptable Kikuyu managed to thrive as serfs on the white settler farms. In fact, as Kanogo notes, “Unlike settler agriculture, squatter production was not dependent on capital and therefore thrived while settler agriculture foundered” (Kanogo 35). However, attempts to make a “malleable supply of labour” for the White Highlanders would erode the temporary prosperity of the squatters. Starting in 1918 and continuing up to the Olenguruone crisis in 1941, the colonial government created laws which would restrict the movement and holdings of the Kikuyu in the White Highlands. The 1918 Resident Native Labourers Ordinance, later the Hut tax, the Kafagio (reduction of cattle), and, finally, the vicious 1937 RNLO strove to force the Kikuyu into menial wage labor for the sole benefit of the White Highlands.
These oppressive laws led to the beginning of mass migration of squatters back to their previous family homes. This influx of landless refugees exacerbated the situation in the Central Province. Regarding the crisis in the Central Province and in the wake of the Kenya Land Commission Report of 1934, as David Anderson explains in Histories of the Hanged, “…land litigation exploded as [Kikuyu] people struggled to establish clear rights over what land they had in the face of the claims of returning squatters" (Anderson 31). It is at this juncture that the colonial government decided to establish the Olenguruone Reserve.
Olenguruone "Squatters"
As the solution to the land hunger problem and the growing unrest among Kikuyu in the White Highlands, the colonial administration established a new reserve for resettlement of squatters evicted from the Rift Valley farms. The government chose a territory southwest of the Aberdare Mountains and into Maasai territory. Olenguruone was described by Anderson as “scrubby, bleak [and] unattractive [land]” (26) . The Kikuyu, however, moved in 1941 with the understanding that this land was given to them as recompense for the two removals they had endured under the colonial government. That, of course, was not the case. The administration insisted on micromanaging the squatter’s production, restricting the githaka system of land tenure and refusing to give clear title to squatters. At this point, squatters, fueled with feelings of resentment and bitterness over government duplicity began a campaign of resistance.
As a result of an extended resistance movement the colonial government decided, yet again, to evict the squatters and, in 1943-44, this misguided action was the spark that would ignite militant resistance. The ever patient and adaptable squatters, reaching their limit of endurance, forged a new solidarity of Kikuyu landless. Following Kikuyu tradition, they began a radically conceived oath-taking procedure designed to create a unified front within the confines of Olenguruone (Anderson 24). It is at this juncture that a short overview of Kikuyu rituals, magic and oathing will help the understanding of the power of the oath and to clarify this new strategy
Olenguruone
Solidarity
In Olenguruone in 1944, the time for patience, petitions and forbearance
had ended. It was now a time for solidarity and action. The Oath
of Unity was established and in Green’s views it “…rework[ed]
elements of traditional ritual practice associated with the initiation
of both sexes” (Green 78). It borrowed elements of the mariika
ceremony, including binding the group of candidates together with goat’s
intestines, wearing bracelets of raw goat skin, passing through an arch
of banana and sugar cane stalks, anointing with goat’s blood and
swearing of an oath to support the Kikuyul community. However, being the
new creation of a community under duress, there were added elements
that had the potential to increase the oath’s “practical
and pragmatic forms of power, other than the merely symbolic…”
[they were designed as a prerequisite for acts of resistance]. In fact,
the oath itself promised an unpleasant death to the oath taker if it was
broken. “May you be cut like this! May this oath kill
him who lies" (Green 76)! Furthermore, not only men
but women and children took the oath as well.