Ancestor's Wrath: a Kikuyu Elder's Cry from the other World
Introduction
In the late 1800s, Kikuyu land was invaded by the Imperial British East Africa Company IBEA. This company ventured deep into the interior, following in the footsteps of Ludwig Krapf who had been as far as Chief Kivoi’s Kamba territory but had not yet gone into Kikuyu land. IBEA rushed in to take territory before the French and the Germans could take everything. The territory that was administered by the IBEA was eventually taken over by the British Government when the IBEA went bankrupt. The British Government built a railway line from the port of Mombasa to Port Florence (Kisumu) in 1900 and declared Kenya a British Colony twenty years later.
The railway line opened up the interior of East Africa, and the previously reclusive Kikuyu farming community were finally conquered and subjected to British rule. A way of life was slowly eroded, including a democratic system of government where an entire generation was in power and only lost it through a peaceful handing over ceremony at the end of a thirty year rule. This ceremony, the ituĩka (which translates to “the becoming”) took place every thirty years. The last one took place between 1890 and 1889, in the area presently known as Thika. The next one was banned by the British Government for fear that large gatherings might excite the Kikuyu into rebellion. No other generational change has taken place since due the colonial government’s subjugation of the Kikuyu through the appointing of Chiefs and Headmen on the Governments payroll. This system persists to this day.
When a Kikuyu died from old age, he or she transitioned to ancestor-hood. The living remembered and revered the dead every time they were taking drinks, by pouring some on the ground. Sacrifices were also made from time to time to appease ancestors during pestilence, famine or other disasters. During these sacrifices, the ancestors were fed with roast meat and beer, which were left in designated places overnight. Obviously by morning, the food would be gone, eaten by wild animals of course, but it would be believed that the ancestors had been fed. Obviously the Kikuyu knew that it is the animals that had eaten. Animals like Jackals and hyenas were thought to be agents of the ancestors. This was not ancestor worship as some writers has implied. The Kikuyu believed in one God, Ngai, who lived on the snow-capped Mt. Kenya. Prayers were said to God Ngai while facing Mt. Kenya, in all ceremonies, even those meant to appease an ancestor.
When Kikuyu culture was diluted, the age-set system that determined the generation in power broke down. Elders are no longer respected and ancestors were completely forgotten as the Kikuyu took up the new religion of Christianity. In the old days, children born out of marriage were a rare phenomenon, since the girl would have to contend to being a second third or even fourth wife of an old man. No young man would marry her.
In this poem, an ancestor who departed before dilution of kikuyu culture is complaining about the current state of affairs.
Image of a Kikuyu Elder - Chief Karuri wa Gakure
I am anger!
I am anger! Anger! Angry!
Hot volcanic bile
Eternally boiling,
My fury un-appeased
For more than a century.
On earth I was Maina,
Son of Mwangi
From the Anjiru ...
Ah! Who cares?
Anyway,
The Anjiru clan,
Initiated into manhood
In the biting cold of dawn,
With a sharp knife
By the cold waters of the Tana
With others of my riika
Unflinchingly,
Bravely.
Kikuyu Earthenware
I am fury!
See my Great-great-grandson,
His Grandson, going to hospital,
To be sick,
Getting the ageless sacred cut,
Performed on his anesthetized member,
And you call that circumcision!
Without the song and dance,
Without the teachings,
Wooooo weeeee!
Ũrirũ, ũrirũ, ũrirũ !
I am writhing in raging fury
Crackling furiously,
Like a runaway bush fire!
Mwangi was my father,
Whose name I gave my son,
Who gave birth to another me
Maina!
Reincarnating in every generation,
Forever and ever
Into eternity
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