Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-q99xh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T05:48:29.620Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Mau Mau oathing rituals and political ideology in Kenya: a re-analysis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 December 2011

Maia Green
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The Mau Mau movement used a campaign of ritualised oath-taking to gain the support and co-operation of the Gikuyu masses. The oaths remain a continuing source of controversy in the literature on Mau Mau, little of which is directly anthropological. This article offers a tentative resolution to that controversy through an anthropological analysis of Mau Mau oathing rituals in the light of contemporary theories on the relation of ritual to ideology. I argue that the oathing rituals are to be understood as part of the ideological apparatus of the movement, along with rallies and songs. The effectiveness of the oathing rituals lies not solely in their symbolic reference to 'traditional practice' as Buijtenhuijs (1982: 87) has suggested, nor in some inherent mystifying property of ritual communication (Bloch, 1974: 67–76). Although a continuity between the oathing rituals and those associated with the legitimation of traditional authority is strikingly apparent, the success of the former as a medium for political recruitment is to be explained in its relation to ideology, and in the essential ambiguity of the central tenets of that ideology—‘land’ and ‘freedom’.

Résumé

Rites de déclaration de serments des Mau-Mau et idéologie politique au Kenya: une nouvelle approche

Le mouvement Mau-Mau s'est servi d'une campagne de déclaration de serments ritualisée pour obtenir le soutien des Kikouyous lors de la lutte pour l'indépendance du Kenya. L'importance de ces serments a été sous-estimée par les historiens nationaux et par trop soulignée par les sociologues soucieux de comparer les Mau-Mau aux mouvements traditionalistes. Cet article offre une nouvelle interprétation du rôle de ces cérémonies. Il soutient que les rituels se voulaient être un véhicule important de mobilisation politique grâce auquel une image de la société Kikouyou était créée, offrant ainsi la possibilité d'une action politique de plus grande envergure.

Type
Attacking the State
Information
Africa , Volume 60 , Issue 1 , January 1990 , pp. 69 - 87
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 1990

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Althusser, L. 1971. ‘Ideology and ideological state apparatuses: notes towards an investigation’, in Althusser, L., Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays, pp. 123–73. London: New Left Books.Google Scholar
Anderson, B. 1983. Imagined Communities: reflections on the origins and spread of nationalism. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Barnett, D. L., and Njama, K. 1966. Mau Mau From Within: autobiography and analysis of Kenya's peasant revolt. London: MacGibbon and Kee.Google Scholar
Bewes, T. F. C. 1953. ‘Kikuyu religion old and new’, African Affairs 52: 208–11.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bloch, M. 1974. ‘Symbols, song and dance and features of articulation: is religion an extreme form of traditional authority?’, Archives Européennes de Sociologie 15: 55–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bloch, M. 1977. ‘The past and present in the present’, Man 13: 278–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bloch, M. 1985. ‘From cognition to ideology’, in Fardon, R. (ed.), Power and Knowledge, pp. 21–47. Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press.Google Scholar
Bloch, M. 1986. From Blessing to Violence: history and ideology in the circumcision ritual of the Merina of Madagascar. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bloch, M. and Guggenheim, S. 1981. ‘Compadrazgo baptism and the symbolism of a second birth’, Man 16: 376–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bourdieu, P. 1977. Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Buijtenhuijs, R. 1973. Mau Mau Twenty Years After: the myth and the survivors. The Hague: Mouton.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Buijtenhuijs, R. 1982. Essays on Mau Mau: a contribution to Mau Mau historiography. Lieden: Africa Studiecentrum.Google Scholar
Comaroff, J. 1985. Body of Power, Spirit of Resistance: the culture and history of a South African people. Chicago: Chicago University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Furedi, F. 1973. ‘The African crowd in Nairobi: popular movements and elite politics’, Journal of African History 14 (2): 275–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Furedi, F. 1974. ‘The social composition of the Mau Mau movement in the White Highlands’, Journal of Peasant Studies 1 (4): 486–505.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gluckman, M. 1963. ‘The magic of despair’ in Gluckman, M., Order and Rebellion in Tribal Africa, pp. 137–49. London: Cohen and West.Google Scholar
Gordon, D. F. 1985. Decolonization and the State of Kenya. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Hobley, C. W. 1910. ‘Kikuyu customs and beliefs—thahu and its connection with circumcision rites’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 40: 428–52.Google Scholar
Luffe, J. 1979. A Modern History of Tanganyika. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kabiro, N. 1973. Man in the Middle. Richmond (Canada): LSM Press Information Center.Google Scholar
Kanogo, T. 1987. Squatters and the Roots of Mau Mau, 1905–63. London: James Currey.Google Scholar
Kariuki, J. M. 1963. Mau Mau Detainee. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Kenyatta, J. 1938. Facing Mount Kenya: the traditional life of the Gikuyu, London: Seeker and Warburg.Google Scholar
Kinyatti, M. (ed.). 1980. Thunder from the Mountains: Mau Mau patriotic songs. London: Zed Books.Google Scholar
Kopytoff, I. 1971. ‘Ancestors as elders in Africa’, Africa 41 (2): 129–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kuper, A. 1982. ‘Lineage theory: a critical retrospect’, Annual Review of Anthropology 11: 71–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lan, D. 1985. Guns and Rain: guerrillas and spirit mediums in Zimbabwe. London: James Currey.Google Scholar
Leakey, L. S. B. 1952. Mau Mau and the Kikuyu. London: Methuen.Google Scholar
Leakey, L. S. B. 1954. Defeating Mau Mau. London: Methuen.Google Scholar
Lewis, G. 1980. Day of Shining Red. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mair, L. P. 1958. ‘The pursuit of die millennium in Melanesia’, British Journal of Sociology 9: 175–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maughan-Brown, D. 1986. Land, Freedom and Fiction: history and ideology in Kenya. London: Zed Books.Google Scholar
Mazrui, A. A. 1975. ‘The resurrection of die warrior tradition in African political culture’, Journal of Modem African Studies 13: 67–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Middleton, J., and Kershaw, G. 1965. The Kikuyu and Kamba of Kenya. London: International African Institute.Google Scholar
Muchai, K. 1973. The Hardcore: the story of Karigo Muchai. Richmond (Canada): LSM Press Information Center.Google Scholar
Ogot, B. A. 1972. ‘Revolt of the elders: an anatomy of the loyalist crowd in the Mau Mau uprising 1952–56’, in Ogot, B. A. (ed.), Hadith 4: Politics and Nationalism in Colonial Kenya, pp. 134–48. Nairobi: East Africa Publishing House.Google Scholar
Ranger, T. O. 1983. ‘The invention of tradition in colonial Africa’, in Hobsbawm, E. and Ranger, T. O. (eds.), The Invention of Tradition, pp. 211–63. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Ranger, T. O. 1985. Peasant Consciousness and Guerrilla War in Zimbabwe. London: James Currey.Google Scholar
Rosberg, C. and Nottingham, J. 1966. The Myth of ‘Mau Mau’: nationalism in Kenya. New York: Praeger.Google Scholar
Sahlins, M. 1976. Culture and Practical Reason. Chicago: Chicago University Press.Google Scholar
Sorrenson, M. P. K. 1967. Land Reform in the Kikuyu Country. Nairobi: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Sperber, D. 1975. Rethinking Symbolism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Strayer, R. W. 1972. ‘Missions and African protest’, in Strayer, R. W., Steinhart, E. I. and Maxon, R. M. (eds.), Eastern African Studies XIII: Protest Movements in Colonial East Africa: aspects of early response to European rule, pp. 1–38. Syracuse: Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs.Google Scholar
Swanzy, H. 1952–1953. ‘Quarterly notes’, African Affairs, vols. 51–53.Google Scholar
Thompson, K. 1985. Beliefs and Ideology. London: Tavistock.Google Scholar
Throup, D. W. 1987. Economic and Social Origins of Mau Mau. London: James Currey.Google Scholar
Wilson, B. R. 1973. Magic and the Millennium: a sociological study of religious movements of protest among tribal and Third World peoples. London: Heinemann.Google Scholar