Squatters and the Roots of Mau Mau, 1905–1963. Tabitha Kanogo
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are even references to purchases of livestock from Maliboi in the Londiani-Kisumu region.79
The amount of livestock, especially of sheep and goats, increased rapidly in the White Highlands, and after a while the Rift Valley came to be referred to as weru, or pasture-land. Although it is difficult to establish the exact cost of livestock at this time, pioneer squatters obviously found the prices more competitive than in Central Province. At one time, two debes (tin containers) of posho were said to fetch two goats from the Turkana,80 whereas the Somali and Dorobo would sell a cow for about two rupees.81 At least seven other prices were quoted by these early pioneers, but, although there are minor differences and problems in translating into the cash equivalent the goods in kind given in exchange for livestock, the important factor is that these Kikuyu squatters saw these deals as competitive. Wangoi stated that three months’ pay went a long way towards helping to accumulate ‘a hutful of goats’.82 This rapid accumulation of stock, first by cheap purchases and later by natural increase, served to popularise the Settled Areas among the Kikuyu, not only among those who were resident in the area but also those in the Kikuyu homeland. Livestock, the symbol of wealth the Kikuyu had consistently sought to acquire from the Maasai, was now readily available, at a price, in the Settled Areas. Herding the animals became the responsibility of the young boys and old men.83
One reason why the squatters were so keen to accumulate livestock was because of its importance in the social and economic lives of the Kikuyu. Sheep and goats were required for a multitude of ceremonies and rituals and for various other forms of social intercourse. L.S.B. Leakey84 ventured to enumerate these occasions and identified 172 of them between the birth and death of each average individual (Kikuyu), each of which demanded the slaughter of a beast and the eating of meat. In addition, the acquisition of livestock was viewed as a way of saving; it could easily be converted into hard cash when necessary for the various expenditures that accompanied the establishment of colonial rule, such as taxes, school fees and the purchase of consumer goods. Though livestock still remained central to the payment of bride-wealth, other rituals, such as circumcision, required cash, with surgeons increasingly preferring to be paid in cash rather than in kind.85
In the Settled Areas, as in Central Province, the possession of livestock was concomitant with social status. It was always ‘. . . the rich people who spoke while others listened’86 at important squatter gatherings like beer-drinking parties. High social standing (igweta)87 among the other squatters was acquired by accumulating stock, and this led squatters to resist the added labour obligations and restrictions which were imposed by the settlers even before 1918. Squatters were reluctant to expend the bulk of their energy on settler farms as members of the labouring community. They aimed to earn their income from their own productive activities. As one ex-squatter’s wife recalled, ‘Wealth did not come from salaries, no, it came from shamba produce and exchange’.88
Squatters’ wages were meagre, even in comparison with those of the contract labourers. To the squatters, however, especially in the pre-1918 period, the cash proceeds of their labour contracts were of little or no economic significance.89 Wage differences did not determine whether or not a squatter agreed to make a contract. Although the money could be put to use, the squatter’s major concern was the availability of sufficient land for cultivation and grazing. As Lucia Ngugi declared, ‘People used to be paid in rupees and were also given shambas. But they preferred the shamba. The rupees could not do anything’.90 Though the money was useful, access to land guaranteed a better basis than a salary for generating wealth.
By the end of the First World War, the settlers had got rid of squatter cattle, so from then on goats and sheep assumed central place in the squatters’ social, economic and political life.91
Goats became the most important item in the payment of bride-wealth. But, because of their ready availability and high level of accumulation among the squatters, more goats were needed to pay for bride-wealth in the Rift Valley than in Central Province.92 The standard bride-price between the late 1920s and early 1930s, when the squatters were at the height of their prosperity, averaged between 80 and 100 goats.93 Although this price held during the kifagio (broom—signifying the sweeping away, or elimination, of livestock) period, it is necessary to recognise that this came at the height of squatter wealth and that, rather than sell their large herds, the squatters preferred to increase the size of the dowry as they married more wives.94 Ngoci Ndegwa married two wives during kifagio and paid 120 goats for each of them. Wanyoko Kamau paid 120 goats for each of his kifagio brides and 80 for a third.
The immediate success that had given the squatter immigrants their sense of arrival in the early period was to be thwarted by the settler community in the period after 1918. But, in the meanwhile, in Central Province, the kihiu-mwiri circumcision initiates of between 1914 and 1918 drew attention to the opportunities to be found in the Settled Areas in their song entitled ‘Ndingiria Gikang‘u Njugu Iremeire Ndimu’95 (I cannot continue to eat maize only, when there is a surplus of beans at Njoro). The female initiates in the same age-group also formulated a song about the productivity of the Rift Valley,’ in which they expressed their desire to settle in this land of plenty:
Ngwithiira Ruguru,
Ngahituke Mutamaiyo,
Kuria Ngwaci cia Nyakiburi
Ciaturagwo na rwamba.
Ngwithiira na ruguru,
Ngaikare murangoine
Haria burugu uhihagiria marigu
Wanjiarire ukunjuria thigagwo ku
Na thigagwo kibui mucii
Munene wi mburi na ngombe.
Wanjiarire Unjuragia thigagwo ku,
Ukiuga ni itheru wanjiarire
thii kibui ukarorie.96
I will go to the West [Rift Valley Settled Areas],
Beyond the Brown Olive Tree,
Where the Nyakiburi sweet potatoes
Are split with a sharpened stick.
I will go to the West
And sit at the entrance,
Where the purko [Maasai] roast bananas
Father you ask me where I will be married,
I will get married at Kibui the big
Homestead which has goats and cattle.
Father you ask me where I will be married,
You think it is a joke,
You had better go to Kibui
And find out (confirm).
Former squatters spoke of how the Kikuyu in Central Province homelands would try to marry their daughters to Kikuyu men in the Rift Valley, in an attempt to boost their wealth of stock with the anticipated bride-price.97 There were also instances of women married in Central Province being freed from their marital ties and brought to the Rift Valley to remarry. This happened if the woman in question was being ill-treated by her husband. Her relatives in the Rift Valley would return the equivalent number of goats and other livestock paid for her dowry to her husband’s family. Once redeemed, the girl would be brought to the Rift Valley where a better suitor would be found for her to marry.98
These discrepancies even extended to the circumcision fee. Although this later came to be paid in cash, here again the traditional surgeons (aruithia) agreed that rates of remuneration were higher in the Settled Areas than in Central Province. While in 1920 one debe (tin container) of honey was an acceptable surgeon’s fee in Central Province, in the Rift Valley the surgeon received a gourd of beer, one half calabash of black peas (njahi), one gourd of fermented porridge and about ten