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Naivasha Virtual Fieldcourse

'Mau Mau' and the struggle for independence

On the 26th of March 1953, 97 people were killed on the spot and 57 wounded at Lari, just to the south of Laek Naivasha on the Kinangop plateau, in what was to be known as the Lari massacre. It one of the most violent episodes of Kenyan independence history, when the Mau Mau guerrillas (formerly called the Land and Freedom Army) attacked villages inhabited by the Kikuyu loyalist Home guard, killing soldiers as well as their families, slaughtering their cattle and burning entire homesteads. It is estimated that eventually some 150 peole died as a result of the attack.

Lari was attacked becasue it was inhabited by loyalist troops and its villagers had refused to take the Mau Mau oath. Many other members of the Kikuyu tribe were invited and often forced to participate in ritual oathing ceremonies. During these events, candidates had to remove all objects related to western culture (clothes, shoes, watches...); often standing naked or covered in gost skin, they had to swear faithfulness to the movement in front of God, drink a symbolic concoction including goat's milk and blood, then promise that they would fight white supremacy until death. Towards the end of the ceremony, the initate was anointed with blood and then asked to pay a contribution to the movement. In some way, the Mau Mau oathing ceremony was reminescent of traditional Kikuyu circumcision rituals with added elements of superstition and powerful symbolic acts with elements of sex, violence and bestiality. The 'second birth' was provided by circumcision whereby a young boy becomes "man" and the Mau Mau initiates experienced a 'third birth' into a new purified state cleansed of any sign of westernalisation. Indeed some of the warriors that had taken oath referred to themsleves as "circumsized" and/or "born-again". Special handshakes and body language signs helped the oathed Kikuyus to recognise themselves in public without others noticing. An unknown number of Kikuyus who refused to take the compulsory oath were threatened and many killed; often these were Christians who were strongly opposed to the movement. The traditional character of the oath ceremony gained a large number of Kikuyus to the cause, but failed to bring in significant numbers of people from other tribes. A second, even more extreme kind of oath, called the batuni oath, was practiced by yound men and women who had to become warriors and prepare for direct action on the ground.

The Lari event was reported in the international press and became widely publicized by the British colonial government to depict the Mau Mau as cruel criminals; the movement had clear links with the criminal undergound of the capital city (thefts, robberies, assaults...) and had been officially banned in 1950. It also led to retaliation attacks by British and African soldiers on Mau Mau members and supporters; hundreds of men were sent to detention camps on suspicion of having taken part in the attackes and in other Mau Mau actions.

A trial followed and nine months aftet the Lari massacre; twenty-four Kikuyu tribesmen were sentenced to death for taking part in the event.

Shocked by violent events such as the one of Lari, post-independence Kenya refused to recognise Mau Mau claims on ancestral lands and banned it as an organisation. Jomo Kenyatta himself made distance from the movement during several occasions, both before and after independence. In October 1952, he had earlier declared that the Kenya African Union is not the Mau Mau; despite this he was accused as having close ties with the movement by British government and few weeks later was arrested and condemned to 7 years hard labour during a farce trial characterised by lack of direct evidence.