Squatters and the Roots of Mau Mau, 1905–1963. Tabitha Kanogo

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СКАЧАТЬ society had an expansionist dynamic of its own, propelled by clan (mbari) expansion and competition, by the entrepreneurial ambitions of the cattle-owning ahoi (landless people amongst the Kikuyu), and by the pressures of colonial measures enforced by greedy and hostile colonial chiefs. In addition, the settler community was weak and, for the most part, especially in the beginning, could get no more than the rent they charged from these Kikuyu frontiersmen.

The Kikuyu expansionist dynamic

      The acquisition of land in Kikuyuland operated through what was known as the githaka system.¹⁴ Under this system, each clan 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. In this way, they were able to accumulate large herds of stock.

      Land ownership among the Kikuyu was initially established either through prior cultivation, breaking up virgin land (known as kuna), or purchase. The first occupant or purchaser then founded an mbari comprising an extended family or clan. The founder of such a group had jurisdiction over this githaka and parcelled it out to his wives, married sons and ahoi. On his death the eldest son of the senior wife assumed the role of muramati (the trustee of the land). Subsequent subdivisions resulted in the development of several ithaka whose boundaries and manner of acquisition were known. If disagreements arose, members could leave their clan to buy land or clear virgin land and establish a new clan with a new muramati. New clan, or mbari, land could also be established while still maintaining allegiance to the old muramati.¹⁵

      The establishment of colonial rule then blocked any further Kikuyu expansion either to the north or to the south. The pioneer migrants visualised the opening up of the White Highlands as a new frontier, in much the same way as the southern Kiambu area had been in the closing years of the last century.¹⁶ The availability of extensive virgin land in the White Highlands enabled squatters to continue their pre-colonial cultivation and stock-keeping on a much larger scale than was possible in Central Province.

      In the following pages, I will show how squatters were not only drawn to the White Highlands by dreams of wealth, but were also pushed there because of land shortages and the oppression of chiefs. Initially the Kikuyu squatters merely took advantage of the suitable conditions presented to them but later, capitalising on administrative incompetence and inability to arrest their activities, they occupied and used vast areas of the White Highlands, bringing into existence an economic system that operated within and in competition with the settler economy.

Factors behind Kikuyu migration

       Land shortage

      Although there was definite evidence of land shortage in Kenya even before 1914,¹⁷ during this period the application of the term ‘land shortage’ was relative. While some clans in Kiambu District owned enough or even surplus land, land alienation had rendered many families in the same area completely landless, especially in the Limuru area. As a result, there had already been a wave of Kikuyu movement to the White Highlands in search of land as far back as the early 1910s. One of these early migrants was Wanjiku wa Kigo. She moved to the Rift Valley with her stepmother before the First World War.¹⁸ Her father had initially been left behind to look after the family’s livestock. Wanjiku said that her family moved because their land in Central Province was inadequate. They ‘hated their plot (shamba) at home because the soil was “red” – it lacked fertility’.¹⁹ This land compared poorly with the Rift Valley where ‘the shambas were not measured’²⁰ and were fertile.

      Wanjiku and her mother first settled in Ndunyu Buru near Elmenteita, where they had gone to join Wanjiku’s brother, who had moved to the area earlier and become a squatter. There was a strong kinship basis to the squatters’ migration pattern.²¹ Ernest Kiberethi Kanyanja and his father went to the Rift Valley in 1917 ‘because of poverty in Kikuyu’.²² Although his family had owned land in Githunguri, their plot was infertile and too small. His father therefore decided to move to the Settled Areas where he initially found employment as a ‘forest cleaner’ in Elburgon. As a forest squatter, Kiberethi’s father would clear and cultivate an area, usually for about three consecutive years, after which it would be planted with young trees. He could then continue to plant his crops between the rows of trees for a while before moving on to clear fresh bush and repeat the process.

      Some of the squatters who moved to the Rift Valley before 1918 were large stock owners who needed more land for their livestock.²³ As Hannah Njoki recalled: ‘My father was a rich man so he hired his own bogie and got other people to board with all their luggage and livestock.’²⁴ The availability of good quality grazing land in the White Highlands was a great incentive for migration. Because of their impecunious state many settlers could only afford to pay meagre wages to these migrants and met the deficit by making part of their excess land available to the squatter. In this way the settler got cheap labour and the squatter access to prime land in return for minimal labour. In Njoki’s case, her father grazed his stock while his son worked for the settler. It has been asserted that squatters leased out their landlords’ grazing lands to their Kikuyu friends,²⁵ so that some of the squatters were grazing not only their own herds, but also those of friends and relations in Central Province.

      Other early squatters had been ahoi who had lost their rights to use land in Central Province: a situation prompted on the one hand by an expansion of cultivation in Central Province and on the other by the alienation of lands for European settlement and consequent block on any further Kikuyu expansion. Under such pressures, githaka holders withdrew ahoi rights until the 1940s,²⁶ which forced the ahoi to look for land in the White Highlands.

       Taxation

      If the possibility of evading taxes provided an incentive for some Kikuyu to move to the Settled Areas,²⁷ they would have gained only temporary relief. This was because, apart from being employers, the settlers also acted as tax-collectors. Indeed, some squatters hoped to earn their tax money by moving to the Settled Areas. As Gitau stated, ‘Some people had no money for the head-tax so they came here where the European would pay the tax for them. He [the settler] would only present the people with the receipts.’²⁸ In this respect, the 1910–11 Annual Report for Naivasha District noted that, since the Assistant Commissioner was confined to his office most of the time, the collection of taxes depended ‘almost entirely on the willingness of the employer to pay the tax for their boys as an advance of wages or to collect and send it in on pay day.’²⁹ In most cases, the employer obliged in the latter manner.

       The chiefs’ oppression

      The White Highlands were regarded as a haven for people wishing to escape conscription into the Carrier Corps during the First World War. Like several other informants, Shuranga Wegunyi had been captured for the Carrier Corps from his home in Muranga. His father redeemed him by paying in kind, one ndigithu (gourd) of honey and a ram to the local chief. On release, Shuranga and his father decided to move to the safety of the White Highlands. Here, the settlers protected their employees from conscription into the Carrier Corps for fear of losing what remained of their resident labour.³⁰ Some people moved to the Settled Areas to avoid the chief’s authority, for in the reserve the chief and his headmen were entrusted with the task of providing labour for communal and public projects. People detested this form of forced labour, failure to do which could be punished by the confiscation of livestock. Mithanga Kanyumba’s move to the Rift Valley was a direct attempt to escape the chief’s authority. As he himself recalled:

      My father was rich. The chief used to choose young men who would be taken to Fort Hall. We [Mithanga and one other] stayed there for two days without СКАЧАТЬ