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

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 December 2011

Maia Green
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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

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