Similar to the preceding chapter on criminalization, this chapter explores
the new connections forged as a result of the Mau Mau moment. This chapter
argues that the Mau Mau oath was radicalized with the inclusion of women who
were generally excluded from the process prior to the 1950s.9 This new gender
transformation in oathing was a major break from tradition, but represented the
dynamic nature of the oath to respond to the urgency of the moment. Not only did
this transformed oath embrace women, it included other segments of the Kenyan
population including different ethnicities. It fostered a new level of togetherness
and unity. This wide-ranging embrace or adoption was an important
characteristic of the radicalized oath, helping it to secretly spread and making it
difficult to categorize; some may even point to the unity associated with Mau Mau
as the root of nationalism in Kenya.
This chapter is organized into three sections to highlight the conditions
that created the transformation, meaning, and impact of the oath associated with
women taking it. The first section is an examination of gender before the Mau
Mau period. The objective is to briefly understand the convoluted dynamics of
gender on the eve of the Mau Mau revolution. The next section explores the
gender to oath relationship dynamics during Mau Mau. The last section analyzes
how women were being used by the colonial administration to invent and shape
the Mau Mau.
9 Political forms of oaths to women was a process started as early as the 1940s; however, the bulk of the
oathing activies for women occurred from the 1950s. See Kershaw, Mau Mau From Below, 229. Also, for
earlier accounts of Mau Mau oath forms, see Kanogo, Squatters and the Roots of Mau Mau, 116.
154