The name is absent

took and gave the oath, forming a new relationship. This chapter shows how the
oath responded to a recasting of gender roles during Mau Mau by including
women into the oathing ceremonies.

Women were needed in the movement to play roles and occupy spaces
that men could not. For example, it was easier for women to carry food in
baskets through the forest to soldiers, and they were able to collect vital
information because of their ability to get closer to the enemy. The key finding of
this chapter is that although often overlooked, women played an important role in
the freedom fight, and the presence of women in oath practices created a
different oath experience that was much more sexual than the traditional kithitu
oaths. This chapter continues the treatment of the Mau Mau oath by showing
again how the oath was sophisticated and even modern in its adaptation to
include women into the movement because like men, women also had notions of
freedom and the desire to fight for it.

The complexity of oath relationships is concluded with chapter seven
through the new oath-to-purification relationship created during the Mau Mau
period. Like criminalization and gender, it was a relationship that prior to the
1950s did not exist in Kenya. However, this relationship is different because it
represents the last phase in the oathing process where the oather must
reintegrate back into the community through the purification process. This new
relationship speaks to the inherent pollution associated with oathing that was not
characteristic of the traditional oath. The Mau Mau oath was treated as a new
type of offense that required purification. This relationship also took on new

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