The name is absent

forms with the intervention of the colonial government and through the Christian
church that also encouraged the purification of Mau Mau oathers as a means of
rehabilitation.

The key finding of this chapter is that things of value in the past do not
vanish; instead they accommodate and respond to the new environment. Like the
oath, purification was revealed also as a complex, historical, and highly
structured system integrated into Kenyan society with connections to the
environment and natural world. Oathing and purification were systems that
intersected during the Mau Mau period as a reaction to the pollution, violence,
and offenses associated with the oathing activities and war exposures. This
intersection speaks to the sophistication of the Mau Mau oath as a system that
sought to be purified and restored.

These three chapters cover the Mau Mau oathing relationships. They
emphasize the dynamic and responsive nature of the oath and raise the
questions of how these new oath relationships to crime, women, and purification
alter and explain the oath itself. These relationships shaped the oath by making it
much more dangerous, more inclusive of other groups, and defiling unlike
oathing prior to the 1950s. Although other new oathing relationships were
established during this period including those to the young, these three (crime,
women, and purification) connections reflect the wide ranging social, cultural, and
political impact of oathing.

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