of participating in Mau Mau oath taking activities. In a matter of a few years,
Kenya was transformed from a country without jails and criminals to a society
with insufficient jails and overflowing with criminals.27 This chapter considers the
pre-colonial systems of Akamba law against the colonial judicial structures and
the problems with this foreign structure. And finally, it examines criminal court
cases centered on the criminalization of oath taking and oath administration.
The chapter argues that the British criminalization of oathing practices was
evidence of the power of oathing during the Mau Mau period; it also shows how
the oath was forced to adapt to judicial persecution, which was non-existent prior
to the war period. In addition, the chapter argues that the colonial judicial system,
established for administering justice, became a dominant force in suppressing
oath traditions while fighting and archiving the Mau Mau movement one case at a
time in the courts. The vast and expansive court documents on Mau Mau cases
served as colonial evidence and proof that the Mau Mau movement and oathing
was barbaric, irrational, violent, deplorable, and criminal. These characteristics
and descriptions in the archives could be used to justify inhumane behavior,
response, and treatment towards the rebellion by colonial officials. Oath
criminalization also permitted the colonial administrators to focus on the ills of the
Mau Mau participants instead of questioning how their own acts of violence,
abuse, and degradation may have shaped the political developments. The
evidence used here comes from archival customary laws, Supreme Court
criminal files, field survey results, and interview testimonies. This work adds to
the historiography by exploring the new oath-to-crime relationship created during
27 Elkins, Imperial Reckoning, xv.
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