The name is absent

structures, symbolism, and power of oathing, we are able to discover a different
version of the Mau Mau war: one that united and empowered Africans across
ethnic lines, gender, religion, and age. The ultimate aim of this dissertation is to
remember and restore the depth and complexity of the Kenyan past.
Unfortunately, this is a challenging effort. There is a tendency to dance around
details and concepts that fail to support our own worldview and understanding.³¹
However, it is essential to the progress of the field to acknowledge and analyze
the value of their past traditions, knowledge, and beliefs even if it is
uncomfortable and complicated.³²

Although the writings on Mau Mau have been historically a space for
political agendas and controlling knowledge, the truth about the past always finds
the present. The oath in Kenya continues to resurface over time and remains a
living phenomenon. The challenge for scholars is to become more comfortable
weaving in varied sources and interdisciplinary approaches to understand the
true complexity of the past. Oathing can begin to offer insight into the uniting
relationship between local, national, and international liberation struggles.
However, this study is situated in a very political, polarized, and convoluted
historiography. As David Anderson states on the topic of Mau Mau, “It is an
uncomfortable history, but it is a history that needs to be told.”³³ Therefore, it is

³¹ In many ways, this study presented itself because of my previous cultural exposures. For over 15 years, I
have had the opportunity to experience and Ieam some of the most intricate African ceremonies through my
study of dance, and from this exposure I have been much more sensitive to understanding the power of
ritual spaces.

³² Johannes Fabian, Remembering the Present, Painting and Popular History in Zaire (Berkeley:

University of California Press, 1996), 17. Fabian reminds us that “Our ancestors knew how to dress, they
knew how to converse, they knew how to have children, they knew how to govern themselves.”
³³ David Anderson, Histories of the Hanged: Britain ^,s Dirty War in Kenya and the End of Empire.
(London: Weidenfeld and Nelson, 2005), 2.

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