The name is absent

The Mau Mau Oath Literature: 1950s and early 1960s

The primary accounts during the 1950s and early 1960s provided the
initial approaches, language, and structures for understanding the Mau Mau
oath. The dominant early writing on the Mau Mau oath came largely from
European perspectives. These early writers on the topic were attempting to
explain the Mau Mau rebellion by analyzing the organization’s secrecy and
growing enrollment through oathing. However, many of these writers were
responsible for some of the early negative connotations of oathing as a means to
justify British violence. Their narrow descriptions of the rebellion are still etched in
the memory of many who reflect on the topic. The text and corresponding images
of Mau Mau left portrayals of savagery, random violence, and barbarism that
continue to resonate.

In order to better understand these early writers, consider how the Mau
Mau war shattered the happy valley of Kenya. David Anderson states,

“Before the Mau Mau, Kenya was the land of sunshine, gin slings, and smiling,
obedient servants, where the industrious white colonizer could enjoy a temperate
life of peace and plenty in a tropical land. This was the white man’s country; with
its rolling, fertile highlands...They brought order and prosperity. And they held a
paternal view of the Africans whose land they had appropriated, and whose
labour they depended upon...Mau Mau shattered this patronizing pretence in the
most poignant, disturbing manner, as trusted servants turned on their masters
and slaughtered them.”¹

From the 1950s and 1960s, European accounts of Mau Mau dominated
published communication on the topic. And they were the major disseminators of
the messages conveyed internationally on the revolt. As a result, the literature
produced was based primarily on pro-British political agendas.

¹ 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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