The name is absent

knowledge (including his knowledge of the Kikuyu language) in ways that could
be interpreted by Europeans.

We can see in these statements that at the beginning of the war there
were different accounts, emphasis, and perspectives of the Mau Mau oath. At a
basic level, there are two major viewpoints - one conservative and one liberal.
The distinction between the two is that the conservatives saw Mau Mau as
evidence that Africans were swayed by primitive aggression and savagery,
compared to the view of a need to socially explain the African reaction.¹⁷

The Mau Mau Oath Literature: 1960s-1970s

The mid-1960s and 1970s represented a time when new interpretations
surfaced on the Mau Mau oath. New writers emerged who provided their
accounts and beliefs. By the end of the war, similar to the various European
ideologies, Africans in Kenya also provided their interpretations of the Mau Mau
oath. There were probably even more splinters in the ideologies of Africans
because of the wide range of experiences and multiplicity of the African
population.

Although mostly European images of the Mau Mau oath dominated, during
the 1960s and 1970s, several key works were published that began to challenge
the existing historiography.¹⁸ Some of these perspectives were from actual Mau
Mau participants who gave an inside interpretation of Mau Mau and Mau Mau

'⁷ Dane Kennedy, “Constructing the Colonial Myth of Mau Mau,” The International Journal of African
Historical Studies 25, no. 2 (1992): 251.

¹⁸ However, it would take many decades of additional writings on the topic to counter the initial images and
notions surrounding Mau Mau oathing and the Mau Mau movement because the initial impressions have
had a long impact.

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