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Something that struck me in this thread is the role of traditional African spirituality, and the obsession of the colonialists with it.
It struck me because even for Mau Mau, it wasn't the weapons or the politics that the British were obsessed with. It was the oathing.
It struck me because even for Mau Mau, it wasn't the weapons or the politics that the British were obsessed with. It was the oathing.
Yani the British destroyed and tortured whole communities to destroy their core spirituality. What the British did to the #Talai clan was literal genocide. They cut people from the land, took them to where disease would kill them, and then put a stigma to socially kill them.
By its definition, genocide is not only about killing people but killing the memory of their existence.
The story of the people must be retold, otherwise we become complicit in the British project.
The story of the people must be retold, otherwise we become complicit in the British project.
The #Talai clan of the Kalenjin (Nandi, Kipsigis, Tugen and poss. Marakwet) have long been feared by the rest of the community. People don’t often talk about them. Members of the clan also don’t often reveal that detail. I recently discovered that this started with #colonialism.
The #Talai were the 19th century rulers of the group that was later called Kalenjin. We were taught in primary school history lessons about Kimnyolei and how he foretold the arrival of the railway ‘a long snake that puffs in its head that would cut through the land.’
He warned the Nandi (sub-tribe of the Kalenjin) about it. When British settlers arrived, Kimnyolei had been killed (by the Nandi) and his last son Koitalel arap Samoei was the new leader. He led the Nandi Resistance to colonial rule. It lasted more than a decade.
