Thread by @HistoryKE

#HistoryKeThread: The Abagusii Resistance

Towards the end of the 19th century, the Abagusii learnt of a vision by their prophet Eliamwamu, who was also called Sakawa of Nyakoe.

According to Mzee Ombese Nyakyoga, a Gusii elder interviewed in 1971, when Sakawa was about to die, he told his community that there would be visitors to their country who would “stay for some time, and then they will go”.

Sakawa further said that the visitors would leave peacefully, but leave a spear behind.  

It was not clear what the “spear” was, or what it represented. However, it is widely believed that the visitors that Sakawa spoke of were Europeans who eventually colonized Kenya.

Like their neighbours, the Abagusii relied on directives by their prophets, official seers of the community. For example, when the community contemplated waging war – mostly for cattle booty - it was standard procedure to consult seers.

The Kipsigis and Luo were two communities that were frequently in the crosshairs of the Abagusii.          

On their part, the Kipsigis (pictured) were also aggressors. There exists some records to show that these two communities went to war in the early 1890s.

And there were occasional lulls in such wars, such as when the Kipsigis declared a Kalyet (barter trade agreement). This enabled the Abagusii to receive hides and skins from the Kipsigis, in exchange for supply of grain.

Still in the 1890s, there was a time when the Abagusii were wary of an attack by Kipsigis warriors. So they approached Nyamao, a Gusii seer, for his divine guidance.

Nyamao took some sticks and applied his medicinal charms. He told his tribesmen that he would plant the sticks at a spot the community was familiar with, and where Kipsigis warriors were known to pass.

If Kipsigis warriors passed over the sticks, Nyamao told his tribesmen, then he would know. He further added that that would be a sign the Abagusii would emerge victorious.

So one night he set off to plant the sticks at the identified location in the distance.

When Kipsigis warriors passed over Nyamao’s sticks, scores of Abagusii warriors confronted them, forcing them to retreat.  

From that day on, according to Gusii lore, the location where Nyamao planted the pieces of sticks formed the boundary between those two communities.

There was yet another Gusii seer called Sakawa, or Eliamwamu. He was an old man who lived in the same time as Nyamao.

Sakawa, who died in 1909, warned his tribesmen about the coming of some strange people who would put up structures that looked like mushrooms.

The strangers, he said, would settle down in a place called Getembe where, as lore has it, Sakawa lit columns of fires along a line to show where electric poles and lights would be put up.

He prophesied that the Abagusii would be subdued by the strangers, who “will stay and later leave for their country, leaving us to rule ourselves as we have always done in the past….”

The Abagusii reportedly did not take him seriously. And when Sakawa bizarrely warned that those who get sons would not see the mushrooms, it only became clear much later that he was calling on his community to be ready to bear arms.

Some historians such as William Ochieng believed that the mushrooms referred to buildings with corrugated iron roofing that the British introduced in Getembe, which the British called “Kisii boma”.

If I am not mistaken, Getembe is Kisii town today, or was an area that is today very near the town.

In 1905, Sir Donald Stewart was Commissioner of East Africa Protectorate.

On 21st April 1905, Stewart wrote as follows to Alfred Lyttelton, then British Secretary of State in the Colonial Office:

“Some of the Kisii are friendly and want us to establish a Government post in their country, but a large portion of the tribe is inimical and will be likely to give trouble. I have however great hopes that the punishment of the Sotik may bring them to reason.

See, the British had set up administrative centres in much of the country near where the railway passed. Gusiiland was among the latest enclaves where they needed to set up a station.

In order to assert their dominion, the Europeans were determined to show force to the Abagusii if necessary. And the plan was to use force against a community in Sotik – Kipsigis perhaps, as a lesson for the Abagusii.

Later in 1905, Stewart dispatched to Gusiiland from Kericho a young British administrator, Geoffry Northcote (later Sir Geoffry Northcote), aged 24. Stewart did not have the patience to apply diplomacy in his expeditions.

So Northcote, who received reinforcements that were fresh from combat action against Koitalel arap Samoei and the Nandi, had instructions to use force.

And use force he did, deploying the 100 levies and 50 policemen at his disposal.

The Abagusii still had fresh memories of prophecies about strangers taking over their land and putting up mushroom-like structures. The Abagusii also had significant numbers of livestock which, in many parts of Africa, were considered spoils of war.

Thus the community was determined to defend its turf and their own, and Northcote’s expedition was therefore unmistakably considered an invading force.

In the course of Northcote’s expedition in which thousands of cattle were captured and over 100 warriors killed, he earned himself the Abagusii nickname “Nyarigoti”.

The Abagusii from Western Kitutu offered the greatest resistance.

In late 1907, Northcote returned to Gusiiland, this time as an Assistant District Commissioner for Kisii. Around the same time, there emerged a Gusii prophetess called Moraa.

Like Mekatilili at the coast, Moraa rallied her Abagusii to rise up against the British. In 1908, three years after Northcote had first attacked her people, she gave her Bogeka clan warrior step-son, Otenyo Nyamaterere, some charms that she said would protect him against....

.... the white man’s bullets.

She also blessed him and anointed him to track down and kill “Nyarigoti”.

The anointing came against the backdrop of a season of pentilence and famine in Gusiiland. Large flocks of birds that included vultures, cranes and other birds had destroyed Abagusii crops, a misfortune that was attributed to the coming of Europeans.

That time, there was also a song that had been composed by elders that went as follows:

The song literally translated to:

On 12th January 1908, Northcote embarked on a tour of various Gusiiland villages accompanied by a handful of native policemen. When word went round that Nyarigoti was on the move in the area, Otenyo laid an ambush for the European administrator and speared him.

However, Otenyo’s victim somehow survived the encounter. Accounts vary as to how exactly Northcote was speared.

In his diary, which is available at the Kenya National Archives, Northcote created the impression of some sort of altercation as having taken place. He noted that Otenyo “rejected my idea of justice”.

Moreover, two days after the incident, Northcote wrote to his father, allaying fears that he was dead or had been seriously injured. On the same day, 14th January 1908, John Ainsworth, the Nyanza Provincial Commissioner, having learnt of the attack on...

..... Northcote, dispatched police reinforcements led by W. Foran, the chief of police at Kisumu.

Meanwhile, Abagusii warriors stepped up their resistance. Many formed a beeline to prophetess Moraa’s homestead to receive medicine that was believed to give them protection against bullets.

Revolt by the Abagusii of Western Kitutu and Nyaribari was particularly bad, and culminated in the killing of several Indians at Kisii Boma.

In response to these attacks, Ainsworth dispatched yet another expedition to Kisii, this time led by Lt. Col. J. Mackay, who was accompanied by 14 other British military officers, over 300 askaris from the 3rd King’s African Rifles, 50 Nandi levies, a few dozen porters...

.... and a doctor, Dr. H.S. Beerderker, who was to attend to the injured Northcote.

Determined to teach the Abagusii a lesson, the punitive force burnt huts and destroyed crops, killing anyone who attempted to stop them. Large numbers of captured livestock were driven away to Kibos. They comprised of 5,636 heads of cattle, 3,281 sheep and goats.

It was reported that more than 150 Abagusii were killed during the punitive operation, a toll that shocked Northcote himself, who was outraged by the “inhuman behaviour of the punitive forces…”

In London, Secretary Of The Colonies Winston Churchill (pictured) got wind of the goings-on. Excerpts from his letter to Governor James H. Sadler:

“I do not like the tone of these reports. No doubt the clans should be punished but 160 have now been killed outright. Without any further causalities encountered it looks like a butchery, and if the house of Commons gets hold of it, all our plan in...

.... East Africa Protectorate will be under cloud. Surely it cannot be necessary to keep on killing defenceless people on such an enormous scale…”

Meanwhile, as he was seen to be the embodiment of Abagusii resistance by the British, Otenyo was a marked man. He was later captured, tried in Kisii, before being executed by firing squad.

It is believed he was decapitated and his head sent to Britain. As a lesson to the Abagusii, his headless body was hung at a prominent bridge in Kisii before it was retrieved by elders and buried on top of Manga escarpment.

After his tour of duty in Kenya, Northcote went on to serve in various senior administrative roles in Rhodesia, Ghana and Guyana colonies, before ending up as Governor of Hong Kong.

Prophetess Moraa was later tracked down and arrested. But the colonial authorities decided that she was too old to face trial and set her free.