African Ethics: Gĩkũyũ Traditional Morality

AFRICAN ETHICS ˜ ˜ ˜ TRADITIONAL MORALITY GIKUYU

Studies in Intercultural Philosophy Studien zur Interkulturellen Philosophie Etudes de philosophie interculturelle

19

Series Founded by

Heinz Kimmerle & Ram Adhar Mall Edited by

Henk Oosterling & Hermann-Josef Scheidgen

Amsterdam - New York, NY 2010

AFRICAN ETHICS ˜ ˜ ˜ TRADITIONAL MORALITY GIKUYU Hannah Wangeci Kinoti

Edited by G. Wakuraya Wanjohi with the assistance of Gerald J. Wanjohi

Cover design: Pier Post The paper on which this book is printed meets the requirements of “ISO 9706: 1994, Information and documentation - Paper for documents - Requirements for permanence”. ISBN: 978-90-420-3088-6 E-Book ISBN: 978-90-420-3089-3 ©Editions Rodopi B.V., Amsterdam - New York, NY 2010 Printed in The Netherlands

K89Cëubl j`eZ\k_\(//'j Over the last hundred years or so, the Gĩkũyũ have experienced tremendous changes in their political, social and cultural life. The majority of the Gĩkũyũ still live in the traditional homeland, which comprises the Nyeri, Murang’a and Kiambu administrative districts. However, since the coming of the Europeans at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, large numbers of people have made their homes in other parts of Kenya. At the beginning of the colonial period, the Gĩkũyũ were in great demand as porters for the construction and maintenance of railway lines and roads, as cheap labour on European farms and as unskilled labourers in the burgeoning urban centres. Soon, numbers of Gĩkũyũ people were to become squatters on the settlers’ farms in the so-called ‘white highlands.’ Following the outbreak of the Mau Mau conflict in 1952, many Gĩkũyũ who had made the white highlands their only or second home were repatriated to the ‘reserve.’ Again, since Kenya’s independence, quite a few Gĩkũyũ people have found permanent homes outside their homeland in Central Province. Some Gĩkũyũ people are also to be found beyond the national boundaries in search of a livelihood. Leakey remarks that mobility is probably one of the most obvious characteristics of the Gĩkũyũ. Mobility implies change and the need to adjust to a new environment and new conditions. In their pre-colonial history of migration and settlement into what finally became Gĩkũyũ land, the Gĩkũyũ experienced important changes.86 The period between the beginning of the 17th century and the end of the 19th century saw them consolidate themselves as an ethnic group, distinct from the Ndia and the Gichugu. The ecology of the area made it necessary for those who were hitherto hunters and pastoralists to become mainly agriculturalists. This was also a period of upheavals in which the Gĩkũyũ experienced opposition from the Gumba, the Athi and the Maasai. The Gĩkũyũ assimilated the Gumba and the Athi who had preceded them into the area and absorbed elements of their languages and ceremonial dances into their culture.87 With their pastoral Maasai neighbours they established a curiously balanced relationship of war and peace. The Maasai were evidently instrumental in the development of the defensive tactics, which the northern Gĩkũyũ adopted during this period. The tactics included special huts (gaaru) where warriors lived in readiness for war and a special kind of alarm (mbu) given as warning against the approach of an enemy.88 By the time the Gĩkũyũ were settling into present-day southern Kiambu they had adopted elaborate diplomatic methods of acquiring land from the Athi (Ndorobo) that *.

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were very similar to their marriage process.89 There is also evidence that the traditional Gĩkũyũ government made provision for the making of new laws and the repealing of old laws as need arose. However, in all these innovations the Gĩkũyũ seem to have remained a fairly strong ethnic group whose culture and morality was not unduly upset. On the whole, they seem to have been masters of their situation. The Gĩkũyũ encounter with the British colonial power was a different matter. Change then became rapid, drastic and, in some respects, disruptive. After the initial encounter in the mid-1890s change seems to have been so swift that by 1909 Katherine Routledge was calling for an urgent “full record of native habit and custom” because the Gĩkũyũ way of life was changing fast.90 By the mid 1930s some literature was being written in the vernacular by indigenous authors who had received some western education. The main reason for writing was to inform the youth about the traditions of the Gĩkũyũ “because many things have changed.”91 By 1938 Kenyatta was expressing the Gĩkũyũ people’s outcry that they were “no more where they used to be” and that “all is confusion.”92 Such an outcry may sound surprising, especially since the Gĩkũyũ were known to have been near rebellion in their demand for more western education since the early 1920s. However, it is clear from what Kenyatta goes on to say, that whatever aspects of change the Gĩkũyũ were experiencing, it was in the area of morals where there were regrettable effects: Religious rites and hallowed traditions are no longer observed by the whole community. Moral rules are broken with impunity, for in place of unified tribal morality there is now … a welter of disturbing influences, rules and sanctions, whose net result is only that a Gĩkũyũ does not know what he may or may not, ought or ought not, to do or believe, but which leaves him in no doubt at all about having broken the original morality of his people.93

In these sentiments, Kenyatta has support from a number of authors who themselves were active instruments of change among the Gĩkũyũ. Writing in 1923, A. R. Barlow concluded an account on the Gĩkũyũ by saying: Civilization has come upon them with a rush since the first white men came amongst them. Many influences are now extended upon them, which are changing their ideas and their manner of life for good and for evil …94

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Cagnolo also looks at the Gĩkũyũ after some thirty years of ‘civilizing’ and he too recognizes some ‘good’ and some ‘evil’ in their new state. He writes: “In three short decades the Kikuyu tribe has progressed so far ahead that an observer today could not imagine their primitive condition of thirty years ago.”95 Cagnolo is somehow taken aback by this headlong progress, for he goes on to say that it is “with startling suddenness” that the Gĩkũyũ “… finds himself confronted by the precious patrimony of civilization, which Europe has only collected after 2,000 years of slow, laborious progress.”96 One of the consequences of this sudden change was that the Gĩkũyũ was stripped of the beliefs that ruled his actions, and he lacked a new firm moral foundation.97 As a District Commissioner based in Kiambu, H. E. Lambert stated in his 1942 Annual report: Individualism is the most obvious political trend of the modern Kikuyu, and it has developed … with such rapidity that it constitutes the most serious threat to the structure of a society based not long ago on its very anti-thesis …98

Lambert went on to suggest that the European had a duty to help the Gĩkũyũ to return to “some sort of social stability” since … “it was our own infringement of his social system, which removed him from the position of equilibrium he had achieved for himself before our advent.”99 The early writers quoted above demonstrate that the very rapid change the Gĩkũyũ experienced was felt in every sphere of life and had serious repercussions on the people’s moral standards. Here we describe briefly the main areas of change. These include the political, economic and social spheres of life. They also include religion, education, culture and morals. Gfc`k`ZXcZ_Xe^\j

Political changes were among the first sudden changes the Gĩkũyũ experienced during the colonial period. Suddenly, and for the first time in their history they had a master, with the result that they began to suffer insecurity due to the greatly diminished power of the indigenous political machinery.

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In 1890, the Imperial British East Africa (IBEA) Company set up a permanent station at Dagoretti. During the following decade or so of ‘pacification’ the Gĩkũyũ were to experience much loss of life and property in a series of campaigns (called ‘punitive expeditions’ by the British) which were designed not only to punish dissident African groups but also to elevate friendly, collaborating African leaders to power.100 These punitive expeditions were characterized by killings, burning of villages and confiscation of livestock and other property. By 1895, when the British government took over the Mt. Kenya region from the IBEA Company, the southern Gĩkũyũ had been virtually subdued. A series of natural calamities between 1894 and 1899 (locusts, drought, rinderpest, severe famine and smallpox) helped to reduce them numerically, physically, and in morale. As a result, they were not only resigned to the presence of the white man but the one-time warriors became porters and servants of the white man. Soon after, white settlers began to arrive and to alienate land. Thus the Gĩkũyũ landowners “were quickly and dramatically turned into an agricultural proletariat for European farmers.”101 Meanwhile, all over Gĩkũyũ country dubious characters were roaming, raiding, trading, and corrupting the Gĩkũyũ. They included European, Goan and Arab traders and raiders who were setting the Gĩkũyũ up against each other and corrupting them with guns, loose sex life, robbery and murder. One such character was John Boyes, who gave himself the title ‘King of the Wakikuyu.’ He elevated an opportunist, Karuri, to great chief in Murang’a, conducted six punitive raids in Nyeri and Murang’a, ‘married’ three Gĩkũyũ wives, and impersonated the government, besides other mischief.102 In order to control the activities of traders and adventurers who were giving the government a bad name, the administration decided to establish effective jurisdiction, but not before Murang’a and Nyeri had been subdued. Using Gĩkũyũ collaborators, Maasai levies and the gun, any resistance was met decisively. The loss of livestock, homes and human life was so great that the correct figures were withheld from the Colonial Office. By 1902, the Gĩkũyũ had been completely subdued, desiring nothing but peace and co-operation with their masters.103 The transformation of the Gĩkũyũ into a subject people brought with it numerous problems, the total effect of which was to rob the people of their self-determination and render them emasculated. At the outset there was need to establish effective administration as the British were short of personnel and “there was no visible traditional authority with which to work.” Therefore “…the administrative officers turned to the motley crowd of mercenaries who had served them as porters, guides or askari [soldiers, guards] and created them chiefs.”104 +'

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Any other people who seemed prominent such as the traditional athamaki (spokesmen) and the ‘bold spirits’ “who exaggerated their importance” were also made chiefs.105 Traditionally, the Gĩkũyũ were egalitarian. The creation of chiefs caused a major political and social disruption to Gĩkũyũ society. Observing that their government found no pattern in the western world, Cagnolo suggested that the Gĩkũyũ traditional government “is best described as government by agreement.”106 Leakey also emphasized this: The Kikuyu did not believe in vesting power and authority in any one man; the policy was always to have a number of men vested jointly with the same authority, none of whom was junior or senior to his colleagues ….The Kikuyu organization was a true example of the committee principle.107

As agents of the colonial government, chiefs became a new and striking feature in Gĩkũyũ society. Partly to maintain the favour bestowed on them by the colonial masters and partly due to the unprecedented and unchecked power they enjoyed, they over-reached themselves in many ways in their unconventional behaviour. They violated custom and tradition. They undermined pre-colonial political institutions, engaged in widespread corruption and produced intense factional struggles for control of office.108 With the help of their unsalaried retainers (njaama) they exploited their positions in the maintenance of law and order, tax-collection, coercive recruitment of labour forces and as influential members of the native tribunals. They used their positions to acquire land, livestock, money and wives through unlawful means. Some became men of great wealth and high social status, much feared because of the foreign power behind them. But they were not respected.109 Perhaps the section of the Gĩkũyũ society to have suffered the sense of redundancy and impotence more that any other during the colonial period were the former guardians of Gĩkũyũ tradition and customary law: the elders. Besides the chiefs, two other organs of local administration set up by the colonial administration were the Native Tribunals and the Local Native Councils. These were established “in an effort to retain traditional African councils through which African peoples had been governed before the British advent.”110 A Court’s Ordinance of 1897 acknowledges tribal judicial authorities as courts of law with powers, inter alia, to punish breaches of +(

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native custom.111 However, the government was to supervise their judicial activities and to ensure particularly that punishments were not inhumane and convictions were not obtained through witchcraft, torture, or “barbarous practices”.112 In effect, this meant that criminals did not need to fear for their lives since punishment became light. Dishonest litigants also did not need to fear that the tribunals might appeal to supernatural judgment through the ordeal of the oath, as used to be the case. The native tribunals were not allowed to deal with cases of murder. These cases went direct to the District Commissioner and he, in turn, might refer them to the High Court. The High Court might impose capital punishment. Capital punishment was contrary to Gĩkũyũ traditional justice for traditionally a murder was compensated and the killer allowed to live. Under the new system, the elders constantly witnessed the miscarriage of justice and they were helpless in the face of it. The administration would have liked to believe that the native tribunals were “the greatest bulwark of native social life”.113 In actual fact, they were not. In spite of their considerable authority over civil disputes and their jurisdiction over land cases, they were unable to safeguard social integrity as Lambert observes: The tribunal system, unlike the clan system, is impersonal enough to put expedition before equilibrium and is apt to frame its judgments on what it deems the law rather than a consideration of the social implications its judgments may entail.114

Moreover, the tribunals were serving the interests of the colonial administration, not tribal integrity. The elders therefore enjoyed little morale and were driven into an attitude of apathy, of sulky acquiescence, or even hostility.115 Gĩkũyũ elders did not fare any better as members of the local native councils. The Local Native Council was supposedly developed from the traditional kiama (Council of Elders). Initially, councils of elders were convened from time to time to advise chiefs and local British officials on matters of administration. In 1925, they were formally adopted as instruments of local government. The District Commissioner was chairman of the council because “guidance from outside [was] essential.”116 Membership was confined to elders. Besides the dominating presence of chiefs, “tribesmen of character and who have benefited by literary education” were included “to lead native opinion.”117 The councils were empowered to collect revenue locally and to initiate development in teaching natives ‘civic sense’ and ‘cooperative action’ in a bid to improve “the weakness of the tribal machine in former times for collective action other than war.”118 +)

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One very important effect of the changes that occurred during the colonial period is that the leadership and influence of elders were curtailed. In traditional society, the elders were the guardians of custom and tradition. They ensured that proper morality was respected and they had ways of sanctioning it through the traditional legal and political system. But suddenly their power was reduced and in many instances they were made superfluous. Their sense of inadequacy has continued to this day since public and community affairs tend to be placed in the hands of younger and more ‘educated’ people. In traditional society, the warriors shouldered the responsibilities of the country’s defence and the maintenance of law and order. Warriors, in their work as agents of law and order, played an essential role in maintaining the moral fabric of the society. With the coming of colonial rule they lost this role. When they began to be recruited as porters and servants they suddenly found that their scope for initiative and responsibility in the community was reduced. Since the establishment of colonial rule, Gĩkũyũ young men have had little to do with their traditional role of police duties. \e\ifj`kpXj_\cg(u

Generosity has also been described as help (ũteithio). Following are the ideas of the three age groups regarding help. The word gũteithia means “to help, to assist, to aid”, or “to put oneself at the disposal of and assist with.” The informants make three general comments in connection with help. First, in order for a person to help another he must have some sympathy for him. The generous person is essentially compassionate. Secondly, what counts as help is sometimes in the form of material things and sometimes in the form of counsel. Thirdly, the generous person does not reserve his help only to his relatives and friends. He considers that anybody in need deserves whatever help he can give. Therefore, some of the recipients of his help may be strangers. As the word uteithio suggests, most of the help the generous person is required to give is merely supportive but help given in time of dire need is vital as it may aid in rescuing someone from imminent death. The informants in the Old Age Group describe help in such terms as hatũra (extricate), gitĩra mũoyo (safeguard life) and hubũra (uncover). When the informants describe generosity as help that extricates, they are thinking of someone who helps another to achieve an end that the latter could not achieve without that help. Acts of that kind of help continually take place in society. For instance, in traditional society it was an accepted practice that an elder would give a young man a cow to help him to marry. This kind of aid was more or less obligatory among clansmen. When a non-clansman gave this type of help it was given out of sheer generosity. Someone could lend or give a garment to someone who was visiting a place and wished to look presentable. Sometimes a woman would give some of her firewood to another who had finished her own. In traditional society it was considered a gesture of generosity when a young man courted a girl on behalf of someone else (kũhira) thus enabling him to marry her.27 Also, sometimes a man went to an elder and told him (' -

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he wished to be initiated into divination (gũkunũrũo), but he did not have all the things he needed such as skins and honey. The elder gave him what he required, telling him, “Do the necessary.” According to the informants in the Old Age Group, acts of generosity regarded as ways of ‘safe-guarding life’ are basically those that rescue people from starvation and from imminent death. For instance, in former days when famine struck one area, people went to seek foodstuffs in distant parts of the country and brought it back so that those in dearth were saved from complete starvation. This practice was known as gũthogora (procure food from a distant place). People who had food generally shared it with those who were experiencing famine, especially as famine did not hit the whole country at the same time. Similarly, a poor family could obtain vital help from the local rich men within the locality who had flocks, herds and granaries of grain. If a poor family was much afflicted by famine, an elder could approach a rich man in the neighbourhood and enter into an arrangement known as kũgwatia mwana (to attach a child). The poor man would promise to attach one of his growing daughters to the home of the rich man in exchange for provisions every time the family suffered hunger. The child who had been promised grew up in her own home until she was of marriageable age. At the appropriate time the rich man gave a token of marriage payment (rũraacio) to the poor man to complete marriage negotiations for her. This served to show clansmen that the girl was married. According to an informant in this group, this arrangement was a better alternative for the poor than resorting to stealing. There was also always a fair chance that the girl might have chosen to marry into that home anyway.28 However, appeals by the poor to the wealthy to rescue them in time of great dearth did not always involve marriage contracts. A widely known song, sung during the clearing of land for cultivation, suggests that some promises were commonplace: Itonga cia mbũri na cia ng’ombe Tũguneei nĩtwathira Na ithuĩ nĩtũkaamũguna Na macungu wathima. Rich men with goats and cattle Succour us, we perish

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We in turn will succour you With vegetables during the rains.29

It was also common for a woman who had harvested her crops to give some to another woman simply because she knew the latter had not harvested anything. According to the Old Age Group, another practice that shows how a generous person helped another was itega (presents of foodstuffs and other commodities). Itega was taken to a relative or a friend during a special occasion. The occasion might be the birth of a baby, an initiation ceremony or a visit by in-laws. Traditionally, itega served to make it possible for its recipient to entertain his guests and casual callers generously. The person who gave itega was therefore releasing facilities (kũhubũra) so that his friend or relative had plenty of food with which to practice hospitality. Itega was also a gesture by the giver that he respected the recipient. Itega carried some measure of obligation, the degree of obligation depending on the degree of mutual respect in the case of friends, and the closeness of blood relationship in the case of relatives. Generally, a bigger itega was given to a relative than to a friend. To give an example of how itega was conducted: when an elder planned an initiation ceremony, he informed his friends and relatives. The friend or relative informed his wife who, in turn, gathered her women friends and asked them to bring a small load (mburungo) of foodstuff to her home on some appointed day and time. Meantime the elder, being the one giving the itega, rallied his friends and relatives to help him accumulate a good-sized itega. On the appointed day the women would bring the various loads of food to his home. They were counted and the convoy set out to the home where the itega was to be taken. The elder took the lead with a bull and with one woman who carried the honey he had been collecting. He would have sent word that he was taking itega on a certain day. Later, when he himself had a need, he would inform those to whom he had given itega so that they could reciprocate the help. That way people kept each other under obligation.30 In their description of generosity as help, the informants in the Middle Age Group distinguish between material and non-material help. The former involves things given by one person to another. The latter involves giving counsel or advice. Help is meant to benefit the recipient in one way or another. Material help could, for instance, get somebody out of a mere (' /

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inconvenience or out of dire need. What matters is not the amount of help but rather the fact that one person feels the obligation to help another. Some of the informants observed that when a person dies what people remember most about him is his generosity. Another observation is that during times of famine the poor people remember the generous because these are the people who sustain them. The generous person is essentially a person who is sensitive to the needs of others and is in sympathy with them. In this connection, some people have been known to give building sites to the destitute. Others have used their vehicles to transport people whom they do not know but who are sick, to hospital without asking for payment. A generous person may also decide to help a boy who wants to be circumcised but has nobody to provide facilities for him. During communal work, such as building a hut for somebody, a generous person will not only take part in the work but will also provide some food to the work party. This is because he reckons that the person being helped to build might find it difficult to provide enough food for all the people involved. The Young Age Group has also described generosity as help. The informants in this group believe that sympathy for or appreciation of another’s need is what motivates people to give help. People who have sympathy for others do not wait to be appealed to but will help spontaneously. According to the Young Age Group, the generous person does not give because he has an abundance of things. Rather, he shares what he has because other people are more needy or less fortunate than him. Thus, a woman could have planned to prepare some foodstuff for her family when another woman who has nothing to cook for her family calls on her. The generous woman will share the foodstuff and may consequently have less to cook for her own family. This shows that the generous person is prepared to sacrifice something for the sake of another. Another person might come to learn about a boy who wants to go to school but lacks finances. When the person helps the boy, it is because he fully sympathizes with the boy’s plight. According to the Young Age Group, generous people are the ones mainly responsible for the success of self-help projects because they give generously. They are keen to see a project that is meant to help people succeed to completion. In their deep sympathy with other people the generous people are concerned about the most appropriate kind of help to give in time of (' 0

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need. Thus a woman who is mourning her husband’s death is shown sympathy and support by other women when they do certain jobs for her, such as harvesting her potatoes. According to the three age groups then, the various ways in which people help each other are expressions of generosity. ~thingu) >\e\ifj`kpXjlgi`^_ke\jj(u

Here only the ideas of the Old Age and Middle Age groups are described since the Young Age Group says nothing about uprightness. The word ũthingu is mentioned in all the themes being treated in this study, and under each theme an aspect of uprightness relevant to that theme is described.31 Under generosity, the word means both gentleness and inoffensiveness. According to the Old Age Group, ũthingu means uprightness or righteousness. The quality of ũthingu is found in people whose first concern in the community is to promote peace and goodwill. Their neighbours regard such people as generous because their very lives are exemplary. What they give to other people is a good example and this by itself is looked on as help. They are described as being gentle (ahooreri) and as having a ‘good mouth’ (kanua keega).32 A person who is said to have a ‘good mouth’ does not offend people by the words he speaks. For instance, he does not insult other people. What is even more appreciated, however, is that the upright man or woman, the one who is said to have kanua kega is essentially a generous person. His words can be taken at their face value because he is a person who does not flatter people in order to obtain things or favours from them. If anything, he is noble and his words are usually wise. The upright person is so regarded because in society there are people who earn their living through deceitful talk. They are described as having ndĩĩra kanua (a deceitful mouth) by some of the informants in the Old Age Group. When such people speak they strike the listener as cordial, considerate, wise and interesting and as people who always have something good to say about their listeners. But in fact, what the person is doing is to flatter his victims so that he can extract something material or a favour from them. People who have come to know ndĩĩra kanua well, know them as crafty people who are always getting and never giving; they are mean and of no benefit to anyone but themselves. To the Old Age Group then, uprightness, which is the quality of gentleness or inoffensiveness, is one aspect of generosity. (('

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The quality described as uuma-andũ is essential in all forms of generosity. Uuma-andũ means charity, philanthropy or kindness. It is also another word for generosity. A generous person is also described as a muuma-andũ, meaning that he is a charitable or a particularly kind person. Much of what is said in the other key words, namely hospitality, help and uprightness, could therefore be repeated under charity. However, there are certain qualities of the generous person that are better described under uuma-andũ than under a quality like hospitality. They are not prominent but they do mark out some people as particularly generous. According to some informants in the Old Age Group, there are people who enchant a neighbourhood through their acts of consideration. These acts show them up as being more than usually preoccupied with the welfare of their neighbours. In traditional society, these were the people who disregarded the strict requirements of traditional law in favour of the people with whom they dealt. For instance, traditional law required that if an animal died while under the care of a custodian, the custodian should give the carcass to the owner of the dead animal. A muuma-andũ, however, might tell the custodian that if any of his animals should die he could deal with the carcass as he saw fit. He also told the custodian he could slaughter a goat of his from time to time if he so desired.33 A muuma-andũ also kept a calabash of beer ready for uninvited guests who might call in his home. The warriors also knew that there was one elder who always allowed them to enter his home any time and drink milk. If they needed blood, he gave them arrows (mĩguĩ) and told them to go into the herd and draw blood to their satisfaction. Not every elder was generous to this extent.

K_\`[\XcgiXZk`Z\f]^\e\ifj`kp Although the Gĩkũyũ value generosity, the informants in the Old and Middle Age groups do not consider generosity as a moral value unless it is practised in moderation and unless it is controlled by a sense of justice. Some of the informants in both groups make reference to ‘bad generosity’ (ũtaana mũũru), prodigality (ũitangi) and ‘generosity without a sense of justice’ (ũtaana ũtarĩ kĩhooto). From the responses of the informants in both groups it is evident that what the Gĩkũyũ regard as generosity is the practice that is midway between prodigality and stinginess (ũkarĩ). It is also evident from the responses of the informants that the reason for this is that there are many people who take advantage of people who are too liberal in giving away their material (((

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possessions. Ideally, a generous person is not prodigal. On the other hand, there are people who are so careful with their possessions as to be regarded stingy. Whereas the majority of people do not expect to subsist on the generosity of other people, those who are too mean could deny generosity to really deserving cases and, for that reason, earn the ill will of others. People are normally reluctant to rush to the aid of those who have a reputation for meanness. The wise person therefore strikes a balance between too much and too little liberality. Regarding prodigality (ũitangi), there are people who do not know the limits of giving. Their hospitality is extravagant and they cannot deny anyone anything asked of them. Such are the hosts or hostesses who entertain guests lavishly, quite beyond what they can comfortably afford. Such people are regarded as unwise. In traditional society they were likened to a Muroki character in a Gĩkũyũ folk story whose cattle got finished because he gave them away to his visitors liberally.34 A prodigal woman does not realize that she should store some of her garden produce (kũiga kĩgĩĩna) in order to sustain her until the next harvest. For instance, when she harvests millet she is so obliging that every woman who visits her and begs for a little is given some. In the end, she finds that the main purpose for which she had grown the millet is not accomplished. Such a woman ends up begging seed to plant in spite of the fact that she had harvested like other women. Since some people give to their own detriment, an informant in the Old Age Group observes that a sense of justice is vital where generosity is concerned.35 A person who gives his material possessions in order to help other people must not give them the impression that they can continue to obtain things from him easily. They must not think that they have merely ‘come across things’ (gũkora). A generous person gives out of a sense of the justice (kĩhooto) that teaches that in a community people are obliged to aid each other, but it should not encourage laziness. The lazy must not be allowed to think that they can continue to subsist on the liberality of their neighbours.36 For this reason, another informant in the Old Age Group says that the generous person should practise stinginess towards certain people because in so doing he helps such people to value self-sufficiency.37

N_p^\e\ifj`kp`jmXcl\[ The sections that have described generosity as hospitality and as help have shown that much of generosity involves giving away one’s possessions to other people. In practising hospitality, the generous person goes out of his way in order to feed his guests and make them feel welcome. Since generos(()

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ity involves a certain amount of inconvenience on the part of the generous, why then it is valued? The informants give a number of reasons why the Gĩkũyũ value generosity. First, it is important that anybody in need should receive the help he requires. Especially the informants in the Old Age Group emphasize that people have a right to expect help from others. A hungry person should obtain food at once. That is why one of the features of traditional practice of hospitality is speed (mĩtũkĩ). The informants in this group point out that traditional society enjoined every individual to regard himself as having some responsibility for sustaining other people’s lives. This obligation was symbolically emphasized every time a baby was born. As soon as a woman gave birth, her husband went to fetch foodstuffs for her from other people’s gardens. According to some of the informants, a new mother is in sudden need of food and her community must make this available.38 Also, a traveller who calls on a home might well be in urgent need of refreshments and these must be available. Secondly, generosity promotes goodwill between people. When people have experienced the generosity of others, they respond by showing gratitude to them. Quite often, gratitude is expressed in terms of other generous deeds so that generosity is reciprocated. Informants in all three age groups maintain that when people keep seeing each other in the course of reciprocating generosity, they maintain their mutual sympathy. The Old Age Group informants also point out that where there is goodwill, life is safeguarded. As mentioned in the section describing hospitality, the traditional Gĩkũyũ believed that the curse of a dying person could cause misfortune and even death to those affected by it. Since a person dying of hunger could easily curse those who had denied him food, hospitality was a check against the ill will that might cause misfortune and death.39 Thirdly, to a large extent, generosity guarantees the welfare of the generous. God is supposed to guarantee good fortune to the generous person. Luck (mũnyaka) attends him, and when his affairs prosper, people attribute his welfare to his generosity.40 One of the descriptive terms for a generous person is ‘one who is favoured by wealth (mwendwo nĩ irĩ).’ The generous person’s welfare is also due to the goodwill extended to him by those who have benefited from his giving, his counsel, his demeanour or his charitable ways. People do not subject generous people to the mischief that they play on stingy ones. According to the informants in the Old Age Group a generous man hardly ever lost his livestock from theft. The community ((*

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around him protected his animals even from thieves who might come from some distance away. On the other hand, a stingy man’s sheep and goats were continually being stolen as a form of punishment, often by his very neighbours. Generosity is also regarded as an insurance against scarcity. Several informants in the Middle Age Group quote the proverb, Mũoni ũmũũthi ti we mũoni rũũciũ (He who has today is not the one who has tomorrow). According to them, the possibility that some day one could lack while others have is a good reason for sharing whatever one happens to have. In this connection, another informant in the Middle Age Group quotes the proverb, Kũheeana nĩ kũiga (To give is to deposit). Explaining this proverb, the informant says that a generous person does not only cater for his own future welfare but also for that of his children since people extend their generosity to the descendents of a generous person.41 Other informants say that generosity is valued because nobody can possibly be completely self-sufficient. In a community where generosity is an accepted way of life, people feel free to beg and borrow things from each other and to share with each other whatever they have. Some informants in the Young Age Group observe that in fact people are often forced by their social environment to be generous because the stingy lose goodwill. The fourth reason why generosity is valued is that generosity helps to promote the spirit of co-operation in the community. The informants in the Middle and Young Age groups observe that many of the self-help projects that have succeeded have been supported by generous people. As a consequence, people who might not naturally be generous are encouraged to support the projects more generously than they would otherwise have done. Finally, generosity is valued because it induces people to be diligent. Several informants in the Old and Middle Age groups quote the proverb, Mũtaana nĩ ũrĩ gĩa kũheeana (The generous is he who has something to give). Such a person ensures that he has sufficient, not just to cater for his own needs but in order to be generous to others. To make this possible, he needs to be a diligent worker. This was especially true in traditional society where everything depended on land tillage.

KiX[`k`feXcnXpjf]\e]fiZ`e^^\e\ifj`kp Since generosity was highly valued, Gĩkũyũ society had various ways of encouraging people to be generous. Although one would expect people to ((+

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be generous in a society where the benefits of possessing this virtue were so evident, Gĩkũyũ society was not content to leave things to chance. The society made certain that the obligation to be generous was impressed on its members. In the words of a Middle Age Group informant: “Generosity is valued because people want to have others they can trust around them.”42 Gĩkũyũ society employed several measures to enforce generosity. Both positive and negative measures generally aimed at encouraging generosity and discouraging lack of generosity. Some of the measures are still employed today. The first of the positive measures was the praise that was openly and liberally given to generous people. All the informants in the Old Age Group state that a generous person enjoyed a good reputation (ngumo njega). His reputation would spread to distant places through travellers to whom he had given hospitality. Also, people whom he had helped in various ways spoke in his praise when they went back home. Many people thus came to know a generous person by reputation (na ngumo) and those who did extended their goodwill to him. People whom he did not know but who knew of him by reputation, took every opportunity to show him kindness. On account of him, his relatives and friends were given warm hospitality when they visited places where his reputation had spread. Within his own neighbourhood a generous person was liked. According to an informant in the Old Age Group, “People found no fault with a generous person.”43 That is, since he had a benevolent nature, nobody accused him of malice, theft or witchcraft. When somebody tried to defame a generous person, other people defended him and so attempts to spoil his reputation were fruitless. Many times the generous person was not aware of the ‘victories won’ on his behalf. However, if it should happen that somebody planned to harm him, someone was bound to warn him so that he could take precautions. According to the Old Age Group, one of the terms of praise used for a generous person was njamba (courageous person or person of prowess). This term was used mostly to praise people whose bravery or diligence in tilling the land was combined with generosity. A mean person, however rich or brave, was not praised simply because he did not benefit people. According to an informant in this group, a person who had possessions but was mean was perpetually being cursed. Whenever his name was mentioned someone was bound to say, “Aroaga! Kwĩ mũndũ kũu? Aroaga! Nĩ ciakĩ?” Roughly translated, this means: “What kind of a person is that? May he lack possessions for there is no point of him having things he will not share.” ((,

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In connection with praise, the Middle and the Young Age groups do not have much to say. Several informants in the Middle Age Group, however, say that in former days people found occasion to extol (kũraha) those who had done commendable acts such as rescuing stolen animals and restoring them to the owners. Some of the informants believe that normally when people are introduced to a generous person, it is partly so that they can extend their love to him. An informant in this group also says that in traditional society people showed openly that they trusted a generous person. For instance, a generous elder was often asked to take custody of people’s animals because he was known to be considerate and to treat other people’s animals well. People would tell him that they trusted him. Several informants in the Young Age Group simply said that a generous person was respected. A second measure for enforcing generosity was the way gratitude (ngaatho) was expressed in traditional society. In a sense the first measure described above, ngumo njega (good reputation) and gratitude are related. People praised those individuals to whom they felt gratitude. According to the Old Age Group, ngaatho is the remembrance of a good deed done. A person who had received some generosity from another expressed gratitude verbally more or less immediately. But he also felt indebted to his benefactor and therefore felt obliged to give him a token of the respect in which he held him. He expressed his gratitude to the generous person in more than words. The informants in the Old Age Group give some examples to illustrate what they mean by gratitude (ngaatho). The practice of itega, described under the key word help, was usually an expression of gratitude. A person would give itega to reciprocate an itega given to him at a time when he was in need. An elder might be invited for a drink and, while he is holding his horn of beer, he sees a man passing by who once helped him out of some difficulty. He would immediately call him to come and drink from the horn. Ideally, ngaatho is shown at a time when the generous person has all but forgotten a good deed done to someone. The informants in all three age groups stress that gratitude is not payment. Sometimes the circumstances might compel a person to show ngaatho immediately. However, this is not considered a good thing because gratitude might then be interpreted as payment. In fact, many generous people refuse to take what may look like payment. Ideally, ngaatho is supposed to indicate that the action of the ((-

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generous person is not taken for granted. The person who has cause to be grateful to another usually waits until his benefactor has some need, and then expresses his gratitude. For instance, a woman could help another and nothing special passes between them for two or three years. But when, for example, the one to whom she was generous learns that she has fallen ill, or that she is experiencing a shortage of food, she will visit her at once, taking some foodstuffs with her. The custom of expressing gratitude in this way produced two desirable results. First, in the course of reciprocating relatively small acts of generosity, good friendships developed between people. The informants in the three age groups maintain that strong bonds of friendship are established on account of the remembrance of a generous deed. Some of the friendships started as the result of mere acquaintance can become lasting. In this connection, several informants in the Old Age Group quote the proverb, Ndũgũ yumaga njĩrainĩ (Friendship sprouts through meetings on the road). Second, the friendships thus established were sustained through the perpetual indebtedness people felt towards each other. This was because anybody who received some ngaatho felt obliged also to return ngaatho. The Gĩkũyũ therefore say, Ngaatho ĩthingatagio ĩngĩ (Gratitude should follow close upon another (gratitude).44 Third, protection was given to the property of the generous person. According to the Old Age Group, a generous man hardly ever lost his cattle. If raiders struck his home and drove away the cattle, a great number of people responded to the alarm raised and the cattle were rescued. The property of a generous man was safeguarded because people argued, “If we let the property of a generous man go, how will he continue to give?” On the other hand, if the raid involved a stingy man, hardly anybody responded to the alarm.45 According to an informant in the Old Age Group, one reason why people were generous to anybody in need rather than only to their friends and relatives was the consideration, “If I am not generous, who will respond to my alarm?”46 Fourth, people showed willingness to labour in the fields of a generous person. According to the Old Age Group, a generous person did not lack people to work for him. Since his fields were well cultivated, he usually had plenty of foodstuffs with which to practise hospitality.

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Gĩkũyũ society also had several ways of discouraging meanness. The informants in the Old Age Group explain that in traditional society all forms of meanness were regarded as offences against the reasonable order of things (kĩhooto). Several informants stated that “generosity is justice (ũtaana nĩ guo kĩhooto).”47 To be mean was to conduct oneself unjustly. For this reason meanness was discouraged in rather strong and definite ways. The following are some of the measures employed by society to discourage meanness. First, public opinion was strong against the mean man or woman. The informants in the Old Age Group provide several expressions that society used to ridicule stingy people. A stingy person was referred to as one whose arm was contracted so that it could not perform the act of giving. He was also referred to as njara mboko (crooked arm) because it was as if his arm was deformed and could not stretch out to give. Another expression used to describe the miser was, “ngundi njiru mugiruo nĭ ka (the dark fist to whom it is taboo to say, take).”48 In other words, the stingy person was viewed as clenching his fists to hold on tightly to whatever he had in his hand, under the mistaken idea that giving would bring him harm. Second, the term that aptly described the lot of the ungenerous was mũũri (one bound to be lost). It refers to a fugitive, an ill-fated person and a solitary, unsociable person. The necessary isolation and bad fortune of the miserly is implied in the word. According to the informants in the Old Age Group, people stole things belonging to a stingy person simply because he was a mũũri. Their argument was: “What does mũũri own property for?” In this connection, another term used to refer to the ungenerous was mũimwo-nĩ-irĩ (one destitute of wealth). Since people talked freely, the ungenerous knew that they were regarded with contempt. The degree of contempt varied from person to person as not all of them were pronounced misers, but all mean people felt isolated. To illustrate this, an informant in the Middle Age Group quotes the proverb, Mũkarĩ nĩ mũrĩa gake (The stingy person eats his own little thing). Another informant in this group quotes the proverb, Mũkarĩ nĩ mũrĩa wiki (The stingy person eats alone). The Old Age Group has shown, under the description of positive measures, that whereas people readily responded to the alarms of a generous person, they were not enthusiastic about rushing to the rescue of property belonging to a miser. Nor were neighbours keen to work for a stingy person.

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Third, mean people were subjected to some light-hearted mischief. The mischief was meant to vex them enough to realize that it paid to be generous. According to informants in the Old Age Group, young people were particularly good at playing mischief on stingy women. It was the habit of young people to visit homes of neighbours and spend the evenings together. Sometimes they visited several homes in one evening. Wherever they visited they were usually given something to eat. At times they purposely visited women whom they knew to be stingy in order to spoil their food. Sometimes they timed the visit to coincide with the time when food cooking on the hearth would be almost ready to serve. The woman might delay removing the pot from the hearth in the hope they would tire of waiting and go. If they lingered too long she would eventually serve the food. By this time the food would be overcooked and the young people would refuse to eat it. Other times they simply said they had already eaten and were not hungry. Then they would go, leaving the woman annoyed. On other occasions, according to the informants in the Old and Middle Age groups, the young people found opportunity to throw soot, snuff, or the droppings of goats into the cooking pot of a stingy woman. When she served the food it was found to be unfit to eat. These experiences were not only annoying but also embarrassing. Yet the woman could not complain because she knew she had become an object of mischief due to her stinginess.49 Several informants in the Old and Middle Age groups quote the Gĩkũyũ saying, Cia mũka mũkarĩ iriĩagwo na mambura (The stingy woman’s food is only eaten during a ritual). According to the informants, a time comes when even the stingy woman has to open her home and provide food. Such occasions included the circumcision of her children. During the precircumcision celebrations, when people went to her home in numbers, her food was eaten extravagantly. Her granaries were raided and people ensured they exhausted her stocks of foodstuff. Fourth, the ungenerous were sometimes subjected to more serious mischief such as theft and destruction of property. As mentioned above, people stole from a mũũri. They took his things, not because they were destitute, nor because they approved of stealing, but simply because they believed a mũũri had no need for owning property since he did not practise generosity. Neighbours were also not ready to protect the crops of a stingy woman. An informant in the Young Age Group remembers a song he used to sing with other children while herding animals:

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Mbũri mũgũnda Wa mũka mũkarĩ Marĩĩaga na ũ? Ĩ, Na mũrũme. Goat in the pot Of a stingy woman Who eats with her? Surely her husband.50

Children were punished if they allowed animals to enter people’s gardens. However, ungenerous women or men could expect the destruction of their crops by animals. Due to the seriousness of some of the mischief the people might play on the ungenerous person, rich men were particularly careful not to annoy the poor through meanness. Since murder was punished by compensation with goats, a poor man had really nothing to lose if he should kill. According to an informant in the Old Age Group, a rich man feared that stinginess on his part might provoke a poor man to anger. The turn of events might lead to the rich man being killed by a man who “has nothing of his that can be confiscated (ũtarĩ kĩndũ angioywo)” and thus his killing would not be compensated.51 Fifth, direct punishment of the offender discouraged lack of generosity. Punishment was meted out by the ungenerous person’s own family, by his peer group or by warriors. According to the Old Age Group, the warriors, whose responsibilities included keeping law and order, could beat up big boys for their stinginess and other antisocial tendencies. The warriors also beat up stingy initiated girls when they went dancing, ‘for giving us a bad reputation.’ If a bride was discovered to be stingy and rude to her husband, she was upbraided and beaten up by warriors who were her own relatives because she caused them embarrassment. If an elder persistently failed to invite warriors to obtain their portions of meat when he slaughtered bulls, they punished him by imposing a fine of a ram or a bull (ngoima) as they thought fit. They also fined an elder who put a spell on his plot of sugarcane, thus forbidding people to use it. A stingy elder might also be ordered by his age mates to slaughter an animal (ngoima) for them because he had ‘denied age mates something.’ According to an informant in this group, people watched and disciplined each other over lack of generosity and other antisocial tendencies. ()'

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These were the common measures taken to enforce generosity. An informant in the Old Age Group observed that for a small generous deed a person was rewarded with much gratitude. For stinginess over such a common thing like cooked food a person was subjected to much harm.52 Generosity was therefore regarded as reasonable conduct.

>\e\ifj`kp`edf[\iek`d\j Generosity was highly valued in Gĩkũyũ society and for that reason severe sanctions were employed to enforce it. What about the modern period? How has it affected the Gĩkũyũ attitude to generosity and to its practice? The views of each of the three age groups were sounded on this question. According to the Old Age Group, the two basic types of people, the generous and the stingy are still to be found in modern Gĩkũyũ society. The people who were formerly generous with food are today generous with money to one extent or other. Today, the generous person is the person who meets someone he has not seen for some time and tells him to enter an eating place and have some tea. Another meets someone, and on realizing that his acquaintance has not got much money, gives him some bus fare, or a little money ‘to buy sugar.’ However, the Old Age Group is of the opinion that there are more stingy people in the modern period than there were traditionally. According to an informant in this group, when people talk of generosity today, they should not use the traditional yardstick. Because, if the traditional yardstick is used, then “none is good.”53 The fact that people have money and that there are public eating places means that people can now show hospitality anywhere they meet. In former times hospitality was centred in the home because that was where food and goats, the means of showing generosity, were found. The informants in the Old Age Group, although they admit money to be a great convenience, believe that it has caused problems with respect to the practice of generosity. Many people think that dishing out money generously is extravagant. Therefore, people do not give money to those they do not know. Formerly, a person’s possessions came from the land he tilled. He used the food for nourishment and as gifts. Today, a person’s food as well as what he gives away has to come from wages earned. Often, wages hardly cover needs. For this reason people cannot afford to be liberal with money. This state of affairs affects people’s generosity. Modern generosity now depends to a large extent on one’s degree of acquaintance (kĩmenyano). Someone gives to someone else because they were in school together, ()(

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because they were circumcised together, or because they are related to each other. The traditional idea of giving to anyone (o mũndũ) does not apply today. Some of the informants in the Old Age Group believe that some people have become stingy because of contemptuousness (kũira). People may look at a poor, unkempt person and decide that he is not worth his gift. According to one informant in this group, this attitude of contempt for the poor is a new development. Formerly, the rich were careful not to give the poor any cause to retaliate by showing unreasonable contempt.54 The informants in the Old Age Group also believe that today people exercise undue economy of food which, in effect, makes them stingy. In former days, the attitude people held in connection with food was that cooked food does not cost goats (irio hĩu itiumaga mbũri). Cooked food was not sold or bartered: it was cooked to be eaten. Today, people would rather throw away cooked food which they cannot use than call a passer-by to come and eat it. The result is that some people suffer hunger while their neighbours have food to spare. According to an informant in the Old Age Group, modern Gĩkũyũ people are characterized by individualism or ‘the care of my own thing.’ People are therefore not concerned about maintaining the bonds that made the idea of giving meaningful. For instance, since clansmen are not involved in the marriage ceremonies of children, the practice of itega becomes redundant. Individualism has also rendered the idea of gratitude (ngaatho) meaningless. To the Old Age Group, many people seem to be self-sufficient in a way not understood by traditional society. People do not seem to think that they will ever need their neighbours. So they are steadily killing the idea of mutual indebtedness in society. The Middle Age Group also has several things to say about the modern period and generosity. First, this group agrees with the Old Age Group that the introduction of the cash economy has made the expression of generosity more instantaneous than was possible in the past. In former days one had to visit someone at home to be offered hospitality but today food can be offered to someone in any number of eating places. Second, this group believes that although there are still generous people today, money has on the whole affected people’s generosity negatively. People tend to ‘count money too much’ so that they are hesitant to give it away. For instance, people are no longer willing to work for others unless they are paid. A ())

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woman would prefer to sell her maize and buy herself some sugar, rather than to give the maize to a new mother. According to the informants, the idea of itega is dying because people regard it more and more as debt (thiirĩ) and people want to be free of debts. According to the Young Age Group, even today there are people who seem to be born generous. These are individuals who give from a genuine desire to help others. However, there are few such people. Today, many people feel obliged to support only their wives, children and close relatives. Others who would be willing to give money find that they do not have enough of it. The more people sell their assets for money, the less they are able to give. Among the causes this group cites as decreasing generosity are inflation, overcrowding in the rural areas, growing individualism and the fact that life is becoming too rushed, especially for the younger generations. Some of the informants in the Young Age Group observed that education has had an effect on people’s generosity. Many people assume that they will not be welcome in the home of educated people. According to this group, rich people also tend to keep the company of other rich people and in that way forego the opportunity to show generosity to the less fortunate.

:feZclj`fe With respect to generosity as a moral value in traditional society, it can be concluded that it was valued mainly because it promoted the well being of the community and the welfare of the individuals in that community. The individual and the community needed each other. The individual might indeed have an impulse to help others in need. But he also had to consider his personal security since society could be either a threat to or a guarantee of that security. Therefore, those who were generous catered for their own good as well as for the good of others. The stingy were as much their own enemies as they were the enemies of the community. In due course, the generous person was rewarded for his generosity for the process of reciprocating kindness really had no end. Society had no patience with fools, whether they were rich or poor. Wisdom was more important than liberality for the fool will give and still be scorned in spite of his giving. To give indiscriminately was tantamount to prodigality. Although people did not decline gifts from the prodigal, they did not approve of him for he ended up impoverished. Ideally, generosity was supposed to be practised in such a way that it did not encourage people to depend on the charity of their neighbours. People were encouraged to be ()*

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self-sufficient. To be stingy in giving was to lack a sense of justice. Not to give at all was foolish; what society advocated was moderation in giving. Wisdom in this sense was the ability to maintain a cordial relationship with other people, whether one parted with one’s substance or not.

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