¹ Much of my material is derived from a research project on ‘Explaining Mau Mau’ shared with Bruce Berman of Queen's University, Ontario. Some of my ideas are also his, but I have been unable to test on him this particular approach, which is preliminary to our larger work.

² I was unable to give a satisfactory answer when John Dunn put this question at a Cambridge University African Studies Centre seminar; this essay is a second attempt. But I end with the same question, put to me in 1988 by Justus Ndung'u Thiong'o.

³ Furedi, Frank, The Mau Mau war in perspective (1989), chapters 3 and 4Google Scholar.

⁴ Clayton, Anthony, Counter-insurgency in Kenya 1952–60 (Nairobi, 1976)Google Scholar. My research student Mr Randall W. Heather, working on the intelligence war, has been generous with material and ideas.

⁵ Bennett, George and Rosberg, Carl, The Kenyatta election: Kenya 1960–1961 (1961) 22Google Scholar.

⁶ SirBlundell, Michael, So rough a wind (1964), 283Google Scholar.

⁷ The classic study of the Kenya whites' imaginative construction of Mau Mau is Rosberg, Carl G. and Nottingham, John, The myth of ‘Mau Mau’: nationalism in Kenya (1966)Google Scholar; this essay is part of the revision to which this work is now subject with the availability of archival material. Four other colleagues have helped my understanding of the European construction of Mau Mau: Cooper, Frederick, ‘Mau Mau and the discourses of decolonization’, Journal of African History, xxix (1988), 313–20CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kennedy, Dane, ‘The political mythology of Mau Mau’, paper presented to the American Historical Association, 12 1989Google Scholar; Throup, David W., Economic and social origins of Mau Mau (1987)Google Scholar; White, Luise, ‘Separating the men from the boys: colonial constructions of gender, sexuality and terrorism in central Kenya, 1939–1959’, University of Minnesota seminar paper, 1989Google Scholar. I also revise the ‘Euro-African myth’ presented in Buijtenhuijs, Robert, Mau Mau twenty years after: the myth and the survivors (The Hague, 1973), 49–62CrossRefGoogle Scholar, which has no consideration of Kikuyu political thought. For this I lean heavily on the unpublished work of Kershaw, Greet and on Kanogo, Tabitha, Squatters and the roots of Mau Mau (1987)Google Scholar.

⁸ ‘Report on the sociological causes underlying Mau Mau with some proposals on the means of ending it’ (mimeograph, 21 April 1954, seen by courtesy of Greet KershaW), paras 2 and 34.

⁹ Buijtenhuijs, Rob, Essays on Mau Mau (Leiden, 1982), 35–6Google Scholar, discusses Mau Mau recruitment rates.

¹⁰ Figures seen by courtesy of Greet Kershaw; full discussion must await her own publication.

¹¹ To use the language of Bishop Beecher, L. J., ‘Christian counter-revolution to Mau Mau’, in Joelson, F. S. (ed.), Rhodesia and East Africa (1958), 82Google Scholar.

¹² Gunther, John, Inside Africa (New York, 1953, 1954, 1955), 361Google Scholar.

¹³ Greene, Graham to editor, The Times, 1 12 1953Google Scholar, under the heading ‘A nation's conscience’.

¹⁴ Wilkinson, J., ‘The Mau Mau Movement: some general and medical aspects’, East Africa Medical Jl, 31, 7 (1954), 309–10Google Scholar.

¹⁵ All this is to be found not only in white narratives and Mau Mau memoirs but also in a scholarly Kikuyu account: Githige, R. M., ‘The religious factor in Mau Mau with particular reference to Mau Mau oaths’ (University of Nairobi MA thesis, 1978)Google Scholar. The white attitude to the oaths can most conveniently be found in Colonial Office, Historical survey of the origins and growth of Mau Mau (Cmnd. 1030, 1960), 163–70Google Scholar (cited henceforth as Corfield report).

¹⁶ Blundell, , Wind, 168Google Scholar; one must be thankful that the British popular press did not then include the Sun.

¹⁷ R. D. F. Ryland (Officer-in-charge Nairobi extra-provincial district) to R. G. Turnbull (Minister for African affairs), 23 December 1954: Kenya National Archives, Nairobi (KNA), MAA. 9/930.

¹⁸ KNA, Rift Valley Province annual report (1953), 2, 16, reporting the systematic screening of the remaining Kikuyu farmworkers after large-scale repatriation to the reserve in early 1953: while 95 per cent were shown to have been oathed, no less than 80 per cent were allowed to remain at work. Much evidence could be cited which casts doubt on the factual details of the ‘advanced’ oaths other than in the minds of some interrogators. But there is no reason to doubt the public masturbation (mentioned also by Frank Kitson, below). See, Leakey, L. S. B., The southern Kikuyu before 1903 (1977), i, 24, ii, 691–2Google Scholar; and Lambert, H. E., Kikuyu social and political institutions (1956), 53–4Google Scholar, for the ceremonial group rape-cum-masturbation performed by circumcision initiates in the past, to symbolise the ending of adolescent restrictions. Leakey's material was collected in 1937, Lambert's in the 1930s and '40s.

¹⁹ Leakey, L. S. B., Mau Mau and the Kikuyu (1952), 98–100Google Scholar.

²⁰ Leakey, L. S. B., Defeating Mau Mau (1954), 77–81Google Scholar.

²¹ Blundell, , Wind, 171Google Scholar.

²² See Thiong'o, Ngugi wa, Weep not child (1964), 83fGoogle Scholar., where the elderly Nogotho saw no harm in Mau Mau oaths but was shocked that they were administered by his son. Also, Ogot, B. A., ‘Revolt of the elders’, chapter 7 in Ogot, (ed.), Hadith 4: Politics and nationalism in colonial Kenya (Nairobi, 1972)Google Scholar.

²³ The metaphor is Gunther's, : Inside Africa, 9Google Scholar.

²⁴ For the debate in Kenya see, Gregory, Robert G., Sidney Webb and East Africa (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1962)Google Scholar; Kipkorir, B. E., ‘The Alliance high school and the origins of the Kenya African elite’ (Cambridge University Ph.D thesis, 1969)Google Scholar; King, Kenneth J., Pan-Africanism and education (Oxford, 1961)Google Scholar; Berman, Bruce, The dialectics of domination (London, forthcoming, 1990)Google Scholar; and in South Africa for the same period, Dubow, Saul, Racial segregation and the origins of apartheid in South Africa 1919–36 (Basingstoke, 1989)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²⁵ Throup, Origins; Berman, Dialectics.

²⁶ Clayton, Anthony and Savage, Donald C., Government and labour in Kenya 1895–1963 (1974), 265–346Google Scholar; Stichter, Sharon B., ‘Workers, trade unions and the Mau Mau rebellion’, Canadian J. Afr. Studies, ix (1975), 259–75Google Scholar; Cooper, Frederick, On the African Waterfront (1987), 78–203Google Scholar.

²⁷ Something more than an old retainer's loyalty brought former headman Njombo back to Nellie Grant's farm to die in 1947; eighteen years later his heirs were among those who bought her out in a syndicate called Mataguri (‘we have been here a long time’) Farm: Huxley, , Nellie, 165, 270Google Scholar.

²⁸ Kanogo, Squatters; Furedi, Mau Mau war; Throup, Origins, chapter 5.

²⁹ Kikuyu politicians must have distrusted Kenyatta as much as whites; before his departure for England they had sworn him against going with a white woman. Conversely, it seems that Kenyatta was more terrified by Moscow than inspired; see, Robin Cohen, editor's ‘Introduction’ to Nzula, A. T. et al. , Forced labour in colonial Africa ([Moscow, 1933], London, 1979), 15Google Scholar. I owe this reference to David Throup.

³⁰ Throup, , Origins, 152–64Google Scholar, shows how little the government understood Kenyatta's position in this ‘terrace war’.

³¹ Murray-Brown, Jeremy, Kenyatta (1972), 45Google Scholar, reports how the young Kenyatta was nursed through pthisis by Scots missionaries in 1910; by 1951 pthisis had become ‘some spine disease’, an operation for which saved his life: see W. O. Tait, memorandum, May 1951, in press cutting file on Kenyatta with The Standard, Nairobi. Capon, M. G., ‘Kikuyu 1948, a working answer’, 09 1948: KNA, DC/MUR.3/4/21Google Scholar.

³² Throup, , Origins, 129–30Google Scholar.

³³ Colony and Protectorate of Kenya (CPK), Carothers, J. C., The Psychology of Mau Mau (Nairobi, 1954), 16Google Scholar, is cautious on this point; Beecher, , ‘Christian counter-revolution’, 82Google Scholar, much less so, comparing him with Marx and Engels in the British Museum. This accusation lingered long after it was understood that there was nothing exotic about the oaths, which merely reworked Kikuyu symbols of dangerous power: the strongest white attack on Kenyatta on this point was also the last; see, Corfield Report, 169–70.

³⁴ Baring, top secret telegram to Lyttelton, 10 Oct. 1952: PRO, CO.822/443, and reproduced in Douglas-Home, Charles, Evelyn Baring, the last proconsul (1978), 227–8Google Scholar. See also, Martin's, Kingsley reports in New Statesman, 22 11 1952, ‘The case against Jomo Kenyatta’Google Scholar; and 6 December 1952, ‘The African point of view’.

³⁵ Kanogo, , Squatters, 45, 65, 72Google Scholar.

³⁶ Uasin Gishu district council resolution, April 1947, quoted in Furedi, , Mau Mau war, 35–6Google Scholar.

³⁷ Greene, Graham, Ways of escape (1980), 188Google Scholar; I owe this reference to David Throup.

³⁸ Most succinctly put by Wilson, C. J., Kenya's warning (Nairobi, 1954), 59Google Scholar.

³⁹ Stoneham, C. T., Out of barbarism (1955), 105Google Scholar.

⁴⁰ ‘The voice of the settler’, anonymous correspondent to New Statesman (4 October 1952), 378.

⁴¹ This composite picture is drawn from ibid.; Stoneham, Barbarism; and Wilson, Before the dawn and Kenya's warning.

⁴² Baring to Lyttelton, 9 October 1952: PRO, CO.822/443.

⁴³ Lyttelton, radio broadcast from Nairobi, 4 November 1952 (transcript in KNA, CD.5/173); and repeated in his statement to parliament: House of Commons debates, 5th series, vol. 507 (7 November 1952), col.459.

⁴⁴ W. Gorell Barnes to Baring, 10 September 1952; note of a meeting with Baring, 23 September 1952: PRO, CO.822/544.

⁴⁵ I have adopted Kingsley Martin's reading of the situation: New Statesman, 8 November 1952.

⁴⁶ P. Rogers, minute to Gorell Barnes, 24 October 1952; Rogers, minute to Sir Charles Jeffries, 16 February 1953; Lyttelton to Baring, 5 March 1953: PRO, CO.822/440.

⁴⁷ Jeffries, minute to Lloyd, 17 February 1953 (original emphasis): CO.822/440.

⁴⁸ Askwith, T. G., typescript memoirs, chapter on ‘Mau Mau’, p. 8Google Scholar, seen by courtesy of the author.

⁴⁹ CPK, Community development organization annual report 1953 (Nairobi, 1954), 2–3Google Scholar; CPK, Annual report of the department of community development and rehabilitation 1954 (Nairobi, 1955), 21–33Google Scholar.

⁵⁰ Carothers, J. C., The African mind in health and disease (World Health Organization, Geneva, 1953), 54–5, 130–3Google Scholar.

⁵¹ Carothers, , Psychology, 6–18Google Scholar.

⁵² Carothers, J. C., ‘The nature-nurture controversy’, Psychiatry: J. for the study of interpersonal processes, xviii (1953), 303Google Scholar; this was in response to critics of his WHO monograph, but the same method was openly employed in his pamphlet on Mau Mau.

⁵³ Carothers, , Psychology, 22–4Google Scholar; a message to which I have been alerted by the work of Luise White.

⁵⁴ The best summary statement of the district commissioner's view is in Perham, Margery, ‘Struggle against Mau Mau II: seeking the causes and the remedies’, The Times, 23 04 1953Google Scholar; while reprinted in her Colonial sequence 1949 to 1969 (1970), 112–15, it has been given the disastrously wrong date of 1955.

⁵⁵ CPK, Report of the committee on African wages (Nairobi, 1954)Google Scholar.

⁵⁶ CPK, A plan to intensify the development of African agriculture in Kenya (Nairobi, 1954)Google Scholar.

⁵⁷ For Mitchell's statement, see Church Missionary Society [CMS], Mau Mau, what is it? (1952), 8Google Scholar; and Church of Scotland Foreign Missions Committee [CSM], Mau Mau and the church (Edinburgh, 1953), 4Google Scholar, where ‘organic’ is rendered, in a splendidly illustrative slip, as ‘organised’.

⁵⁸ The director of education investigated the schooling of the first detainees and found that it was statistically no different from other Kikuyu; there was thus no evidence for the general suspicion of the independent schools, another private doubt which did not sway the conventional wisdom: CPK, Education department annual report 953 (Nairobi, 1955), 39–40Google Scholar.

⁵⁹ CMS, Mau Mau, 5Google Scholar.

⁶⁰ For two Kikuyu accounts, see Wanyoike, E. N., An African pastor (Nairobi, 1974), 151–68Google Scholar; Kariuki, Obadiah, A Bishop facing Mount Kenya (Nairobi, 1985), 46–59, 78–9Google Scholar; Kariuki gives a glimpse of his relations with Kenyatta, his brother-in-law, ibid., 79–81.

⁶¹ CSM, Mau Mau and the church, 5Google Scholar. For Kikuyu comparisons between Revival and Mau Mau see, Wanyoike, , African pastor, 175, 180–5, 195fGoogle Scholar. By contrast, Githige, ‘Religious factor’, arguing from oral reminiscence, is doubtful of Christianity's influence on Mau Mau, whether as inspiration or antagonist.

⁶² CPK, Annual report of the department of community development 1954, 26Google Scholar.

⁶³ The one notable exception to Christian pacifism was shown by the independent Africa Christian Church in Murang'a, whose headquarters at Kinyona was so bellicose that Mau Mau fighters christened it ‘Berlin’: ‘A book of forest history’ recovered by Thompson, Willoughby in 12 1953Google Scholar: RH.Mss.Afr.s.1534.

⁶⁴ Bewes, T. F. C., Kikuyu conflict: Mau Mau and the Christian witness (1953), 41–2, 68Google Scholar.

⁶⁵ As in all other aspects of this essay, there is a deeper history to be told; this analysis is derived principally from Morrison, S. A., ‘What does rehabilitation mean?’, 5 06 1954Google Scholar, seen by courtesy of Greet Kershaw who was employed by the CCK in the 1950s. For an indication of a wider approach see, Lonsdale, John, with Booth-Clibborn, Stanley and Hake, Andrew, ‘The emerging pattern of church and state co-operation in Kenya’, in Fashole-Luke, Edward et al. (ed.), Christianity in independent Africa (1978), 267–84Google Scholar. (My two co-authors had also been CCK employees in the 1950s.)

⁶⁶ Carothers, , Psychology, 19–20, 28–9Google Scholar.

⁶⁷ T. G. Askwith, in conversation, 27 July 1989; Terence Gavaghan, in conversation over the years.

⁶⁸ General SirErskine, George, despatch, ‘The Kenya emergency June 1953–May 1955’ 2 05 1955Google Scholar: PRO, WO.236/18 (seen by courtesy of Mr Heather).

⁶⁹ Kitson, Frank, Gangs and counter-gangs (London, 1960), 131Google Scholar.

⁷⁰ Lyttelton, secret and personal telegram to Prime Minister Churchill, 18 May 1953: PRO, CO.822/440; Lyttelton, Oliver, The Memoirs of Lord Chandos (1962), 41, 59Google Scholar.

⁷¹ Blundell, , Wind, 184Google Scholar.

⁷² Cameron, James, ‘Bombers? Kenya needs ideas’, News Chronicle, 15 11 1953Google Scholar.

⁷³ Walzer, Michael, Just and unjust wars (Harmondsworth, 1980), chapter 11Google Scholar.

⁷⁴ The quoted phrases come from Erskine's despatch of 2 May 1955, para. 17: PRO, WO.236/18; and Kitson, , Gangs, 46Google Scholar.

⁷⁵ For settler outrage see, Blundell, , Wind, 189–92Google Scholar, but discussion of the surrender offers must await Mr Heather's findings.

⁷⁶ ‘Interrogation of Waruhiu s/o Itote, alias “General China”’ (Kenya police special branch, Nairobi, 26 January 1954), para. 14; privately held.

⁷⁷ ‘Flash Report No. 1—Interrogation of Kaleba’, Special branch headquarters, 28 Oct. 1954, para. 37: KNA, DC/NYK.3/12/24 (by courtesy of Mr Heather).

⁷⁸ As argued by Darwin, John, Britain and Decolonisation: the Retreat from Empire in the post-war world (1988), 244–69Google Scholar.

⁷⁹ As African leaders complained to Kingsley Martin: ‘The case against Kenyatta, Jomo’, New Statesman, 22 11 1952Google Scholar.

⁸⁰ What follows is a too brief sketch of Kikuyu political thought which I intend to develop elsewhere.

⁸¹ See, Mwangi's, Meja novel, Kill me quick (Nairobi, 1973)Google Scholar.

⁸² Rosberg, and Nottingham, , Myth, 234–76Google Scholar; Tamarkin, M., ‘Mau Mau in Nakuru’, J. Afr. Hist., xvii (1976), 119–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Spencer, John, KAU, the Kenya African Union (1985), 202–49Google Scholar.

⁸³ Editor (Kenyatta, ), ‘Conditions in other countries’, Muiguithania i, 3 (06 1928), translation by Barlow, A. R. of the CSM. KNA, DC/MKS.10B/13/1Google Scholar.

⁸⁴ Corfield report, 305.

⁸⁵ For these and other translations I depend on Benson, T. G. (ed.), Kikuyu-English dictionary (Oxford, 1964)Google Scholar, and on help from friends, especially John Karanja, Tabitha Kanogo, Mungai Mbayah, Godfrey Muriuki, Henry Muoria Mwaniki and George K. Waruhiu.

⁸⁶ Eliud Mutonyi, ‘Mau Mau chairman’, undated typescript, copy in author's possession.

⁸⁷ This Kikuyu political logic is strong ground for thinking that Kenyatta was sincere in his denunciations of Mau Mau; if he did equivocate, he had good reason to do so in the threats made on his life by the Nairobi militants: evidence of Fred Kubai for Granada Television's ‘End of empire’, screened 1 July 1985.

⁸⁸ Barnett, D. L. and Njama, Karari, Mau Mau from within (1966), 180Google Scholar.

⁸⁹ Ibid., 213, 221, 293–5, 376, 390, 397, 479, 498; Itote, Waruhiu (General China), Mau Mau general (Nairobi, 1967), 139–41Google Scholar.

⁹⁰ Cf., Wanjau's, Gakaara waThe spirit of manhood and perseverance for Africans (Nairobi, 1952)Google Scholar, as translated in appendix to idem, Mau Mau author in detention (Nairobi, 1988), 227–43.

⁹¹ Kenyatta, Jomo, Suffering without bitterness (Nairobi, 1968), 124, 146, 147, 154, 159, 161, 163–8, 183, 189, 204Google Scholar. My view of Kenyatta's attitude to Mau Mau at this time is thus entirely different from Buijtenhuijs, , Mau Mau twenty years after, 49–61Google Scholar, and is supported by the picture facing page 57 in this book, showing ex-Mau Mau in 1971 with the slogan ‘Mau Mau is still alive: we don't want revolution in Kenya’.