BOOKS OF THE WEEK
The Background of Mau Mau
Man Mau and the Kikuyu, by L. S. B. Leakey. (Methuen. 7s. 6d.)
DR. LEAKEY is primarily an archaeologist. He ivas till last year the curator of the Coryndon Museum at Nairobi, and his special study is prehistory. But he probably knows the Kikuyu, as he is fully justified in claiming, better than any other living European. The son of missionary parents, he was born and brought up in Kikuyu territory, speaks the Kikuyu language as well as his own, is actually an initiated " first-grade elder " of the tribe and has lived in Kenya for the last fifteen years. No one, therefore, is better qualified to explain the background of the Mau Mau movement, as he has done in this opportune and intensely illuminating book. Its chief charac- teristics are clarity and fairmindedness. Dr. Lealey leaves no room for doubt that here, as in other regions of Africa, the conditions that made such a movement as Mau Mau possible are the -disintegration of tribal organisation through the impact of European civilisation ; over-population, with which land-shortage is linked ; and the growth of a debased pseudo-Christian movement devoid of many of the virtues of the old tribal religion and of all the virtues of the true Christianity to which a large number of Kikuyu have adhered with deep conviction. But he is at pains to separate true from false conclusions, and he demonstrates how much that might seem injustice on the part of Europeans was the fruit of genuine misunderstanding.
When; for example, the first settlers arrived about fifty years ago the Kikuyu population had been reduced, by a series of natural disasters, to a km level, with the result that there was an abundance of uncultivated land available. But it was not ownerless, for tribal custom makes the complete alienation of land almost impossible. Consequently when the settler believed he was paying good money for full possession the Kikuyu owner understood him as paying for temporary use ; the belief in both cases was perfectly honest. Now, when the death-rate has been reduced, largely through the benefits of British administration, and old methods of birth-control have fallen into disuse, the pressure of population on the land is severe, and it is easy for agitators to gain credence for the charge that the land has been stolen by Europeans. Actually, as the map in Dr. Leakey's book shows, a relatively small proportion of Kikuyu land is held by Europeans ; mciSt of the White Highlands, where the bulk of the settlers are concentrated, belonged not to Kikuyu but to Masai. But today a Kikuyu native is quite unable, from the small parcel of land he owns (partly as the result of acquisition by a few rich Kikuyu), to make enough to provide him with the amenities of life with which the new order in Kenya has familiarised him. Hence there is fertile ground for the Kenya African Union (for which Dr. Leakey has no good word to say) to sow its evil seed in. But diagnosis is of relatively small value without indication of remedies, and in the latter field Dr. Leakey is no less specific than in the former. More land must be found, and he believes it can be, provided adequate water-supply is provided. Landowners under tribal custom must be given a clear legal title to their land. Unfor- tunately that means heavy expense for surveying, just as the supply of water does. The thousands of Kikuyu employed in towns must be enabled to buy their houses by instalments ; otherwise they will have to return to the overcrowded land when past work. Rational birth-control methods must be systematically taught, The colour- bar which makes it virtually impossible for an educated Kikuyu to have a meal in a European hotel or restaurant, even if accompanied by a European friend, must be destroyed at all costs. It is noteworthy that Dr. Leakey, who tells on his first page of his missionary origin, insists on his last but one that only the simple teaching of Christ, as opposed to differing dogmas and doctrines, will make way against the pseudo-Christian teaching of many of the separatist native churches and schools. Those are two out of 115 pages. There is not one of the other 113 that is not charged with interest and
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