Agĩkũyũ - Social Organisation

Social organization:

The family was the smallest economic, political and religious unit of the tribe. A family consisted of a man who was the head of his household, his wife or wives and their children. A family group would then include the grandchildren and the great grandchildren. This unit is referred to as Mbarĩ.

Several Mbarĩ join to form the clan (Mũhĩrĩga). The clan is believed to have descended from the same family group in the remote past. All clans unite to form the Agĩkũyũ nation. The 2^nd factor unifying the Agĩkũyũ is the age-grading system (riika). This system unites the tribe in all of its activities, where as different clans act independently. In the past the riika is determined by circumcision of the boys and girls. A riika had very strong links of brotherhood and sisterhood that lasted throughout the lives of the individuals. The Riika served to bond members irrespective of Kinship.

Social interaction was highly governed by the system of ‘give and take’. For example in building a hut, a family would call upon on the assistance of their friends and this would naturally abide knowing that they too would also need some collective assistance at some point. A lot of things were done communally.

The most significant in the life of an individual, male or female were initiation and marriage.

Initiation:

was done for both male and females was done and it gave the individual the status of a full responsible members of the tribe. Initiation involved the circumcision of both male and females. In male the fore skin was removed and in female clitoridectomy was performed. The operation described by Kenyatta involved an excision of the clitoris described as a minor operation which was over in a matter of minutes. The female circumcision controversy of 1929 involving the Mission church of Scotland and the Agĩkũyũ seems to have been as a result of some parts of the community practising, what is referred to as a major operation involving the removal of the clitoris plus labia minora and majora.

The initiation was a communal event and an elaborate process, involving a preparation period, the surgical operation and a healing period. Everything was accompanied by song and dance and initiates had knowledge about the tribe as well as gained their first sexual experiences in an act known as ngwĩko which involved fondling without actual penetration, which was prevented by a girls lower garment .As can be imagined, the bond created among initiates both male and female was indestructible. Special names were given to each initiation set, mostly drawn from events or phenomenon appearing at the time of the ceremony. Most of the names that have been covered were given to males, I don’t know if the girls got names too. So Gatego was the name of the group initiated when syphilis first appeared in Gĩkũyũ country, Wainaina (kuinaina means to shake) describes those who shivered during the circumcision. Incidentally some of this set names are common names given to males. It would be interesting to see where the connection lies. On top of that the names are great markers of time in Gĩkũyũ history as the initiation took place at a regular intervals.

Initiation opened a number of doors. Only an initiated man or woman could marry. It also began a mans journey as a political, religious and judicial member of the tribe. Details involving women are very sketchy at best. It is certainly that only now are works regarding the tribe are being done by Gĩkũyũ women. Much information that could have been gained has been taken to the grave by our female ancestors, owing to the fact that no Gĩkũyũ women were there to record their thoughts and general outlook in life. Early accounts when a lot of knowledge was there for the taking, before pollution by Christianity which took hold relatively fast among the Gikuyu, were written by men and no matter how good , nothing can compare the information narrated directly by a female member of the tribe.

Sadly these practices are no more, and although certainly not advocating for female circumcision, the process surrounding the ceremony is certainly a great loss to the tribe. The male circumcision has also been reduced to the surgical operation in a clinic without the surrounding pomp, ceremony, music, dances and imparting of knowledge in Gĩkũyũ tribal life and history.

Marriage:

Marriage was another thing that opened doors especially for the man. A man could not normally join the council of elders unless he was married. The achievement of certain eldership status was tied to a mans children having gone through initiation. Marriage was not just the joining of a man and a woman in holy matrimony but also the joining of two family units (mbarĩ) and probably two clans (mĩhĩrĩga).. I’m still unclear whether it was possible to marry within a clan as by Gĩkũyũ legends members of the same clan would be descended from the same person and as such were relatives if a bit distant. The whole process of marriage was also very elaborate and the ceremonies must have been fantastic. Marriage itself was an expensive affair for a family, with the rũracio consisting of up to forty sheep and sometimes heads of cattle. As such, even though the society was polygamous, it is doubtful that the average mwananchi had more than 2 wives.

It’s important to note that the marrying of many wives was not just a desire of a man but his own wife or wives would agitate him to take up more wives. On top of being a symbol of prosperity and who does not want to be seen as prosperous even if it involves sharing a man, this was probably as a result of Gĩkũyũ division of labour among the sexes in which the women did an unusual amount of carrying, the most taxing probably being water and firewood. Water is particularly hard to carry owing to the Gĩkũyũ landscape where the people’s homesteads are at the top of a ridge and the rivers where water is fetched at the bottom. Going up a hill carrying a pot of water is no picnic. The other tasks the woman had to perform are not taxing but annoying in that they must be done every day and on top of that two times a day like cooking. Planting which was done by both sexes, although according to early European accounts the women must have been doing an inordinate amount of this two are seasonal exercises, I would imagine.

The White man in all his wisdom solves these problems by either inventing some machine to do unwanted tasks or ironically enslaving folks, so that they can do things for him that he doesn’t really want to do like they did in colonialism and slavery in the USA.