Becoming a child of the house: Incorporation, authority and resistance in Giryama society

Journal of African History

Volumn 38, Issue 3, 1997, Pages 479-495

  Willis, Justin ^a   Miers, Suzanne ^b  

^a UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE   (United Kingdom)

^b OHIO UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 5844227733     PISSN: 00218537     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0021853797007032     Document Type: Article

References (106)

1. F. Cooper, Plantation Slavery on the East Coast of Africa (New Haven/London, 1977) and From Slaves to Squatters: Plantation Labor and Agriculture in Zanzibar and Coastal Kenya, 1890-1920 (New Haven/London, 1980); M. Ylvisaker, Lamu in the Nineteenth Century: Land, Trade and Politics (Boston, 1979); T. Herlehy and R. F. Morion, 'A coastal ex-slave community in the regional and colonial economy of Kenya: the WaMisheni of Rabai, 1880-1963', in S. Miers and R. Roberts (eds.), The End of Slavery in Africa (Madison, 1988), 254-82; F. Morton, Children of Ham: Freed Slaves and Fugitive Slaves on the Kenya Coast, 1873 to 1907 (Boulder CO/San Francisco/Oxford, 1990); J. Glassman, Feasts and Riot: Revelry, Rebellion and Popular Consciousness on the Swahili Coast, 1856-88 (Portsmouth NH/London/Nairobi/Dar es Salaam, 1994).
2. F. Cooper, Plantation Slavery on the East Coast of Africa (New Haven/London, 1977) and From Slaves to Squatters: Plantation Labor and Agriculture in Zanzibar and Coastal Kenya, 1890-1920 (New Haven/London, 1980); M. Ylvisaker, Lamu in the Nineteenth Century: Land, Trade and Politics (Boston, 1979); T. Herlehy and R. F. Morion, 'A coastal ex-slave community in the regional and colonial economy of Kenya: the WaMisheni of Rabai, 1880-1963', in S. Miers and R. Roberts (eds.), The End of Slavery in Africa (Madison, 1988), 254-82; F. Morton, Children of Ham: Freed Slaves and Fugitive Slaves on the Kenya Coast, 1873 to 1907 (Boulder CO/San Francisco/Oxford, 1990); J. Glassman, Feasts and Riot: Revelry, Rebellion and Popular Consciousness on the Swahili Coast, 1856-88 (Portsmouth NH/London/Nairobi/Dar es Salaam, 1994).
3. F. Cooper, Plantation Slavery on the East Coast of Africa (New Haven/London, 1977) and From Slaves to Squatters: Plantation Labor and Agriculture in Zanzibar and Coastal Kenya, 1890-1920 (New Haven/London, 1980); M. Ylvisaker, Lamu in the Nineteenth Century: Land, Trade and Politics (Boston, 1979); T. Herlehy and R. F. Morion, 'A coastal ex-slave community in the regional and colonial economy of Kenya: the WaMisheni of Rabai, 1880-1963', in S. Miers and R. Roberts (eds.), The End of Slavery in Africa (Madison, 1988), 254-82; F. Morton, Children of Ham: Freed Slaves and Fugitive Slaves on the Kenya Coast, 1873 to 1907 (Boulder CO/San Francisco/Oxford, 1990); J. Glassman, Feasts and Riot: Revelry, Rebellion and Popular Consciousness on the Swahili Coast, 1856-88 (Portsmouth NH/London/Nairobi/Dar es Salaam, 1994).
4. F. Cooper, Plantation Slavery on the East Coast of Africa (New Haven/London, 1977) and From Slaves to Squatters: Plantation Labor and Agriculture in Zanzibar and Coastal Kenya, 1890-1920 (New Haven/London, 1980); M. Ylvisaker, Lamu in the Nineteenth Century: Land, Trade and Politics (Boston, 1979); T. Herlehy and R. F. Morion, 'A coastal ex-slave community in the regional and colonial economy of Kenya: the WaMisheni of Rabai, 1880-1963', in S. Miers and R. Roberts (eds.), The End of Slavery in Africa (Madison, 1988), 254-82; F. Morton, Children of Ham: Freed Slaves and Fugitive Slaves on the Kenya Coast, 1873 to 1907 (Boulder CO/San Francisco/Oxford, 1990); J. Glassman, Feasts and Riot: Revelry, Rebellion and Popular Consciousness on the Swahili Coast, 1856-88 (Portsmouth NH/London/Nairobi/Dar es Salaam, 1994).
5. F. Cooper, Plantation Slavery on the East Coast of Africa (New Haven/London, 1977) and From Slaves to Squatters: Plantation Labor and Agriculture in Zanzibar and Coastal Kenya, 1890-1920 (New Haven/London, 1980); M. Ylvisaker, Lamu in the Nineteenth Century: Land, Trade and Politics (Boston, 1979); T. Herlehy and R. F. Morion, 'A coastal ex-slave community in the regional and colonial economy of Kenya: the WaMisheni of Rabai, 1880-1963', in S. Miers and R. Roberts (eds.), The End of Slavery in Africa (Madison, 1988), 254-82; F. Morton, Children of Ham: Freed Slaves and Fugitive Slaves on the Kenya Coast, 1873 to 1907 (Boulder CO/San Francisco/Oxford, 1990); J. Glassman, Feasts and Riot: Revelry, Rebellion and Popular Consciousness on the Swahili Coast, 1856-88 (Portsmouth NH/London/Nairobi/Dar es Salaam, 1994).
6. F. Cooper, Plantation Slavery on the East Coast of Africa (New Haven/London, 1977) and From Slaves to Squatters: Plantation Labor and Agriculture in Zanzibar and Coastal Kenya, 1890-1920 (New Haven/London, 1980); M. Ylvisaker, Lamu in the Nineteenth Century: Land, Trade and Politics (Boston, 1979); T. Herlehy and R. F. Morion, 'A coastal ex-slave community in the regional and colonial economy of Kenya: the WaMisheni of Rabai, 1880-1963', in S. Miers and R. Roberts (eds.), The End of Slavery in Africa (Madison, 1988), 254-82; F. Morton, Children of Ham: Freed Slaves and Fugitive Slaves on the Kenya Coast, 1873 to 1907 (Boulder CO/San Francisco/Oxford, 1990); J. Glassman, Feasts and Riot: Revelry, Rebellion and Popular Consciousness on the Swahili Coast, 1856-88 (Portsmouth NH/London/Nairobi/Dar es Salaam, 1994).
7. Morton, Children of Ham, xvi, 9-10; compare with Cooper's fairly clear statements about the changing nature of slavery in Plantation Slavery, 80, 170-3, 181.
8. Morton, Children of Ham, xvi, 9-10; compare with Cooper's fairly clear statements about the changing nature of slavery in Plantation Slavery, 80, 170-3, 181.
9. Glassman, Feasts and Riot.
10. Cooper begins his discussion with this fundamental point: 'The slaveowners and slaves of East Africa were Muslims', Plantation Slavery, 23. See J. R. Willis (ed.), Slaves and Slavery in Muslim Africa. Vol. I: Islam and the Ideology of Slavery (London/Totowa NJ, 1985), 3-4 for a comment on the essential kinlessness of slave status.
11. Cooper begins his discussion with this fundamental point: 'The slaveowners and slaves of East Africa were Muslims', Plantation Slavery, 23. See J. R. Willis (ed.), Slaves and Slavery in Muslim Africa. Vol. I: Islam and the Ideology of Slavery (London/Totowa NJ, 1985), 3-4 for a comment on the essential kinlessness of slave status.
12. This ideological basis of slavery is discussed at length in I. Kopytoff and S. Miers, 'African slavery as an institution of marginality', in S. Miers and I. Kopytoff (eds.), Slavery in Africa (Madison, 1977).
13. Miers interview: Katoi wa Kithi, 28 Sept. 1972.
14. T. Spear, The Kaya Complex: A History of the Mijikenda Peoples of the Kenya Coast to 1900 (Nairobi, 1979), 126.
15. Miers interview: Mwavuo wa Menza, 8 Nov. 1974. Cooper notes this as a fundamental contrast between changing forms of labour organization in hinterland and coast, Plantation Slavery, 181.
16. Spear, The Kaya Complex, 115-22.
17. J. Lonsdale, 'The conquest state of Kenya, 1895-1905', 20, in B. Berman and J. Lonsdale, Unhappy Valley. Conflict in Kenya and Africa (London, Nairobi and Athens OH, 1992), 13-44.
18. As Morton has noted with regard to slavery; Children of Ham, 10.
19. P. Manning, Slavery and African Life. Occidental, Oriental and African Slave Trades (Cambridge, 1990), 119.
20. Int Kil 1a. The Taita Hills lie some distance inland, separated from Giryama by a considerable expanse of semi-arid land.
21. Int Kil 66a. The Digo are a distinct group, though they are, like the Giryama, part of the larger linguistic and cultural grouping which has come to be called Mijikenda.
22. Int Kil 34a. The Duruma are another distinct group of the Mijikenda.
23. For further examples of migration datable to this period, see Ints Kil 6a, Kil 8a.
24. Spear, The Kaya Complex, 50-1; Miers interviews: Kayaa wa Katore, 22 Sept. 1972; Burkard Ndzovu, 23 Sept. 1972.
25. Int Kil 633.
26. Int Kil 1a.
27. Ints Kil 33a, Kil 46a.
28. Ints Kil 26a, Kil 30a; Miers interviews: Kayaa wa Katore, 22 Sept. 1972, Nyundo Mwamure, 9 Nov. 1974.
29. As late as 1845, the missionary Dr Krapf commented on the relative scarcity of bought slaves among the people of the hinterland; J. L. Krapf, 'Excursions to Dshombo, Dshogni, Likoni, Rabbay Empia and the vicinity', 24 Mar. 1845, Church Missionary Society archives [CMS] CA 5 0 16 167.
30. Brantley, The Giriama and Colonial Resistance, 1800-1920 (Berkeley, 1981), 9. A. Champion, The Agiryama of Kenya (London, 1967), 9-10, describes early twentieth-century homesteads. See also Miers interview: Kenga wa Yeri, 3 Nov. 1974.
31. Brantley, The Giriama and Colonial Resistance, 1800-1920 (Berkeley, 1981), 9. A. Champion, The Agiryama of Kenya (London, 1967), 9-10, describes early twentieth-century homesteads. See also Miers interview: Kenga wa Yeri, 3 Nov. 1974.
32. Spear, The Kaya Complex, 66-8 and 88-92; Brantley, The Giriama and Colonial Resistance, 12-14; Int Kil 23a.
33. Spear, The Kaya Complex, 66-8 and 88-92; Brantley, The Giriama and Colonial Resistance, 12-14; Int Kil 23a.
34. Int Kil 16a.
35. Miers interview: Kayaa wa Katore, 22 Sept. 1972.
36. Miers interview: Nyundo wa Mwamure, 9 Nov. 1974.
37. Mbari are discussed in Champion, The Agiryama of Kenya, 10-12; Spear, The Kaya Complex, 49-58; and D. Parkin, Sacred Void: Spatial Images of Work and Ritual Among the Giriama of Kenya (Cambridge, 1991), 242-6. Ints Kil 16a, Kil 30a, Kil 47a all stress the importance of the mbari - in the sense of the smaller groups - as a network of support.
38. Mbari are discussed in Champion, The Agiryama of Kenya, 10-12; Spear, The Kaya Complex, 49-58; and D. Parkin, Sacred Void: Spatial Images of Work and Ritual Among the Giriama of Kenya (Cambridge, 1991), 242-6. Ints Kil 16a, Kil 30a, Kil 47a all stress the importance of the mbari - in the sense of the smaller groups - as a network of support.
39. Mbari are discussed in Champion, The Agiryama of Kenya, 10-12; Spear, The Kaya Complex, 49-58; and D. Parkin, Sacred Void: Spatial Images of Work and Ritual Among the Giriama of Kenya (Cambridge, 1991), 242-6. Ints Kil 16a, Kil 30a, Kil 47a all stress the importance of the mbari - in the sense of the smaller groups - as a network of support.
40. Int Kil 30a.
41. Int Kil 8a.
42. Int Kil 23a.
43. Miers interview: Joseph Denge, 9 Oct. 1974.
44. Int Kil 33a.
45. Int Kil 20b refers to the power of kaya elders. There has been some dispute over the history of the kayas of the Giryama and other Mijikenda (compare Spear, The Kaya Complex, 44-74 with J. Willis, Mombasa, the Swahili and the Making of the Mijikenda [Oxford, 1993]) but there is no doubt that the kayas were in the first part of the nineteenth century important ritual and political centres.
46. Int Kil 20b refers to the power of kaya elders. There has been some dispute over the history of the kayas of the Giryama and other Mijikenda (compare Spear, The Kaya Complex, 44-74 with J. Willis, Mombasa, the Swahili and the Making of the Mijikenda [Oxford, 1993]) but there is no doubt that the kayas were in the first part of the nineteenth century important ritual and political centres.
47. C. Brantley, 'Gerontocratic government: age-sets in pre-colonial Giriama', Africa, XLVIII (1978), 248-64; Spear, The Kaya Complex, 58-65; Champion, The Agiryama of Kenya, 16-17; Ints Kil 18a, Kil 34b.
48. C. Brantley, 'Gerontocratic government: age-sets in pre-colonial Giriama', Africa, XLVIII (1978), 248-64; Spear, The Kaya Complex, 58-65; Champion, The Agiryama of Kenya, 16-17; Ints Kil 18a, Kil 34b.
49. C. Brantley, 'Gerontocratic government: age-sets in pre-colonial Giriama', Africa, XLVIII (1978), 248-64; Spear, The Kaya Complex, 58-65; Champion, The Agiryama of Kenya, 16-17; Ints Kil 18a, Kil 34b.
50. Miers interviews: Joseph Denge, 3 Oct. 1974, Kenga wa Yeri, 3 Nov. 1974; Ints Kil 33a, Kil 38a, Kil 42a.
51. Willis, Mombasa, 42-3.
52. Int Kil 34b offers an example of this; see also Ints Kil 19a, Kil 30a.
53. Int Kil 16a.
54. Int Kil 7a. For the limited power of some 'sub-sets' of an age-set, see Brantley, 'Gerontocratic government', 256-7 and Spear, The Kaya Complex, 62.
55. Int Kil 7a. For the limited power of some 'sub-sets' of an age-set, see Brantley, 'Gerontocratic government', 256-7 and Spear, The Kaya Complex, 62.
56. Brantley, The Giriama and Colonial Resistance, 51-2. The figure for 1840 is almost certainly an understatement, based as it is on the questionable assumption that all Giryama lived in the kaya at that time. In the late 1840S, Krapf estimated 'the northern Nyika' - the bulk of whom would have been Giryama - at 20,000. A. H. J. Prins, The Coastal Tribes of the Northeastern Bantu (London, 1952), 42. Nonetheless, expansion was evidently extraordinarily rapid.
57. Brantley, The Giriama and Colonial Resistance, 51-2. The figure for 1840 is almost certainly an understatement, based as it is on the questionable assumption that all Giryama lived in the kaya at that time. In the late 1840S, Krapf estimated 'the northern Nyika' - the bulk of whom would have been Giryama - at 20,000. A. H. J. Prins, The Coastal Tribes of the Northeastern Bantu (London, 1952), 42. Nonetheless, expansion was evidently extraordinarily rapid.
58. Spear, The Kaya Complex, 80-5, 94-101; Brantley, The Giriama and Colonial Resistance, 14-25.
59. Spear, The Kaya Complex, 80-5, 94-101; Brantley, The Giriama and Colonial Resistance, 14-25.
60. Int Kil 20b.
61. Int Kil 66a.
62. Int Kil 26a.
63. Cooper suggests that the supply of slaves fell back a little in the later 1870s, but rose again in 1884-5. Cooper, Plantation Slavery, 123, 126-7.
64. The arrival of these runaways was noted in 1878; Binns, Annual Letter, Nov. 1878, CMS CA 5 0 3 18. In 1888, 167 of 933 runaways at Rabai mission had come from Giryama homesteads; Mackenzie to Euan-Smith, 15 Nov. 1888, IBEA File 1a, Mackinnon Papers, SOAS library.
65. Ints Kil 34a, Kil 39a.
66. Miers interview: Kiponda wa Mwavuo, 4 Aug. 1973.
67. Spear, The Kaya Complex, 122-8.
68. Miers interview: Kiponda wa Mwavuo, 2 Nov. 1974.
69. Ints Kil 47a, Kil 63a, Kil 66a.
70. These changes are mentioned in Champion, The Agiryama of Kenya, 16-20, 31-2; Brantley, 'Gerontocratic government', 259-60; Ints Kil 19a, Kil 21a, Kil 30a, Kil 34a, Kil 41a.
71. These changes are mentioned in Champion, The Agiryama of Kenya, 16-20, 31-2; Brantley, 'Gerontocratic government', 259-60; Ints Kil 19a, Kil 21a, Kil 30a, Kil 34a, Kil 41a.
72. Int Kil 39a.
73. Int Kil 22a.
74. Ints Kil 26a, Kil 104a both present the giving of names as a personal, not a collective, act.
75. Int Kil 19a.
76. Miers interview: Kiponda wa Mwavuo, 2 Nov. 1974.
77. Int Kil 66a.
78. Int Kil 65a.
79. Spear, The Kaya Complex, 117.
80. Cooper, Plantation Slavery, 18.
81. Miers interview: Kiponda wa Mwavuo, 4 Aug. 1973. The same story was told by Mwavuo wa Menza, 19 June 1973.
82. Miers interview: Kiponda wa Mwavuo, 4 Aug. 1973.
83. Ibid.
84. Miers interview: Kiponda wa Mwavuo, 2 Nov. 1974.
85. B. Berman and J. Lonsdale, 'Coping with the contradictions. The development of the colonial state, 1895-1914', 87, in B. Berman and J. Lonsdale, Unhappy Valley, 77-100.
86. A. I. Salim, Swahili-Speaking Peoples of Kenya's Coast, 1895-1963 (Nairobi, 1973), 100-14; Cooper, From Slaves to Squatters, 173-232.
87. A. I. Salim, Swahili-Speaking Peoples of Kenya's Coast, 1895-1963 (Nairobi, 1973), 100-14; Cooper, From Slaves to Squatters, 173-232.
88. Brantley, The Giriama and Colonial Resistance, 60-1.
89. Ibid. 47-50; Miers interviews, Mwavuo wa Menza, 8 Nov. 1974 and Kiponda wa Mwavuo, 2 Nov. 1974; Ints Kil 64a, Kil 65a, Kil 66a.
90. Willis, Mombasa, 105-11.
91. Cooper, From Slaves to Squatters, 173-231.
92. Brantley, The Giriama and Colonial Resistance, 78.
93. Int Kil 19a; Willis, Mombasa, 141-4.
94. Miers interview: Kiponda wa Mwavuo, 2 Nov. 1974.
95. Brantley gives Ngonyo's following as 1,200 people in 1895; and as 700 in 1913: The Giriama and Colonial Resistance, 47, 99.
96. There is a clear and detailed account of the events of 1913-14 in Brantley, The Giriama and Colonial Resistance, 76-124.
97. Ibid. 84, 96, 103.
98. 'Report on the present political situation in Giriama', Champion, July 1914, Kenya National Archives (KNA) PC Coast 1/12/59. Similar events are recorded in ADC Giryama to DC Nyika, 16 and 17 Aug. 1914, KNA PC Coast 1/12/59.
99. At the beginning of the conflict, the Assistant District Commissioner responsible for the Giryama had only four police constables to support him; Brantley, The Giriama and Colonial Resistance, 80.
100. Int Kil 33a; see also Ints Kil 26a and Kil 48a where the rape of a woman by the armed following of an official was given as the cause of war.
101. The course of the rising is described in Brantley, The Giriama and Colonial Resistance, 110-24; and in KNA PC Coast 1/12/59, 1/12/160 and 1/12/161.
102. Brantley, The Giriama and Colonial Resistance, 141, 145.
103. Ibid. 118-24.
104. Miers interview: Kiponda wa Mwavuo, 3 Nov. 1974.
105. Ints Kil 63a, Kil 64a.
106. Int Kil 104a.