(With an Introduction by Bronislav Malinkowski, Facing Mou...)
With an Introduction by Bronislav Malinkowski, Facing Mount Kenya is a central document of the highest distinction in anthropological literature, an invaluable key to the structure of African society and the nature of the African mind. Facing Mount Kenya is not only a formal study of life and death, work and play, sex and the family in one of the greatest tribes of contemporary Africa, but a work of considerable literary merit. The very sight and sound of Kikuyu tribal life presented here are at once comprehensive and intimate, and as precise as they are compassionate.
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Kenyatta was born in c. 1897 to Kikuyu farmers in Kiambu, British East Africa. His father was named Muigai, and his mother Wambui. Muigai was sufficiently wealthy that he could afford to keep several wives, each of whom lived in a separate nyom ba (woman's hut).
In November 1909, Kenyatta left home and enrolled as a pupil at the Church of Scotland Mission (CSM) at Thogoto. While there, Kenyatta stayed at the small boarding school, where he learnt stories from the Bible, and was taught to read and write in English. He also performed chores for the mission, among them washing the dishes and weeding the gardens.
In 1928 Kenyatta, a member of the Kikuyu tribe, the most important tribe in Kenya, became leader of the Kikuyu Central Association (KCU). The KCU was the most active group opposing European settler domination of the country, and in 1929 Kenyatta went to England to press its viewpoint. He traveled quite widely in Europe during the 1930's, spending 1932-1933 in Moscow. From 1935 to 1938, he worked with the famous anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski. In 1938 he published Facing Mount Kenya, a study and defense of Kikuyu society and culture. During this period, he was also very active in the Pan-African movement. Shortly after returning to Kenya in 1946, Jomo Kenyatta became an important leader in the struggle for African selfrule in his homeland. He sought to achieve that goal by constitutional means. But Kenya's European settlers were intransigent and this engendered militancy among Africans. Kenyatta accepted the inevitability of violence if peaceful means failed. The British accused him of secretly leading the "Mau Mau" terrorist movement, which attacked both its African opponents and European settlers, and in 1952 he was imprisoned. In 1961, after the British accepted African self-rule, Kenyatta was released and assumed the presidency of the Kenya African National Union (KANU). He became prime minister of Kenya in June 1963, six months before independence, and president in December 1964. In office, Kenyatta reconciled the country's rival ethnic elites. He removed the more radical KANU leaders from positions of influence and suppressed the independent opposition. Kenyatta allowed the economy to develop along capitalist lines, while advancing African business interests at the expense of the remaining European settlers and Asians. His policy promoted relatively fast economic growth, accompanied, however, by great inequalities of wealth and by the extensive use of political influence to amass private fortunes - including those of Kenyatta and his family. Kenyatta combined tactical flexibility with ruthlessness. He left the detailed work of government to administrators. His ideas, which emphasized individual hard work and communal values, were largely traditional. Kenyatta died in Mombasa on August 22, 1978.
(With an Introduction by Bronislav Malinkowski, Facing Mou...)
At Easter 1912, Kenyatta professed his dedication to Christianity and began undergoing catechism. In 1913, he underwent the Kikuyu circumcision ritual; the missionaries generally disapproved of this custom, but it was an important aspect of Kikuyu tradition, allowing Kenyatta to be recognised as an adult. Asked to take a Christian name, he chose both John and Peter after the eponymous Apostles in the New Testament. The missionaries however insisted that he select only one, and so he chose Johnstone. Accordingly, he was baptised as Johnstone Kamau in August 1914.
Kenyatta was an African nationalist, and was committed to the belief that European colonial rule in Africa must end. Like other anti-colonialists, he believed that under colonialism, the human and natural resources of Africa had been used not for the benefit of Africa's population but for the enrichment of the colonisers and their European countries. For Kenyatta, independence meant not just self-rule, but an end to the colour bar and to the patronising attitudes and racist slang of Kenya's white minority. He had been exposed to Marxist-Leninist ideas through his friendship with Padmore and the time spent in the Soviet Union, but had also been exposed to Western forms of liberal democratic government through his many years in Britain. When in power, he displayed a preoccupation in individual and mbari land rights that were ad odds with any socialist-oriented collectivisation.
Chairman of KANU (1961-1978), member of the Legislative Council of Kenya
Kenyatta was a flamboyant character, and had an extroverted personality. He liked to dress elaborately; throughout most of his adult life, Kenyatta had worn finger rings, but while studying at university in London took to wearing a fez and cloak and carrying a silver-topped black cane. He also had a fierce temper and could get into a rage on occasion.
Kenyatta had 4 wives. He married the first one, Grace Wahu, around 1918 or 1919. She had two children with Jomo Kenyatta: Peter Muigai Kenyatta (1920) and Margaret Wambui (1928-2017). Grace Wahu died in April 2007 at the age of around 110. He began a relationship with an English woman, Edna Grace Clarke, and they married at Chanctonbury Registry Office on 11 May 1942. On 11 August 1943, their son, Peter Magana, was born. His third wife, Grace Wanjiku, gave him another child, but later died in childbirth. In 1951, Kenyatta married his fourth wife, Ngina, who was one of the few female students at his college. She gave birth to a daughter.
