Three - Social Organisation among the Squatters

Summary

We must acknowledge that a skilled class of workmen who will keep up the habit of daily work for a life-time -a most important factor in the development of East Africa - is only to be obtained by denationalisation.

Having seen how the Kikuyu squatters concentrated most of their energies on acquiring land for cultivation and grazing - a task which became increasingly difficult after the mid-1920s - we shall now examine some of the ways in which these people organised their lives around various institutions in an attempt to turn the White Highlands into a place in which they could feel ‘at home'. One way in which they did this was the wholesale transfer of cultural and political institutions such as elders’ councils (ciama), circumcision (irua) and marriage ceremonies from the Central Province homeland. This meant that, in many ways, life in the Settled Areas carried on much as it had done before.

But unlike their Central Province homeland, the White Highlands were a settler enclave where the rough edge of European domination was most evident. The squatters had to cope with their positions as workers in a colonial situation; for example, they had to find ways of providing education for their children in the absence of any government-sponsored educational programme for the White Highlands. They overcame many obstacles to develop self-help (harambee) school systems, which they did by accepting what help they could get from two organisations based in Central Province, the Kikuyu Independent Schools Association (KISA) and the Kikuyu Karinga Schools. As these systems evolved, both their socio-cultural and their educational objectives changed, for the squatters were forced to make organisational adjustments to meet the growing challenges from the settler economy.

Elders’ councils (ciama)

Ciama were established on all European farms that had Kikuyu squatters, and were run according to traditional Kikuyu cultural norms, values and practices. Membership of the kiama (singular) was restricted to elderly and respected squatters or ex-squatters still resident on settler farms. If the farm overseer, or nyapara as he was called, was a young man, he was required to make a payment of a ram (ngoima) before he could join the kiama.