Lala Salama — “Sleep Safely”

Hair wrapped, and teeth brushed, I climb into bed and call for my father. This night like every night begins with a story. Cinderella and Snow White are never in my queue, the stories my friends grow up loving are still foreign to me. My dreams were instead guarded by the oral history of the Kikuyu people. The Kikuyu are the majority ethnic group in Kenya who first came together and still live at the basin of Mount Kenya. My father wove tales of monkeys who outsmarted tigers, men who wrestled with lions, and women who rode men into town like horses.

I was a bossy kid, as little girls tend to be, and my favorite stories were always about Wangu, the ancient queen of Kenya and her supposed descendant, the headman of the Kikuyu people during the British occupation of Africa. However, to me, an eight-year-old, she was just another character in my bedtime line-up. Weekend nights when my mother was asleep (or more likely pretending to be sleeping), my father would carry me around my room on his shoulders and sing comedic songs about a woman who would punish lazy, sneaky, or drunk men. She would ride them like ponies though town or prop up her feet on a man’s back like a footstool. All the Kikuyu people knew her name and feared her wrath. My father would hop around and warble out a cautionary verse about how men should be wary when their wives got “Eyes like Wangu”. I would laugh and screech on top of his shoulders, bobbing around like a monkey on a live wire until my mom called out from down the hall demanding that we go to bed. These stories seemed larger than life, fantastical tales meant to amuse drowsy children. I didn’t know until much later in life that each story came from a place of historical relevance. Most of Africa has a rich oral tradition and Kenya is no exception. As time goes on, myth and history emulsify into legends which trickled down into my nightly bedtime stories.

Unlike a lot of people, I can trace my ancestry, at least on my dad’s side, quite easily. I am named after my grandmother and my sister is named after my father’s great grandma and my mom’s grandma. My brother, on the other hand, is named after Brian Wilson from the Beach Boys. Many Kenyans believe that the life force of a dead ancestor can come back to life through the birth of a new child. Women are the pillar of tradition, as such your maternal bloodline is how you claim your clan or prove your heritage in Kikuyu culture. Because of these traditions, I can trace my family line all the way back to the 13th century when the Kikuyu split into the nine* clans based on matriarchal bloodlines. My tribe has been matriarchal then patriarchal to matriarchal to patriarchal again.
No one would say Kenya is a nation of female empowerment, but Kikuyu women have been liberated from traditional patriarchy far longer than most women in North Africa and the Middle East. The story of how Kenya changed from Matriarchy to Patriarchy, the first go around at least, is so hilariously weird you almost wouldn’t believe it was true. Until I was a teenager, I was sure that it was just another bedtime story. According to oral history, Kikuyu women used to make up the vast majority of clan leaders and warriors because they were physically stronger, or by some accounts, just more aggressive than the men. The women eventually began abusing their power to dominate and humiliate men. To overthrow them, the men, and I am not joking, got everyone pregnant so they couldn’t fight back and then proceeded to depose the women. The story of Wangu, of which we have written and corroborated documentation, mirrors this prior rebellion incredibly closely. A woman got too powerful, abused her power and was overthrown. Could this alleged cyclical abuse of power be where the negative reputation of Kikuyu women comes from?
From these accounts, you can also see the negative stereotypes about Kikuyu men. People being rude might say they are lazier, drunks, shorter, and more promiscuous than other Kenyan men. However, never have I seen anything condemning Kikuyu men specifically. Why is all the blame placed on the women? Is just simple misogyny or something deeper?
After I grew out of bedtime stories, I didn’t loose the connection to my culture. When I was around twelve I was actually able to sit at the “Adult Table” and drink stove tea with all of the aunties and uncles. Kenyans will always find each other and though I knew everyone as “Auntie ” or “Uncle” I wasn't related to half of the people in attendance. Holidays, and get togethers were always punctuated my good food and a pot of tea. My Grandfather escaped poverty by buying a tea plantation 50 years ago. This allowed my father to go to school in the united states which led to my conception. Whether its across the dessert or nestled in suburbia, I know I’ll always have a community. Through them I was exposed to a new, modern oral history. Gossip. Aunties will gossip like nobody else, scandalous tales bout someones Habesha hairdresser who heard from Mumbi about Ruth’s sons new girlfriend. Like my bedtimes stories, I was allowed to be a voyeur into people whose lives and situations I had never come into contact with. Though thoroughly engaged, everyone seemed to forget about me. Drinking a concoction that was way more milk than tea, I was allowed to see some of the negative opinions of those around me.
Despite being the majority ethnic group, you can’t take ten steps into Nairobi market without seeing gossip magazines, pages plastered with stories of Kenya’s “lethal women” or 10 reasons why you should date but not marry a Kikuyu woman. Though rapidly progressing, Kenya still has major societal problems. Intense racism, sexism, and classism plague the still-developing nation. I can’t help but wonder, Kikuyu women are some of the best educated and wealthiest Kenyans. The first Nobel prize winner in Kenya was a Kikuyu woman and so was the first female professor. Why do they also make up the largest group of single mothers? Even among Kikuyu men, parents caution their children about the perils of marrying a woman of their own tribe.
Where did this stereotype come from and could there be a clue in the stories I was told every night? I decided to ask both my dad to help me understand why in a society that has frequently over the last couple of centuries been ruled by women have so many issues with them. I’m not trying to figure out my ancestry, I am trying to figure out how my ancestors, specifically Wangu, impact the perception of modern Kikuyu women.
- There are ten tribes but Kikuyu people to count people or animals to ten, it is bad luck instead we say nine plus one or nine full.
Questions to my Father
- Whats you name and where were you born?
- What tribe were you born into?
- Whats do others in Kenya think of this tribe?
- Would you say that that public perception is getting better or worse?
- Do you believe there is a stereotype about Kikuyu women?
- Do you think there is any validity to this perception?
- Who would you say are the most influential women in your life?
- What do you know about Kenya’s Matriarchal history?
- Do you know anything about Wangu wa Makeri?
- When did you immigrate to the United States?
- How did moving affect your worldview?
- Did immigrating change your perception of women, for better or worse?
- Would you say Kenya, in your opinion, that Kenya is a misogynistic nation?
- Would you say, in your opinion, that Kikuyu women have more or less personal freedoms than other Kenyan women.?
- What about compared to other African women?
- What about American women?
Working Bib
Akyeampong, Emmanuel Kwaku, and Henry Louis Gates. “Wangu Wa Makeri.” Dictionary of African Biography, Oxford University Press, 2012, pp. 152–153.
Besha, Ruth. African Women: Our Burdens and Struggles: Papers from an IFAA Residential Course. Institute for African Alternatives, 1996.
Coquery-Vidrovitch, Catherine. African Women: A Modern History. Westview Press, 1997.
Kareithi, A. “Wangu Wa Makeri.” Https://Www.standardmedia.co.ke, 2 Dec. 2012.
Muriuki, Godfrey. A History of the Kikuyu: 1500–1900. Oxford Univ. Press, 1996.
