Kenyatta, Kimathi and Mathenge: Unwrapping Mau Mau mysteries

In colonial times, Kenya was a contradiction of two images: “White Man’s country” and “Mau Mau country”. The White Man’s country deprived Africans of freedom and created poverty as governing mechanism.

The Mau Mau rejected the notion of “white man’s country”. That Mau Mau image is complex and full of mysteries that give various intellectuals work to do. Consciousness about the Mau Mau war became a constant global issue, partly because it is mysterious about the audacity of happy “natives” challenging the might of the British Empire. Subsequently, at least three mysteries about the Mau Mau war involving critical players excite participants and analysts.

First is Jomo Kenyatta’s role. Second is the mystery of Dedan Kimathi’s capture, hanging, and his grave. Third is the death and possible fate of Stanley Mathenge wa Wamuganda alias Mathenge wa Mirugi. Of the three, Kimathi is the least divisive and Kenyatta the most controversial.

The popular narrative is that Kenyatta had nothing to do with what came to be called Mau Mau.  George Wigg, MP for Dudley, in quoting “reactionary” Elspeth Huxley, asserted in the House Commons on November 7, 1952, that Kenyatta was like the then-Prime Minister Winston Churchill, in “holding a meeting spellbound and subjecting the mass-will to his own”.

Wigg added: “Surely, we do not want to keep Kenyatta merely because he resembles the Prime Minister.” The whole Mau Mau thing, argued Mumenyereri Editor Henry Mworia, was colonially engineered to discredit Kenyatta and the Kenya African Union (KAU).

1945 Manchester Congress

The British rigged the trial in Kapenguria in the hope that Kenyatta and team would remain forgotten as Britain created new leaders for Africans. The same British had then rehabilitated Kenyatta and prepared him to take over the running of Kenya on their behalf in a neo-colonial arrangement. This explained the disappointments that many Mau Mau warriors experienced in post-colonial Kenya.

The above narrative runs into rough waters when Mau Mau participants give their perspective on some happenings. Kenyatta, having participated in the 1945 Manchester Pan-African Congress that vowed to destroy colonialism and other forms of imperialism, returned to Kenya in 1946 and inspired people.

He got in touch with his KCA comrades, particularly Jesse Kariuki “Chiranga” and seemingly identified young men of known courage, among them Dedan Kimathi and Stanley Mathenge. Kenyatta, the veterans assert, summoned Kimathi and Mathenge to Nairobi and instructed them on what to do. He even gave Kimathi the “gun” that appears in Kimathi statues. And it was “Chiranga”, Fred Kubai, and Bildad Kaggia who, on Kenyatta’s instructions, performed the rituals of commissioning Mathenge into the war. Mathenge recruited Karari Njama.

If such veteran assertions are correct, the mystery of Kenyatta’s involvement in the Mau Mau war and his subsequent post-colonial behavior deepens. He was not in the forest, but he inspired the fighters. He at least used to receive Miriam Muthoni Mathenge, who suffered with Mama Ngina at Kamiti, in his office, talk, and give her bus fare. He also instructed Daniel arap Moi and Geoffrey Kariithi to look after her.

KAU politics

The Kimathi mystery is about leadership, capture, hanging, and burial place; they tend to increase his mystic. He was active in KAU politics, met Kenyatta and other political leaders before the outbreak of the war. Kenyatta had reportedly summoned him, with Mathenge, to Nairobi.

At the Kaloleni meeting, when Kenyatta asked Jesse Kariuki whether people were enough, Kimathi loudly assured him that there were enough people to fight. In the forest, he overshadowed people like Macharia Kimemia and Mathenge because he could read and write and his fame became legendary. As “field marshal”, he could appear and disappear or be in many places at the same time.

When he was captured in 1956 at Kahiga-ini, where his gun and sword bearing statue stands, he reportedly had actually surrendered but the home guard had to shoot him in order to collect some bounty.

Put on a makeshift stretcher, Kimathi was first locked up at Senior Chief Kagumba Muhoya’s camp at Ihururu for people to see the field marshal in captivity before being sent to King’ong’o and then Kamiti. Interestingly, white police officers made a point of telling Mathenge’s son that they had captured Kimathi. The British hanged and buried Kimathi at Kamiti but would seemingly not allow his burial place to be known.

Question Number 1604

The mystery of Kimathi’s burial place became an issue in post-colonial Kenya that tried to juggle between its Mau Mau legacy and the exigencies of a Cold War reality that downplayed anti-colonialism. In the anti-imperialistic world, Kimathi was inspirational to people like ANC’s Nelson Mandela of South Africa but his name was anathema to British leaning post-colonial officials.

Thus, when GG Kariuki asked Question Number 1604 about treating Kimathi as a national hero, Minister of State Mbiyu Koinange on December 11, 1968, assured the Parliament that the government knew exactly where he was buried, that his grave was being properly maintained, and that there were plans to honour him in a manner befitting a national hero.

This was to be before the end of 1968. Something must have happened because Mbiyu, a Kimathi admirer, never fulfilled his commitment. What happened to make Mbiyu renege on his promise to give Kimathi a hero treatment? The mystery deepens.

Then there is the mystery of Mathenge’s saga. Known as Mathenge wa Mirugi because it was Mirugi, rather than Wamugunda, who raised him, he was inducted into the war mind-frame by Kenyatta’s KCA buddy Jesse Kariuki “Chiranga”. He and Kimathi split in the forest because of policy disagreements. Kimathi tolerated no disagreement.

There were also discussions about going to Ethiopia but the actual going and what happened thereafter is the subject of debate. Some veterans insist that Mathenge died in battle although they appear to differ on when and where. None saw him dead, only what they heard from friends and colleagues.

Others talk of people trying to go to Ethiopia but hostility of the people between Mount Kenya and Ethiopia stopped them. There is also a claim that Mathenge was killed in post-colonial times in Ethiopia because he seemed like a threat. Whether he was killed at different places or he simply disappeared into thin air, Mathenge evolved into a mysterious the “general” who probably ended up in Ethiopia.

The legend of Mathenge in Ethiopia persisted in postcolonial times. A prominent Kenyan journalist, Joseph Karimi, increased interest by claiming that a farmer in Ethiopia was Mathenge. The wife, Miriam Muthoni, went to Ethiopia and concluded that the man was Mathenge and had children with such familiar names as “Wanjiru.”

The new Kibaki administration removed restrictions on Mau Mau and arranged for “Mathenge” to visit Kenya, and the mystery deepened. This man boarded the plane in Addis Ababa knowing that he was coming to Kenya as Mathenge only to denounce himself on arrival in Nairobi. What exactly transpired in the roughly two-hour flight? It is a mystery.

Intellectual warfare

The government compounded the puzzle. It accommodated “Mathenge” in a posh Nairobi hotel for several days and then put him in a plane back to Ethiopia. At the hotel and speaking in Gikuyu language, Nyawira declared that the man was her brother and although he officially did not understand Gikuyu, he excitedly asserted that Nyawira was not his sister! There were other voices quietly insisting that “Mathenge” was Mathenge but they appeared subdued in the heightened drum beat of declaring “Mathenge” to be a fraud.

As a result of the new “Mathenge Mbadia” narrative, the government promised to punish whoever had misled it but nothing was done and questions lingered on as to what “Mathenge” was doing in Kenya for a whole week. There was also concern over whether the entire government was so “damn” that an old Ethiopian could dupe it into giving him a holiday in Kenya. The reason the government gave the old man a treat for a whole week is still a mystery. It is part of the Mathenge Mau Mau “mystery”.

The three Mau Mau War mysteries give fodder to a continuing intellectual warfare with regard to its meaning, and the national and global impact. As the veterans, or those with Mau Mau war experience, diminish through natural attrition, there is urgency to recast the Mau Mau war, set the record straight, and clear some mysteries.

These include Kenyatta’s role in the Mau Mau war, the problem of Kimathi’s grave, and what may have happened to Mathenge. Kenyatta was at least guilty of inspiring people but he was more than just inspiring.

Kimathi accepted defeat and surrendered but the home guard felt the urge to shoot him. His oozing blood reportedly makes the place he rested unsuitable for such cash crops as tea. With his universal fame, colonial officials celebrated and seemingly ensured that his grave would not be found.

This might explain Koinange’s inability to honour his pledge to Parliament. Mathenge and the Ethiopian mystery confused the country with questions as to why Kibaki’s government did what it did. More research might clear these and other Mau Mau related puzzles.