Facing Mount Kenya: The Tribal Life of the GikuyuBesides its continuing value for an understanding of the problems of Kenya, Facing Mount Kenyahas an enduring place in the literature of social anthropology. As Professor Malinowski wrote in his introduction, it 'is a really competent and instructive contribution to African ethnography by a scholar of pure African parentage... As a first-hand account of a representative African culture, as an invaluable document in the principles underlying culture-contact and change; last, but not least, as a personal statement of the new outlook of a progressive African, this book will rank as a pioneering achievement of outstanding merit'. |
Contents
CHAPTER PAGE I Tribal Origin and Kinship System I | 1 |
System of Land Tenure | 20 |
Economic Life of the Gikuyu | 53 |
12 other sections not shown
Common terms and phrases
according activities African age-group ancestral animals asked beer believed boys bring building called carried cattle ceremony chief child circumcised clan collective considered council cultivation custom dances district duty economic elders especially European evil fact family group father feast fields fire friends Gikuyu girl give given goats ground hands head homestead husband important individual initiates keep kiama killed kind land leaves living looked magic magician marriage married matter means mother nature necessary needs Ngai organisation parents passed peace performed position practical prepare present reason regarded relation relatives religious respect ritual rules sacred sexual sheep sheep and goats side social songs spirits taken things tree tribal tribe various warriors whole wife wives woman women young