THE HAIRPOLITAN MAGAZINE VOL 6 MAY 2017

TOPICAL
IN SEARCH
OF ROOTS
by Al Kags
To be perfectly honest, I started seeking the stories
you would find in Living Memories for entirely selfish
reasons - or more accurately one entirely selfish
reason: I needed to find myself. The reality that
people of my generation live in is that we straddle
many worlds, many cultures and they all have
relevance and meaning. We understand western
cultures and we have swag. We learn English that our
grandparents were taught by the British and then we
supplement it with that supplied by the Americans.
But we speak sheng’ with defiance and denounce
those who twang’. We ‘proudly’ don’t speak our
mother tongue - except when it benefits us or when
the politics of the day require it. We are well read
and ignorant at the same time. We crave for Nyama
Choma and cocktails, Designer cloths and the fresh
air of “shags”.
“I SEEK OUT THE
PEOPLE WHO
HAVE THE BEST
CHANCE OF
TELLING ME WHO
I AM
“
Images Courtesy of Al Kags
We are bombarded with all manner of identities and
tags and labels.
The more we become global (blame technology),
the more we know about the world (from the movies
and Facebook), the more our aspirations converge
with those of the rest of the world, the less we know
about who we uniquely are, what we are about.
Even if this is not your reality, it is mine. So I seek out
the people who have the best chance of telling me
who I am, my ancestors - living and dead. They told
me what growing up was like for them and through
their experiences in some pretty extraordinary times,
I got a glimpse of how I came to be.
Here’s a story that I heard recently from Gathoni
wa Koinange, the only surviving widow of the late
Paramount Chief Koinange wa Mbiyu.
GATHONI WA KOINANGE
“If I survive this year, I will have lived one hundred
and seventeen years. I am thankful to God that I
am still strong and spry and cheerful. I have lived
a good life.”
“I was born in a place called Ting’ang’a beyond
Kiambu. My father was a traditional man, a
senior elder - a foreman who was chosen to head
the council of elders because he was wise and
strong.”
“In those days, the Gikuyu elders arbitrated
small disputes, oversaw initiation and other rites
of passage and collected hut tax. When there
was issues that were to serious for the elders
to deal with themselves, or when a villager was
unable to pay the one rupee (2 shillings) hut tax,
the elders then deferred the case to the senior
Gathoni wa Koinange and, my son Harry,
her great-great-great grandson
chief under whom they served. In my father’s case, the senior chief was Koinange.”
“When I was a girl, my job was to take care of goats that my brother was going to use to pay bride
price for a girl who lived not far from us. According to our customs, while Njuguna could give the few
goats he had to the father of the girl as a down payment of sorts, the goats would still remain his until
the Ngurario was done (which would involve the killing of a goat). While the goats were his to breed,
he had to provide the labour for them and that is what I was.”
“It was in those days that I met the senior chief. He would come to my father’s boma regularly and I
would receive him on the outskirts of my father’s shamba where I would be tending the goats. I would
help him with whatever he was carrying and walk home with him.”
“I had no idea that there were marriage discussions going on between the senior chief and my folks. I
had no cause for concern anyway because I had an elder sister before me who was yet unmarried and
she would have had to be married before I could be considered.”
“Girls had really no say in their own destiny and usually when the time for marriage came, they were
simply informed who they were going to marry. My sister wanted to marry someone in particular and
eloped with him before she was told to marry the chief; and so to my surprise, I was told I would marry
the chief. My feeble protests were met with a stern warning from my father: “You will go with him or I
will kill you.” I believed him and so I became the senior chief’s fifth wife.”
Al Kags is the Author of Living Memories
Available on: www.books.magunga.com
Price: Kes 450/=
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