Facing Mount Kenya: The Tribal Life of the Gikuyu

by Jomo Kenyatta, B. Malinowski (Introduction)

Besides its continuing value for an understanding of the problems of Kenya, FANCING MOUNT KENYA has 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, 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.'

Genres: Africa, History, Nonfiction, Anthropology, Kenya, African Literature, 20th Century

339 pages, Paperback

First published February 12, 1938

Reviews

[Thuita Wachira · Rating 3 out of 5]

It certainly outlines Kikuyu culture but not in a purely anthropological vein, but in a castigating manner to the Europeans who viewed traditional African culture as primitive. I'd have been more pleased with the book had it stuck to merely giving an accurate picture of Kikuyu culture as opposed to interspersing anthropological and ethnological writing with long detours and diatribes against British views on African culture. I however understand that the writer did live in colonial Kenya and the need to explain (defend?) Kikuyu culture to the British was necessary; more so given the sociopolitical and economic climate at the time.

A good read all in all

[Stu · Rating 3 out of 5]

Facing Mount Kenya is absolutely essential reading for students of Kenyan culture, and remains a fine overview of the Gikuyu (Kikuyu) people, as well as a good case study for general readers in African studies. Jomo Kenyatta, who would go on to be, arguably, the most important figure in Kenyan history, gives a plainspoken dissertation on his people in a style reminiscent of Franz Boas or Kenyatta’s academic mentor Bronislav Malinowski. He is not reticent on sexuality, emulating Margaret Mead’s candor on traditional eroticism. Though Kenyatta mostly plays the detached academic, his nationalism is clear here. Facing Mount Kenya is not a jingoistic work, but the reader will not be surprised to find out that they are reading from the first president of an independent Kenya.

The most disturbing passages here for a 2013 reader involve female genital mutilation, a practice that Kenyatta asserts as absolutely essential to Gikuyu life. He describes the process in detail, noting that a woman with an intact clitoris is a pariah in Gikuyu society. Perhaps even more disturbing than Kenyatta’s description is his lack of any real rational defense for the practice. Readers wondering “why?” will still be wondering; its ubiquity, it seems, is justification enough. Kenyatta spends as much time on the surgical initiation of young girls as he does on any other issue, giving short shrift to the British practice of kipande near-slavery and non-democracy in 1940s British East Africa. Historically, this is appropriate, as British attempts to ban clitoridectomy were “the last straw” in the Kenyan movement for independence, even more onerous than suppression of traditional religion. Facing this harsh reality is a bitter pill, but one that any student of African history and culture must swallow.

I came to this text seeking context, both for the East African vampire folklore investigated by Luise White and for the Mau Mau movement that is so prominent in Kenyan history. I have found these, and as I said above, this is essential reading for area studies – but brace yourself. What you find here may be more than you signed up for.

[William Kamau · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a very enlightening read on my tribe's pre-colonial culture, most of which was unknown to me. I sure am glad that Kenyatta thought to write this.

[Nunga · Rating 4 out of 5]

Every kikuyu must read this book. Mwacha mila ni mtumwa. A historians gem.

[Will Staton · Rating 4 out of 5]

A bit tedious at points, but overall very interesting and insightful. Kenyatta's analysis of African tribal customs are far more enlightening and revealing than a European perspective, and although he only explores the history and custom of his own tribe, his analysis prompted a much larger question for me. Specifically, he tells a story about how and why tribal customs are what they are. Both intentionally and unintentionally this sets up a comparison with (for white readers) a more familiar, western world. Kenyatta's description simultaneously forces the reader to wonder about the positive aspects of a simpler, more communal style of life that is unfamiliar to western readers, while also highlighting many of the positive benefits that the west has made. For example, much of the unity of Kenyatt'a Gikuyu tribe is bound in the custom of male and female circumcision, which happens around the time of adolescence. These forced procedures galvanize tribal unity, but at what cost to the individual? Furthermore, while the benefits of tribal unity are quite clear to the reader, I can't help but ask how the lack of choice (and the underlying lack of opportunity that necessarily precedes choice) have impacted the overall development of his tribe.

Overall a fascinating and thought-provoking read, even when the language is a bit anthropologically tedious.

[Scott Cox · Rating 5 out of 5]

Many years ago I read this fascinating autobiography by Jomo Kenyatta which tells the story of Kenya's struggle for independence. However the book is also a fascinating look into the early 20th culture of this east African nation. Kenyatta was of the Kikuyu tribe, and the reader learns much about the customs and mores of the Kikuyu, and how they differed from other regional tribes such as the Maasai and Luo. Kenyatta was educated at the Church of Scotland Mission at Thogoto, and some of the early conflicts arose over his support for female circumcism, a practice which was vehemently opposed by the Presbyterians (who also opposed polygamy). The reader is richly rewarded with insights into the life of a fascinating leader who became Kenya's first non-colonial president in the 1960's until his death in 1978.

[Kym]

I read this in school in Kenya in the early 80s. Obviously that was a long time ago so the details are hazy but I remember liking the book although that might have been mostly due to 1) I was a huge bookworm and loved reading anything I could get my hands on and 2) being a massive fan of Jomo Kenyatta (he was President when I lived in Kenya and I saw him speak in person as well as on television etc when I was a very young girl.) Going to add it to me Want to Read/Re-read books on/by/about Africa/Africans list.

[Mike K · Rating 4 out of 5]

In 1938 Kenyatta wrote what he intended to be an anthropological look at the Gikuyu/ Kikuyu people (his tribe and the most populous in Kenya). This book was more dense than others I have read on Kenyan history and I lost interest at times but I’m glad I got through it.

Kenyatta outlines in great detail the ins and outs of Gikuyu life covering topics such as education, marriage, sexual relations, religion, economics, land, agriculture, government, and magic/ witchcraft. His audience was Europeans and his goal was to combat the narrative of Africans that they themselves had dominated. He says they wanted to “monopolize the office of interpreting his [the African] mind”. While offering a first hand account was a worthy and needed cause, objectively speaking, it does cost him anthropological credibility as he’s often defending rather than explaining or observing. Among these defenses, the poorest was for female genital mutilation (FGM) despite dedicating many pages to the topic. The more he writes about it, you think he’s leading you somewhere but you’re wrong. Elsewhere in the book he speaks fondly of European science but on this topic he’s dismissive of the science and the scientist. Though his context on the role of irua in Gikuyu culture is helpful, his defense is borderline unintelligible and can be summarized as “The African is in the best position properly to discuss and disclose the psychological background of tribal customs, such as irua, and he should be given the opportunity to acquire the scientific training which will enable him to do so” (pg 148). This sounds more like a political statement from a future president than an observation from an anthropologist.

If you came to this book seeking to understand Kenyan history, after a while you get bored. You ask yourself why knowing this much detail about 1 of 40+ ethnic groups is important. Kenyatta craftily ties back everything you learn to why the British got it wrong. He prescribes the reader such granular detail because he can only properly illustrate British mishaps by first asking you to do what his colonizers never cared nor bothered to do, to understand the Africans. They “set about to tackle problems which they were not trained for. They condemned customs and beliefs which they could not understand” (pg 261). He demonstrates how little they thought of the task (and the people) when he points out that the majority of British teachers in Uganda, lacked certifications, the probably couldn’t teach in London. In page 260 he talks about how British administrators and missionaries thought that no special intellect was needed to teach the African “savages”. And while the savage characterization was wrong, it being true would have actually called for better teachers. I must point out the irony that this book double as a playbook on how to be a more effective colonizer. It inadvertently says “if you you understood us, you could have colonized us better and perhaps for longer”.

Once you get through the whole thing, you’ll understand that while flawed and incomplete, it is certainly a foundational read for Kenyan history. Though Facing Mount Kenya doesn’t give you all the history you sought, since Kenyan tribes are more similar than they admit, you’ll find that Kenyatta has better equipped you to properly appreciate further readings that may offer the historical and political details of colonization and independence. Perhaps the most important thing you learn is how collective the pre-colonial Gikuyu society was and how family was the basis for everything. This is best described in his conclusion on page 297:

According to Gikuyu ways of thinking, nobody is an isolated individual. Or rather, his uniqueness is a secondary fact about him first and foremost, he is several people’s relative and several people’s contemporary. His life is founded on this fact spiritually and economically, just as much as biologically…. His personal needs, physical and psychological, are satisfied incidentally while he plays his part as a member of a family group, and cannot be fully satisfied in any other way.

[Vincent Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

After an eternity of giving Facing Mount Kenya by Jomo Kenyatta a wide berth because I believed it was ethnic and advocated worship of spirits and witchdoctors, I have finally read it. 'Anthropology begins at home', and demonising our African cultures to dance to the tune of blind Westernisation is a deceitful conceit. Wanting to know where you have come from and how much you have lost or gained along the way is not Westernisation or modernity, it is tracking your growth and development. Jomo Kenyatta, in the preface, says, "... I have tried my best to record facts as I know them ... My chief object is not to enter into controversial discussion with those who have attempted, or are attempting, to describe the same things from outside observation, but to let the truth speak for itself." Thus, this is not about how right or wrong he was, or what (politics) he advocated, but a record of the Gikuyu culture AS IS, for the future generations to refer to. You need to read it from a neutral point of view, to learn, to know where everything we have today came from. Get to know the cultural facts, not the political undertones propagated over the years to turn you a vicious critic of the origin. (Funny how we can criticise our Africanacity but not question the infelicities of the white religiosity and culturalisation.)

African culture is largely oral, and this has led to the distortion of cultural, historical, and customary facts. It is not possible for the human mind to keep an exact copy of facts, they will always be distorted, sometimes deliberately. Thus, the written word is king, even if there will be editing, the original may always be referenced.

So, when Jomo Kenyatta addresses the issue of female circumcision, which was given the vicious name of female genital mutilation to give it a negative connotation, he is not advocating for FGM - he is saying (factually) how and why it was done. When talking about polyandry and polygamy, he is showing that that which the 21st century man and woman finds abhorrent, repugnant, repulsive, sinful (religious indoctrination here), and disgusting is not what their mind has been fed; culturally, it was acceptable but within set limits.

The book has addressed contagious issues like youth sexuality, where boys were allowed to masturbate in preparation for the roles after initiation (if one masturbated after initiation he was ridiculed for clinging to childish habits) and girls in relationships were allowed to fondle and enjoy themselves a little. Girls were the masters of their body, and if the boy tried to initiate sex, the girl reported them and the boy was shunned, sometimes punished by his age group. The girls were expected to be virgins on their wedding nights, yet they were allowed to enjoy themselves a little. This taught both parties self-control and inculcated in them self-discipline. We wouldn't be having sexual crimes we have today.

All of these social practices and customs that made the Gikuyu, and African at large, an all-round individual were washed away when religionists came calling. Everything that the missionaries/the whites did not understand was termed sinful, repugnant to a white man who resided in heaven.

The book is comprehensive in that it has addressed matters governance, defence of a nation, warfare, economy, the occult, etc. It can serve as a constitution if well refined. The only drawback I find in the book is the autobiographical approach, perhaps because Jomo Kenyatta is not an anthropologist but he drew from his experience as a Gikuyu. All in all, it's a good anthropological read.

[Chris Farmer · Rating 5 out of 5]

After reading “Facing Mount Kenya,” I walk away with a greater sense of what the cultural, economic, and political life of Kenya was to Jomo Kenyatta, a man who was among the first to create a written record of Kenya’s social and cultural anthropology. He also presents a clear ideological contrast between the colonizing British and the Gikuyu people, often showing the utter inability of the colonizers to understand the subtleties of Gikuyu life, governance, religion, and economy. Kenyatta intersperses his discourse, which is largely didactic, with colorful legends and folk tales, known to all Gikuyu and often constituting the basis for understanding their way of life.

“Facing Mount Kenya” is an important read.

[John Benson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had heard of this book for many years, but didn't really know what it was about. I had thought it might be a political treatise as Jomo Kenyatta was Kenya's first president. Instead, it is an anthropological study of the Gikuyu people. It had some interesting insights on how British administrators and missionaries had very little understanding of how the Gikuyu people saw the world and instead used Western misinterpretations to imagine how the Gikuyu people did what they did. I thought the focus of this book being on just one ethnic group portended the tribalism that has dogged Kenya throughout its history. An interesting study, but not the easiest read for pleasure.

[Whitlaw Tanyanyiwa Mugwiji · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was looking for something light and I thought this could be some interesting non fiction book. I was expecting the book to be about the Kenyan struggle for independence since the book was written by Kenya's founding president. It turns out the book is an anthropological gem about the Kikuyus.

I really enjoyed reading the book and learning the pre colonial life of the Kikuyus. I was surprised to find some Shona words in Kikuyu with the exact meaning and many others with almost similar phonetic sounds.

Its a great book

[Gareth Williams · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fascinating historical document that smuggles a critique of colonialism into an anthropological treatise. What emerges is an account of Kikuyu society’s dependence on land and the dislocating effect of land seizure by white settlers. Kenyatta has one foot in western academia and the other in African society. He defends practices abhorrent to us whether we encountered this account in the late 1930s or today. Nevertheless, like all good anthropology, Facing Mount Kenya compels us to examine our own assumptions and confront differing world views.

[Julius · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sehr ausführliche Darlegung der Lebensweise der Kikuyu im Kenia des frühen 20. Jahrhunderts. Über eine Beschreibung geht diese "anthropologische Studie" allerdings nicht hinaus. Sehr interessant, um die Historie vieler Bantu-Völker zu verstehen und abzuleiten, warum möglicherweise so viele post-kolonialistische Staatsbegründer Afrikas südlich der Sahara für sozialistische Staatsformen entschieden haben.

[Kui Helen · Rating 4 out of 5]

'Anthropology begins at home!'

Very excited to discover things I did not know about my culture in this read. Facing Mount Kenya is an anthropological read,showing the way of life of the Gikuyu people(Kikuyu) precolonial era. It takes you into their social organization,system of governance and their economic activities. Loved this!

[Patrick Mwangi · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book is well articulated and a true reflection of the traditional Kikuyu cultural practices, daily life and religion. The book is original and informs that the pre-colonial Gikuyu were not savages but independent people who governed themselves with intelligence.

[Jeremy Hopkins · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read in the mid nineties

[Jonathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

An essential read for any student of East African tribal customs and anthropology.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading the book. Good insights into the Kikuyu way of life which I found interesting

[Philip · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tremendously informed and moving study of a people.

[Sherigros · Rating 4 out of 5]

4,8 Sterne

[Quinn Monette · Rating 4 out of 5]

File under: I didn't know HE was an anthropologist

[Benjamin Nober · Rating 5 out of 5]

Challenges your frame of mind on priorities in life. Looking at a society shaped with different values feels important for framing decisions around larger goals

[Nadia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Facing Mt. Kenya is an ethnography about the culture of the Gikuyu people of Kenya. As early as the 1800s, ethnographies became an important means of recording the history of African peoples. Due to the legacy of colonialism and Eurocentrism, there was often a great neglect in the education system (of colonial Africa) in the teaching of African history, ironically enough. For example, Yoruban scholar Samuel Johnson once stated, "Educated natives of Yoruba were all acquainted with the history of England and with that of Rome and Greece, but of the history of their own country they know nothing". Ethnographies like Facing Mt. Kenya worked to sustain the knowledge of the culture of African peoples, as well as to dissect them anthropologically so that the layman might understand. This is an excellent book which delves into everything from the mythology of the Gikuyu, the creation story of how they came into being...Which then shows its importance in every other aspect of their lives, from the importance of family, of clan, of land, of skills such as hunting and beekeeping, the importance of cattle, the organization of government, education, and even magical and medicinal practices. It is easy to read articles about ancient Africa, and to be lost among scattered details that do not give a complete picture...But this account is comprehensive and gives the reader an intimate insight into a time long gone yet a culture not so lost.

[Victor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Facing Mount Kenya is a fantastic book. It details the many aspects of Gikuyu tribal life (& to a large extent African tribal life) before the arrival of the Europeans.

As some have already ventured to explain, Facing Mount Kenya is not politically neutral. Kenyatta's partisanship doesn't fail to bleed into every other passage in the book. This is unfortunate as it kind of takes away from the book's academic nature and impartial premise. Nevertheless the book is still the best resource out there for any and all who are interested in an anthropologically tinged view of Kenya's tribes.

Some chapters were more interesting than others I felt. I found the chapter explaining the Gikuyu's de-facto political system to be an engrossing read. The last few chapters that dealt with religion and magic I didn't take quite a liking too. Too much time was spent detailing the minutiae of the magical acts and this somewhat compromised my conceptual understanding of them. Overall though, the books was quite interesting. The writing style was approachable, and this made it easy for me, a lay-person to read. I've encountered anthropological works similar to this one that weren't very easy on the eyes, so Kenyatta's spartan prose was a plus to me.

This is a great book that everyone who gets a chance too should read.

5/5 stars from me!!

[Michal · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very important book historically - African story told by an African rather than a Westerner. I was hoping it would be "Pan-Kenyan", but Kenyatta only deals with his tribe - the Kikuyu - their customs, beliefs, structures, and how they were affected by colonialism. It is written from his point of view and it is not objective, but Kenyatta's book does invite us to do what the white settlers in East Africa didn't bother to do - to try to understand the African mind without prejudice.

[Kevin · Rating 5 out of 5]

includes a lengthy satire of western artifice and exclusion and has a three page description/oral history of a pre-patriarchy female rule (no time-frame is offered), the discussion of polyandry, how female names were carried over to offspring, and even the perhaps mythic tale of the female rulership's overthrow (a story too good to ruin here). i read this outloud when i wants to freak them out.

[David Smith · Rating 1 out of 5]

It's a lie - I didn't finish reading this book. Will now admit that I'm not likely to, unless it's the only book available in the departure lounge and the flight has been delayed for three days. Sorry President Kenyatta - simply found it too boring - words I rarely use about anything but log frames.

[Kiragu · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have been wondering what I'll tell my kids of Jomo Kenyatta's legacy. I found the perfect, befitting answer in this book. I have also been extremely curious to know how the Gikuyu went about life traditionally. Thanks to him, the ways of the Gikuyu, which sadly are now forgotten and unknown to the latter generations, are immortally well recorded. Great read!

[Hubert · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing early anthropological account of Kikuyu life by London-trained anthropologist Jomo Kenyatta. Although it seems dated these days, it remains an important text.