Red Strangers

by Elspeth Huxley

  A man of Matu’s generation, returning home with a parcel of meat, was walking with them, and Matu asked:

  “Do people here no longer drink gruel, then, since the women plant no millet?”

  “People drink gruel,” their companion replied. “There is no homestead without its grinding stones. It is brought from Ndia; two days ago my wife returned with a load.”

  “But why do people not sow millet themselves?”

  “Are women to plant crops for the benefit of birds ? Who would keep away the greedy pigeons and the grey nyagathanga, the red-beaked murugu, and other devourers of crops ?”

  “Is not that the children’s task? When I was a boy I would stand all day in the shamba, hurling stones from a sling.”

  The man turned his head to look curiously at Matu. “I also,” he said. “But where are you living, that you are so ignorant of modern ways ? Do not the children spend all day at school, and how then can they scare birds?”

  “Who, then, herds goats in the bush?”

  “It is difficult,” Matu’s informant admitted. “I myself have two sons at school. One goes early and returns at noon to herding; the other stays with the goats in the morning and goes to school at noon.”

  3

  ON the way they came to a pasture where cattle were grazing, and Matu stopped with an exclamation of surprise. “Have women, then, become cattle-herds ?” he asked. “Surely that is the work of young men ?”

  “Those are Muthengi’s cattle,” he was told. “Muthengi has wives to the number of twenty-two living and seven dead. He sends his wives to look after his cattle, which are so numerous that they can scarcely be counted in a day.”

  “Has he, then, no sons?”

  “He has many, but they do not herd cattle; all of them have been to school. Some are clerks, and others teachers; one is a policeman at Nyeri; others are married and cultivate land. Whenever beer is brewed in this district, one gourd must be taken to Muthengi’s homestead. Muthengi is very important and a friend of the Serkali, but his father Waseru was only a poor man, and as a boy he used to carry pots to Ndia for his mother, like a girl.”

  “Things have changed a great deal,” Matu remarked.

  “That is true,” his companion agreed. “Now cattle are tended by women and girls go to draw water from the river without fear. There are no hyenas here any more, for all corpses must be buried, so there is nothing for them to live on. The Serkali eats taxes like a hungry lion, and the hut-tax is indeed a great burden; but people forget what it was like to flee from the Masai into the forest and to hear hyenas feeding close at night in famine times. For myself I think that perhaps these days are better, even though Muthengi orders us about a great deal too much. But the young men do not agree.”

  Matu observed that the ridges were more wooded than he remembered them to have been when he left. They were planted with new trees that had never existed in Kikuyu before. He had seen them at Njoro, where they had been brought by Europeans. They were dark of leaf and graceful, like maidenhair ferns; but under their foliage the ground was brown and bare. They had been planted in straight lines, and their bark was red. Matu passed several women felling them with an axe and others stripping the bark with a knife and tying it into bundles.

  “The bark, perhaps, is used for a new kind of twine ?” Matu asked.

  “No, it has nothing to do with twine. It is sold at Karatina and goes away by train, I do not know where to. Many people now plant wattle, as this tree is called, for the branches provide firewood and the roots are medicine for the soil.”

  “That is good,” Matu said with conviction, looking about him. The hillside across the valley was clothed with wattle, its outline soft and feathery against a blue cloud-strewn sky. Three shades of green blended together on the wide slope. At the bottom, by the river, was the bright vivid green of the canes; above them the full deep green of banana leaves; and on the crest the dark restful green of wattle. “Now the country looks as it did before there were Europeans, when the forest still gave us shelter from our foes,” he remarked.

  The shadows were far extended when Matu and Karanja came to the foot of a ridge on which a great homestead stood. Bananas and wattles screened it from the road, but through the trees above they could see the gleam of thatch.

  “Look !” Karanja said. “There stands the homestead of my uncle Muthengi.”

  Matu rearranged his blanket on his shoulder and took a pinch of snuff, trying to appear unconcerned.

  “Muthengi has many wives,” he said in solemn tones. “I do not know if he will recognise me as his brother.”

  They walked together slowly up the hill.

  4

  OUTSIDE the compound two big square houses stood. One was for the car and the other for the numerous njamas who ate and slept there when they were employed on Muthengi’s business.

  Matu and his son walked through the entrance and stood in the largest compound they had ever seen. The ground was clear of weeds or grass. In a circle were ranged twenty-two huts, and before each stood a large granary. Behind the twenty-two were many other huts, used by some of Muthengi’s married sons. To the right a thingira stood by itself, but it was not an ordinary hut; it was rectangular, and had a tin roof.

  It was the hour of the goats’ return. A jostling stream poured in through the entrance, guided by shouts and whistles from women and boys. The whole compound became a swaying field of goats—black and brindled, white, speckled and striped. The air was full of bleating and bells. Gradually, as the sun fell behind a wood of wattles on the hill, the goats sorted themselves out into smaller flocks and each flock found its way to the hut where it was to spend the night. A red-gold cloud of dust, stirred by the trampling of many hoofs, floated over the thatched huts.

  Then the compound became full of people. Women hurried to and fro, taking brands to start a fire from their neighbours, setting pots on hearthstones outside their huts. Smoke columns began to follow the dust into the sky. The drawers of water returned, big gourds silent on their backs. Others came with firewood, and uncircumcised boys bore long gourds of milk to the huts of their mothers and to the njama’s house.

  The two visitors stood in silence by the fence and watched with marvelling eyes. It hardly seemed possible that so many wives could belong to one man. Matu noticed that most of them wore as many twists of copper wire as a Masai, and long dangling ear ornaments, and ropes of coloured beads. The dress of every one proclaimed her to be the wife of a man of wealth.

  “How many goatskins must be needed every year to make dresses for so many women !” Matu exclaimed. “How many must be slaughtered for sacrifice, and slain for capes to carry new-born infants !”

  “Truly the Serkali is a good master,” Karanja agreed.

  A little after sunset the engine of a motor-car was heard and Muthengi returned from inspecting those of his cattle that were herded by the salt-licks at Iruri. He was tall and heavy, and walked at a deliberate, dignified pace. His expression was stern and his face bore no traces of laughter. A badge of office, a shining lion, decorated his big felt hat, and a thick great-coat protected him from cold. On his feet was a pair of shoes without laces and in his hand a polished muramati’s staff. He walked slowly over to a chair standing against the wall of his thingira and sat down, ready to receive the reports of his njamas and his wives.

  His son Razimu, a tall thin youth in a light brown suit with spectacles over his eyes, followed him in. Seeing two strangers in the compound he walked up to Matu and asked, after the customary greetings:

  “What is your business here?”

  “I have come to see Muthengi,” Matu replied. “I have travelled a long way—from Njoro, beyond the mountain Nyandarua and Nakuru lake.”

  “I will tell him,” Razimu said.

  When Matu was summoned before his brother they looked at each other for a long while, speaking no word. Through their minds the past was rushing like a torrent, each drop a scene from childhood, and emotions clouded t
heir visions like a spray. Their thoughts were formless, and too big for words.

  “It is many seasons since you were here,” Muthengi said at last.

  “Yes,” Matu answered. “It is a long time.”

  “You have wives?” Muthengi asked, “and sons?”

  Matu pointed with his chin towards Karanja, who stood by his side.

  “This son is Karanja, the eldest. I have another at school at Kabete, and others at Njoro, at school and herding goats.”

  “It is well,” Muthengi answered. “I, too, have sons, and all of them have been to school. Here there is peace, and the crops are in the ground. My wives are fertile, and I have not yet come to the age of impotence.”

  “It is well,” Matu said.

  “My njamas will show you a bed,” Muthengi continued. “There is a place for visitors, and in your honour I shall kill a sheep.”

  He called for one of his njamas, who came running, and instructed him to kill a fat ram immediately, that the meat might be roasted and eaten that night.

  “My wives will bring you gruel and milk, and porridge of beans and maize, and sweet potatoes,” he continued. “Now I am tired, and must rest; I cannot eat meat, for my stomach is bad. To-morrow, when I have returned from a meeting of the council of law, we will talk together, for there are many things that must be said. Go in peace.”

  “Peace be with you, brother,” Matu said.

  “You see, he does not intend to poison you,” Karanja remarked when they had reached the njama’s house.

  Matu made no reply, but that evening he could not resist the roast flesh of a fattened ram. Afterwards he smiled at his son, and said: “No doubt you are right; what need has the elephant to trample the butterfly underfoot?”

  5

  MATU could scarcely recognise his father’s land. He remembered it as a clearing on the edge of a forest glade. Now this glade was a pasture, the shamba a shadeless field of ripening maize. Near the site where Waseru’s homestead had stood was a square stone house, solidly built, with windows, a veranda and a shining iron roof. In front was a small garden bright with flowers, and a bougainvillea glowed like a fire of purple above the door. Below the garden was a fenced-in pasture and at the bottom the Ragati rippled between grassy banks where maidenhair fern would grow no longer, lacking shade.

  “This is the place,” he said at last. “This is where my father cleared the forest. Now the land has been taken by another. Ee-i! You see, my son, that we have travelled here in vain.”

  “I am not satisfied,” Karanja said, staring hard at the house. “This land belongs by law to you, and after you to me and Kaleo; and by law we can claim it for our own use.”

  “If the law says one thing and Muthengi says another, which will be upheld?” Matu queried. “The log which is burnt to ashes cannot become timber again, nor can water spilt on the ground be returned to the gourd.” In spite of his son’s protests he turned back, leaning much on his staff for support. Karanja crossed the Ragati by a bridge and approached the house alone. For a moment he wondered if a European could live there, but then he saw that the house was without a chimney, and too small.

  As he stood by the veranda gazing at two fruit trees planted on either side of the door, a young woman in a brown dress with a handkerchief tied around her head came from the back and greeted him. They shook hands, and Karanja asked her to whom the house belonged.

  “To Crispin, the son of Muthengi,” she answered. “He heard that you had come—are you not his cousin, the son of Matu ?—and was expecting to see you. He is away now teaching at the school, but he will be back at four o’clock.”

  Karanja decided to wait, and Crispin’s wife showed him the shamba and the house. She had been educated at Tumu-Tumu, he learnt, and was of course a Christian; and she had worked for Europeans, caring for a small child. Now she had three children of her own; the smallest one was fed on cow’s milk, and was very fat.

  Crispin had a big field of wheat, thick and even, beginning to fill the ear. In less than a month, she said, it would be ready to cut. Then she would thresh it with sticks and winnow it by tossing the grain on baskets in a wind, just as millet had been winnowed long ago. A wagon would be hired to take it to Karatina, and then it would go to Nairobi to be sold. Another field, fenced like the wheat, was given over to potatoes and maize. Crispin’s wife, Rebecca, dug up a few to show him; they were the largest potatoes he had ever seen. The maize field, planted in rows, was mulched with banana leaves to keep the moisture in the soil. No shamba grew the same crops two years running, she added; that was a very bad thing to do.

  “Who helps you to cultivate ?” Karanja asked. “Surely you cannot dig up so large a shamba alone.”

  Rebecca took him to a shed and showed him a small plough, and the two oxen that pulled it grazing in a field. With them were three cows. They were large, and without humps; they were not Kikuyu cattle at all.

  “Crispin bought them from a European,” Rebecca explained. “He has an uncle, Ngarariga’s son, who works for a European at Nanyuki looking after cows.”

  “But you cannot drink so much milk,” Karanja observed.

  “I take it to the market in bottles,” Rebecca said, “and for each bottle I receive ten cents.”

  6

  KARANJA was watching her milk the cows with both hands when Crispin appeared on a bicycle, back from school. He was a tall young man with long legs and broad shoulders and a stiff, serious expression. He greeted his cousin politely, but without much warmth; it was clear that he suspected the reason for the visit. He showed Karanja round his shamba, and said:

  “This land was given to me by my father, the muramati of our clan, when I returned from the Alliance High School and bought a wife. At first when I started to do the things that I had been taught at school, everyone said: ‘This man is a fool, he does everything in the wrong way, and his crops will surely fail.’ But when people saw that my crops were better than any others, they began to see that it was they who had been foolish, and they copied my methods. Then I bought two European heifers for four hundred shillings, and everyone said: ‘Crispin is a madman, the cows will die and his father will be ruined paying for them’; but the cows have not died, and now that people see my milk they are jealous, and wish to have cows like mine. But they do not understand how much work is needed to keep cows and grow crops in the ways taught by Agricultural Officers.”

  “If you went to the Alliance High School,” Karanja said, much impressed, “you must know everything, including English; why do you not become a Government clerk?”

  “I already have a brother who is a very important clerk in Nyeri,” Crispin replied, “and another who is clerk to the council of law in Karatina, and one in Nairobi working for the Indian who buys my potatoes and eggs, and also the strawberries which I grew last year in a swamp drained by the Government. But I myself cultivate the land, because I prefer that work to any other.”

  Karanja stayed to the evening meal in Crispin’s house. They sat at a table and ate a stew of meat and potatoes, using spoons and plates like Europeans. A vase of marigolds stood beside the lamp on the table. A picture of the Alliance High School football team, of which Crispin had been a member, hung on the wall, next to a picture of a European woman with a great deal of hair, torn from a book. The children, who sat at table with them, were fat and noisy, and wore clean dresses instead of skins. When Karanja asked their names, Crispin said :

  “The eldest is called Muthengi after my father, and the next is Irumu after my mother’s father. I myself have a European name, and so have all my brothers : there is Robert, and Douglas, and Harold, and Solomon. But I do not think it is right to abandon Kikuyu names. Some European customs are good and others are bad, and we should take only the good ones, and keep those of our own which do not offend God. I think we should keep to our own Kikuyu names.”

  Karanja did not agree with this, although he did not say so. He intended to get baptised, as soon as he had bought a third wife,
under the name of Harrison, a better one than his own.

  7

  IT was some time before Karanja could speak what was in his mind, but at last he began :

  “Crispin, why have you put fences around your land ? Soon it will grow tired and you will have to move on. And how is it that you fence the pasture, for has not pasture always been common to all members of our clan ?”

  “You do not understand modern ways,” Crispin replied. He spoke with heat, as though Karanja had insulted him. “There is no need for my land to grow weary, for I treat it in the European way. And as for the pasture, I say that it is mine to deal with as I choose ! Only by fencing it can I make it better, as I know how to do. This land will be mine always, and no one shall take it away.”

  “All the same,” Karanja said, “by law the land is not yours at all. You did not inherit from your father, and you have no right to keep pasture to yourself as if it were maize. Did you plant the grass, as women plant crops ? And do you not know that this land rightfully belongs to the heirs of the man who first cut down the forest for cultivation?”

  “It was given to me by my father, who is a chief, and also the muramati of our clan,” Crispin retorted. “Have I not made the soil fatter than ever before ? The land is mine because of the work and the money that I have put into the soil, and no one shall steal it from me !”

  “That is for the council of law to say,” Karanja replied.

  “The council is made up of old men who do not understand modern customs!” Crispin exclaimed. “Can one European start to cultivate the pasture of another ? Such a thing is against the law! Why should their law say one thing and ours another? Why do they teach us these methods if they let the elders take away the land we have improved ? A law must be made to prevent this, and to give us a paper saying that the land we cultivate in the European way will always be ours.”