Red Strangers

by Elspeth Huxley

  Karanja did not know how to answer this outburst. He believed that by law the land belonged to him, yet he could see that the stone house, the fruit trees and other things belonged to Crispin and could not be moved. So he said nothing more, and got up to go.

  “Where do you keep your goats,” he asked as he said goodbye, “since you have a house into which they may not enter?”

  “I have no goats,” Crispin said. “Do you not know that they are very bad for the land? I hate them, and will not allow them here.”

  In spite of his respect for Crispin’s education, Karanja was startled and even shocked. He knew that Europeans disliked goats and that Christians paid bride-price in shillings; but he could hardly imagine a Kikuyu thinking of goats with a black heart.

  8

  MATU did not want to bring a case against Crispin for the land. “What is the use ?” he asked. “Muthengi is too powerful; no one would dare to give a verdict against his son. I am old and have decided to die, since what is the use of living without cattle or goats ? You will return to Marafu’s shamba, where you have land; and as for Kaleo, he has disappeared, and who knows what will become of him ? Very likely he will go to Europe, or to Nairobi. You will only waste the court fees.”

  But Karanja replied: “This land is yours, since your father Waseru gave it to you on his death-bed. Muthengi had no right to take it for his son. It will grow excellent crops now that the Agricultural Officer will give me or Kaleo improved seed; and a plough can be bought for fifty shillings. But first we must find witnesses who will support your claim.”

  A visit was made to Ngarariga, now an old man, who had been present when his half-brother Waseru died. He had five wives, and a little shop which sold cloth and paraffin, tea, sugar and salt, and also cigarettes and beads. It was kept by two of his sons, and brought in a good profit.

  “I would not advise you to bring a case,” he said. “Muthengi would be angry, for he gave that land to his son.”

  “Who rules this country, then—Muthengi, or the Serkali?” Karanja asked angrily.

  “Such cases do not go before the Serkali any longer,” Ngarariga explained. “They go before the council of law. Muthengi is the president of this council, and I do not think you would win.”

  “All the same, by law the land belongs to my father,” Karanja obstinately replied. “I shall bring the case.”

  The council met under a tree at Karatina. The elders sat together on chairs, Muthengi, massive and heavy-jowled, in the middle. Around him were other chiefs and elders, some too young to claim a rightful place on any properly constituted council of law. One, a Christian, wore a suit and a white sun helmet; another, a follower of old customs, a head-dress and cape of black ostrich feathers, a cloak of leopard skin and dangling Colobus monkey tails.

  Holding a fistful of short sticks to mark his points, Matu squatted on the ground before the elders and told his story: of the land which Waseru’s wife Wanjeri, his own mother, had cultivated; of his emigration to Njoro; of his son’s wish to return ; of his right by inheritance to claim part of the land. Karanja, who followed, told the story at greater length and with deeper feeling. No man, he said, could take another’s land without payment, and Matu had received none; nor was the fencing of pasture a legitimate right.

  Crispin gave evidence standing erect before his father: he spoke with passion in his tones. How could anyone talk of seizing his land, he demanded, after all that he had done to make it fertile and rich? How could the fruit-trees he had planted, the stone house, the tanks to hold water, the manure still in the land, belong to another man?

  In the afternoon the council adjourned to the court-house, a big wooden building with an office and a clerk, to consider their judgments on the cases they had heard in the morning. Several elders came up to Matu to express sympathy for his cause.

  “Many young men who have been to school are fencing land,” they said. “What right have they to claim common pasture as their own? Has it not always been the property of the clan ? What will become of our children, if all the land is enclosed and the muramati has nothing to distribute to newly married men ? And where will our goats find grazing if all the fallow is fenced?”

  But the young men said : “Crispin is right: we must have our own land, just as Europeans do. How can we feed it with manure and plant fruit trees, as we are told to do, if we can be driven out at any time ?”

  At last the council members filed out of the house on to the grass under the tree. The clerk read the verdicts slowly out of a book. To one, an award of fifty shillings; to another, a fine of ten goats. When he came to Karanja’s case he said:

  “Matu cannot have the land; he has waited too long to bring the case. Crispin has built a house and planted trees; Matu cannot pay him for this. The verdict is for Crispin; Matu must pay two shillings costs.”

  Karanja walked back with his father complaining bitterly that justice was corrupt. “Everyone is afraid of Muthengi,” he said. “How can there be justice when he is the president of the council of law?”

  “It is unjust,” Matu agreed, “but it cannot be helped. I am too old to be deeply disturbed any more.”

  CHAPTER VIII

  Christians

  I

  KARANJA decided to seek advice from Kabero, Irumu’s son, an elder with a reputation for wisdom and common sense. Although Kabero carried the mungirima staff of the senior elders he did not belong to the council of law that met at Karatina. The members of this body were chosen by the Serkali not for their seniority, but for reasons of its own. Nevertheless Kabero was a highly respected elder, and one of his sons was a young man of great importance : an Agricultural Inspector, with a uniform and a bicycle, in charge of a big shamba belonging to the Serkali, and able to tell everyone what the Serkali wanted them to do as regards their land and their crops.

  When Kabero had heard Karanja’s story he said : “Why do you accept the judgment of the council that sits at Karatina ? Why do you not take your case before the big council at Nyeri, where Muthengi is like one bean among many in the mundu-mugu’s gourd ?”

  “How can this be done?” Karanja asked.

  Kabero explained, and Karanja appealed against the decision of the lower court. He was told to wait a month, when he would be called to Nyeri to present his case.

  But Matu refused to listen when Karanja told him that the land might yet be gained. He shook his grey head vigorously and said :

  “I will not go to Tetu to appeal before this court. What is the use ? Can I fight Muthengi ? Is the lion worsted by the impala calf? Let the matter rest, my son; no good can come of these disputings.”

  “Nevertheless I shall go before the big court,” Karanja persisted.

  Matu had moved to Ngarariga’s homestead, where he felt more at home. At Muthengi’s he could not tell who had cooked his food, so many women were there; he did not know what might have been put into it. But at Ngarariga’s there was peace, and Matu was able to sit all day in the shady compound gossiping to others of his generation who came to visit him. Often beer-drinks were held among members of his clan. But his bent legs grew stiffer, his chest felt dry and sore. Ngarariga gave him a goat, and a mundu-mugu was called to make a sacrifice; but the spirits who were troubling him could not be driven away. As the days passed he grew weaker, until a morning came when he could not leave the hut without support. The mundu-mugu came to make another sacrifice, but he said:

  “Let the goat live; I have something that cannot be cast out.” Karanja remembered that just three months had passed since Matu had said that he must die.

  2

  THE old man sat in the shade all through the long hot day, listening to the goat-bells and the songs of women, the voices of pigeons and the persistent fluting of a gai-ky-ngu. The season of muthakwa blossom had come again; its scent was blown up the valleys on a light breeze, and bees were busy among the purple blooms. Sometimes he muttered to himself, and once Karanja heard him speak to Wanja, his first wife, who was
dead.

  At nightfall he was carried into the thingira and made comfortable on a bed. After the meal was over he roused himself from his coma and called in a low voice to Ngarariga and to Karanja, his son.

  “When the sun rises I shall be blind,” he said, “and when the goats go out to pasture I shall be deaf to the bells. Listen to my last wishes, and remember that if you fail to keep them a curse no mundu-mugu can remove will fall upon you.”

  In a thin low voice Matu delivered his will.

  “The land where my wives cultivate is not mine,” he said, “but so long as Marafu allows them they must continue to cultivate there. They are to belong to Karanja, who must see that they will always have land. My goats and my cows will also belong to Karanja, who must buy a wife for Kaleo, and later for my other sons. But the cow Tumbo and the female goats Umu, Nyange and Njiru must never be sold, nor may their progeny be sold either. If this, my dying wish, is disobeyed, my spirit will trouble Karanja all his life.”

  For some time he lay silent; and then he continued: “Karanja, do not sell my goats, nor kill them. I do not know where you will take them, but they must not die, nor be sold. For if a spark should fall among paper shillings, they would be gone in smoke and no one could call them back. But goats continue ; though each one will die, the flock will remain; therefore an owner of goats cannot become a pauper.”

  “I will do as you say,” Karanja promised.

  After another pause Matu continued :

  “When Irumu the mundu-mugu died I heard him speak. He said : ‘When women walk all day to seek firewood, and when the cultivation lies naked under the sun, then shall evil come.’ But he said also: ‘On the day when trees again darken the ridges and bring shelter to the weary, then shall good fortune return.’ I have seen that on the land belonging to my clan trees clothe the ridges once again and the paths wind about crookedly as they used to do; so perhaps good fortune will return to the land.”

  There was silence for a while, and Matu’s harsh, uneven breathing could be heard in the hut.

  “Irumu spoke also of paths on which our feet were set,” Matu whispered at last. “He said that we moved towards unknown things, away from all with which we were familiar. His words were true. The world to which the path is leading is one which we cannot understand; it was created by a strange God and it is ruled by distant people; and the young men have learnt new magic that has taken away their laughter. It is time that I reached the end of the path, for I do not know where it is going.”

  A little later he raised his weakening voice for the last time in a dry whisper. “Let my charms be buried in my grave, and my medicines thrown away into the bush,” he said. “Their secrets, that were Irumu’s, will die with me; nowadays another magic is sought by the young men.”

  For a long time Matu lay motionless with closed eyes. When it became apparent that he would revive no more, Karanja placed a calabash of water by his side, covered him with a blanket, and surrendered his own place by the bedside to the shades of death.

  The next morning the wasted, bony body lay stiff and cold beside the still-smouldering fire. Ngarariga, Karanja and two of Ngarariga’s sons wrapped it in an ox-hide and buried it quickly in the bush. Afterwards Ngarariga burnt down the infected hut and visited a mundu-mugu to be purified. His two sons laughed at their father for his old-fashioned ideas and Karanja said that he, too, did not believe in such foolish things. This was true, but nevertheless he could not be quite sure. For some time he did nothing, but one day he borrowed a goat from his uncle and visited the mundu-mugu, without telling anyone, to vomit out the thahu. It was better, he thought, to be on the safe side.

  3

  KARANJA, as his father’s heir, decided to carry the case to the Nyeri council of law. A written summons to attend came to him to Karatina through the post, and on the appointed day he found his way to the hall of the L.N.C.,* an imposing thatched house shaped like an arena, around whose pit the elders sat on a high-backed wooden bench. Tiers of seats where anyone might come to listen surrounded the central place, and to one side was a platform on which the clerk who recorded all that was said sat at his desk. Muthengi sat on this council, but Karanja knew no one else by sight. Members came from every part of the country between Nyeri and Fort Hall.

  When Karanja’s turn came he was nervous, for many eyes were upon him, and he could not tell where the sympathies of his hearers lay. But he stood before them and let everything that came into his mind pass through his lips. He knew that he spoke better than Matu, whose mind had been confused. When one of the councillors asked him his reasons for claiming the land he told them that he wanted it for Kaleo, who was at the Alliance High School, and he could see that this made a good impression.

  The court was cleared in the afternoon and the councillors debated their decisions in private. When all was ready the parties to each case were called, and the clerk read out the verdict and collected the fines. Tribal policemen stood by to keep order should a dispute arise, and to take away anyone sentenced to a term in jail.

  The council had decided, the clerk said, that Karanja could not have Crispin’s land; compensation for all Crispin’s improvements would need to be too heavy. But the evidence showed that Matu and his heirs had a clear right to a section of land from the clan’s holding. As Karanja could not be awarded the particular piece that he claimed, Muthengi must give him another piece, of equal size and excellence, elsewhere.

  Karanja paid the court fee of six shillings gladly, and the clerk gave him back fifty cents to buy food. The day had been successful beyond his hopes. Next morning he returned with Ngarariga to the homestead and a fat ram was slain for a feast of celebration. After a long delay Muthengi sent for him and showed him a piece of land. It was not as big as he considered just, and it had not lain fallow for very long, but it would do; and Karanja accepted it as the final settlement of the dispute.

  He had planned ahead what he would do. He had enough money in the Post Office, and goats at Njoro, to buy a new wife. He would negotiate for one, and leave her to cultivate the land he had won from Muthengi; he himself would return to Njoro. He had thought much about the matter, and decided that he liked Njoro best. He preferred to deal with Marafu, or some other European who could be easily managed, than with Muthengi and his njamas, with their constant rules, prohibitions and general interference. At Njoro there was more land, and now that a school had been established his children could be properly taught. He himself liked working inside a European’s house and being taken sometimes to Nairobi in a car.

  4

  AT first Karanja thought that he would like to marry a Christian girl, one who could bargain astutely for him when he was away, and keep accounts. But fathers with Christian daughters were demanding prices that no one but a teacher or a clerk, or a very rich elder, could pay. He went again to dances, where he could see the girls and attract their attention by his skill and good looks. At night he danced the mugoyo around a fire, dressed in a length of calico with a white feather in his hair. His teeth were stained purple with indelible pencil and his cheeks glowed with a floral pattern of spots of lime. Christian boys and girls watched from a distance, staring a little dejectedly at the leaping figures of sisters and cousins content to forgo the prestige of Christianity for the sinful pleasures of the dance. Bright moonlight called everyone out into the warm night, but Christians could only walk together up and down the paths, disturbed by the rhythm that pulsed up the valleys until it seemed as if the whole night was beating like a full heart, and the leaves of all the trees were dancing on their own. Blood was too hot for sleep, with the ears full of song; and as night slowly revolved the prowling groups of Christian boys and girls split into pairs and drifted silently into the blackness of the wattle groves, two by two.

  After a month of dancing he decided on his bride. She was a daughter of Kabero, small and lively, with many suitors; but although she flirted with all, she had accepted none. Her name was Wanjiri, and she had been to school. She sh
owed plainly that Karanja pleased her, for he was—as he well knew—among the most handsome of the men. He kept his lack of schooling secret, and impressed her with his knowledge of English and with his experience of the world. Kabero’s daughter, attracted by his fluency, his looks, and his smart European clothes, showed him favours above all her other friends.

  But although she laughed with him, and let him take her home after dancing, she would not listen to his talk of marriage, and for a reason which filled Karanja’s heart with despair. He was not a Christian; and she had made up her mind to accept none but a Christian for her husband.

  Karanja knew already that to become a Christian took several years. Even had it been possible to attend a mission for the period required, the central difficulty remained: if he became a Christian he would not be able to marry a second wife. That must be done before baptism, or not at all.

  5

  DURING his stay in Kikuyu he had learnt that many people were dissatisfied with the missionaries, believing them to be in league with the Serkali, which was still trying to break the strength of the Kikuyu people by destroying their old customs. Why else, people asked, should the missions insist that Christians must give up all the traditions of their fathers; the circumcision of girls, beer-drinks, dances, purification from thahu, sacrifices to God? Even the members of the L.N.C., some of whom were Christians, shared this feeling. They spent much of the money raised by means of a tax on a big school at Nyeri and gave money to poor parents to pay the fees, so that boys could be educated without going to a mission at all.

  In particular, many people rejected the missions’ teaching that no Christian might marry a second wife. If the Christian God were indeed the only one in existence, they asked, how could a man be stopped from worshipping because he had two wives ? And what God who loved his people could be so unreasonable as to dislike such a natural and, indeed, desirable state of affairs, one approved by men and women alike ?