The River Between

by Ngũgĩ Wa Thiong'o

  For Waiyaki knew that not all the ways of the white man were bad. Even his religion was not essentially bad. Some good, some truth shone through it. But the religion, the faith, needed washing, cleaning away all the dirt, leaving only the eternal. And that eternal that was the truth had to be reconciled to the traditions of the people. A people’s traditions could not be swept away overnight. That way lay disintegration. Such a tribe would have no roots, for a people’s roots were in their traditions going back to the past, the very beginning, Gikuyu and Mumbi. A religion that took no count of people’s way of life, a religion that did not recognize spots of beauty and truths in their way of life, was useless. It would not satisfy. It would not be a living experience, a source of life and vitality. It would only maim a man’s soul, making him fanatically cling to whatever promised security, otherwise he would be lost. Perhaps that was what was wrong with Joshua. He had clothed himself with a religion decorated and smeared with everything white. He renounced his past and cut himself away from those life-giving traditions of the tribe. And because he had nothing to rest upon, something rich and firm on which to stand and grow, he had to cling with his hands to whatever the missionaries taught him promised future.

  Waiyaki wondered if he himself fitted anywhere. Did Kabonyi? Which of the two was the messiah, the man who was to bring hope in salvation to a troubled people? But how could a man be a savior when he himself had already lost that contact with the past?

  Muthoni had tried. Hers was a search for salvation for herself. She had the courage to attempt a reconciliation of the many forces that wanted to control her. She had realized her need, the need to have a wholesome and beautiful life that enriched you and made you grow. His father, too, had tried to reconcile the two ways, not in himself, but through his son. Waiyaki was a product of that attempt. Yes, in the quietness of the hill, Waiyaki had realized many things. Circumcision of women was not important as a physical operation. It was what it did inside a person. It could not be stopped overnight. Patience and, above all, education, were needed. If the white man’s religion made you abandon a custom and then did not give you something else of equal value, you became lost. An attempt at resolution of the conflict would only kill you, as it did Muthoni.

  Waiyaki now thought it was time to go. The sacred grove had not lit the way for him. He did not quite know where he was going or what he really wanted to tell his people. He was still in the dark. He remembered Nyambura and wondered how she was feeling, being in his hut. For a moment he was gripped by terror and hated himself for having left the hut. What if they had come and taken her by force? What if Joshua had gone to report him at the Government Post? He again wondered if he should not run away and, as he descended the hill, he cast his eyes beyond. He had a vision of many possibilities and opportunities there, away from the hills. Maybe one day he would go there. Maybe one day he would join forces with the men from Muranga, Kiambu and Nyeri and with one voice tell the white man “Go!” And all at once Waiyaki realized what the ridges wanted. All at once he felt more forcefully than he had ever felt before the shame of a people’s land being taken away, the shame of being forced to work on those same lands, the humiliation of paying taxes for a government that you knew nothing about.

  Yes. The Kiama was right. People wanted action now. The stirrings in the hills were an awakening to the shame and humiliation of their condition. Their isolation had been violated. But what action was needed? What had he to do now? How could he organize people into a political organization when they were so torn with strife and disunity? Now he knew what he would preach if he ever got another chance: education for unity. Unity for political freedom. For a time this vision made his heart glow with expectation and new hope. He quickened his descent, wishing to come to the people and communicate this new vision. Education, Unity, Political Freedom. And then came the doubt. What if they should ask him to give up Nyambura? What if—he did not want to think about it. He would fight for unity and Nyambura was an integral part of that battle. If he lost Nyambura, he too would be lost. He was fighting for his salvation.

  • • •

  Many people had come to the meeting ground. There were women and children and old men who were bewildered by the urgent call they had received from Kinuthia’s messengers. And they came because they wanted to hear what their Teacher had to say and because they had heard things which they could not believe. Most still clung to the vision of the Teacher they knew; the Teacher whom they trusted, in whom they believed, a man they could always follow, anywhere. How could they believe that he would betray them? How could they believe this story about his marrying an uncircumcised girl, a daughter of Joshua, the enemy of the people? Waiyaki had awakened them to new visions, new desires, new aspirations. He had restored to them their dignity as a tribe and he had given them the white man’s education when the missionaries had wanted to deny them that wisdom. Waiyaki had been too clever for them. He had taken the oath of loyalty to the purity of the tribe. That had been an example to all. Could he then go against the oath, could he?

  They waited patiently, the sun’s heat on their bare heads; sweat rolled down their backs. And still they waited. And Kabonyi was there and the elders of the Kiama and the young men of the tribe. And all waited, waited for Waiyaki to come. They nursed their secret thoughts to their hearts and they looked forward to his arrival and they knew that this was the day of trial. Initiation day would be tomorrow on this very ground and tonight would be the night of singing and dancing. Joshua and his followers would sing tonight for their Christ was going to be born tonight. But at the meeting nobody sung, nobody danced. They waited to hear what their Teacher would say.

  And Kabonyi and some of the elders sat in a group separately and trembled with their secret knowledge. Let the people wait. Kabonyi was determined to win or die. For he knew that his victory was the victory of the tribe; that tribe that was now threatened by Waiyaki. And he hated Waiyaki intensely and identified this hatred with the wrath of the tribe against impurity and betrayal. To him then, this was not a personal struggle. It was a continuation of that struggle that had always existed between Makuyu and Kameno. For leaders from Kameno had failed; they had only betrayed people. The ridges would now rise and cry vengeance. Kabonyi felt himself the instrument of that vengeance. He was the savior for whom the people waited. Not that Kabonyi knew exactly where he would lead the people. For he too was grappling with forces awakened in the people. How could he understand that the people did not want to move backward, that the ridges no longer desired their isolation? How could he know that the forces that drove people to yearn for a better day tomorrow, that now gave a new awareness to the people, were like demons, sweeping the whole country, as Mugo had said, from one horizon touching the sea to the other horizon touching the water?

  The sun was going down and people stirred with impatience. Some people, among whom were a group of Joshua’s followers, stood on the hill. They had not yet descended. Miriamu was there. She too thought something was going to happen and she wept for her daughter; and she wept too because she knew she was weak and she could not do anything. And suddenly the people who stood on the hills or up the slope saw big yellow flames emanated by the setting sun. The flames seemed near and far and the trees and the country were caught in the flames. They feared.

  Kinuthia too feared and for a time he had a momentary glimpse of Waiyaki and Nyambura caught in those flames. And he cried and blamed himself because he had failed Waiyaki. Nyambura had been stolen from Waiyaki’s hut and he knew that she was in the hands of Kabonyi and the Kiama. How could he communicate this to Waiyaki? How would Waiyaki take it? He decided to let Waiyaki face the crowd and fight the battle unhampered by his fear for Nyambura. Then from somewhere people began to sing: “He has gone—traitor.” Kinuthia trembled and wondered if Waiyaki would not turn up. If he did not, then Kinuthia’s life would be in danger, for the people’s wrath would turn against him. He sweated with fear as the people cried �
�Seek him out.” It was Kabonyi and his followers who were shouting “traitor.”

  The crowd was big and more people were coming. Then there was a whisper which made everybody rise in excitement: “The Teacher! The Teacher!” Then they sat down again and let Waiyaki pass, his head and broad shoulders indeed caught against the yellow beams that passed through the trees. And he looked powerful and beautiful and they were tense on both sides of the Honia river. Great hush fell over the land as he strode toward a raised piece of ground where the Kiama sat, where his destiny would be decided.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Even Waiyaki was affected by that great hush that fell over the land. He could hear his heart beat and he told himself: I must not fear. And he stood at a raised piece of ground and looked at the people; at their expectant faces and eyes. Salvation shall come from the hills. And he saw that many people had come and had filled up the initiation ground and the slopes of the hills. Some had climbed up trees. A man shall rise and save the people in their hour of need. And he remembered his father, and Mugo wa Kibiro, Wachiori, Kamiri, Gikuyu and Mumbi. And he remembered Kerinyaga as he had seen it that great day with his father. I will look up into the hills from whence cometh my help. Waiyaki prayed that the cold fear that settled in his stomach be removed. Kameno and Makuyu seemed to be staring at him ready to pounce on him. He shall show them the way; he shall lead them.

  Waiyaki realized all too suddenly that this was the hour, the great hour of need. The tribe needed him now. Nyambura needed him now. And he needed himself too. Kabonyi was a destructive element. He did not know the way. But Waiyaki was ready, there to move together with the people, to grope in the dark maybe, but together, searching for the light, looking for the way. And he remembered this was the piece of ground on which he had shed his blood; that too had been an oath. And he was now prepared to defend that soil.

  He began to speak. At first he made a small speech; thanked the people for coming; asked them to bear with him. He had been stunned by the recent development in the hills: hatred and rivalry such as would destroy the people. He outlined his struggles in the service of the people, especially in the now ending year; it was the year that saw the transformation of the hills, a year that had awakened the sleeping lions. He told them of his attempts to get more teachers. He had succeeded although it was a difficult task. But when he came back he was accused by the Kiama of being a traitor. Some people, he said, had gone out at night and were singing that he was a traitor. Let those people now stand in front and accuse him publicly. If he had wronged the ridges, people would know what to do with him.

  A big roar of “The Teacher” greeted his brief speech. Some cried “The Teacher is right,” though they did not know what he was right about. Others cried “Let Kabonyi come forward.” And Kabonyi stood up with dignity. Their unfinished battle was now on.

  He was once a Joshua follower. Now he was the Leader of the Kiama and he lived in Makuyu. He spoke with the authority of a man who knows the secret workings, evil and good, in men’s hearts and in the country. His big accusation was that Waiyaki was unclean. He had thahu and if he continued teaching the people there would be darkness instead of light. When a girl called Muthoni died because she was visited by evil spirits, Waiyaki had taken her to the white man’s hospital in Siriana, and was never cleansed. As he was a leader, his thahu had visited the tribe. It was now for the tribe to take action. For Waiyaki was a greater menace than the people realized. He was in league with the white man, who had brought a secret religion to quieten the people while the land was being grabbed by their brothers. And taxation? Who did not now complain of the heavy taxation imposed on the men and women? He described Waiyaki’s many secret journeys to Siriana under the pretext of getting more teachers for the people. When the Kiama said that people should take arms against the Government Post (it was very small anyway, it would not be difficult to take it) Waiyaki opposed this and cried: “Education! Education!” Will education give us back our land? Let him answer that.

  He sat down. Waiyaki noticed that Kabonyi had carefully avoided any mention of Joshua or Nyambura. Why? He thought that he too would avoid dragging in the name of Nyambura but he would speak of unity. Now, or he would never get another chance.

  Kabonyi’s speech had been greeted first with stony silence and then with murmuring. The sun was slowly going down.

  Waiyaki’s voice was calm and compelling. His eyes shone and anger began to stir in him, for now he knew without any doubt that Kabonyi was determined to see his ruin.

  “What does Kabonyi want?” he asked. “Who first followed the white man and embraced the new faith? Who betrayed the tribe when Makuyu and Kameno and the other ridges could have risen in arms against the white man?”

  He turned to the people and in simple words reminded them of their history. “It was before Agu and Agu, at the beginning of things, that Murungu, the Creator, gave rise to Gikuyu and Mumbi, father and mother of the tribe. He made them stand on the holy ground on top of Kerinyaga and showed them all the land. You remember what he told them; the great Promise that he gave to our ancestors! ‘This land I give to you, O man and woman. It is yours to till, you and your posterity.’ The land was fertile and in it grew all the fruit, and honey was there in plenty. When he brought them to Kameno, they still saw the land was beautiful. They were happy and with content in their hearts followed Murungu to Mukuruwe wa Gathanga, where he kept them. And now we who are the descendants of the nine daughters of Gikuyu and Mumbi are torn with strife and rivalry.”

  He spoke of the great heroes of the tribe and mentioned Demi na Mathathi, Wachiori, Mugo wa Kibiro and Kamiri. He told them of the great victories that these heroes had over the Masai and other enemy tribes.

  “It is because the hills were united that such great victories were possible. People stood together in the hour of need, giving one another the warmth of their contact, the strength of their blood.”

  He told them about Mugo wa Kibiro and his prophecy that there would come a people with clothes like butterflies.

  “But people rejected him. And when the white man came, jealousy stood between Kameno and Makuyu. You would not come together. And you left the white man alone. Now, instead of learning his ways and coming together so that united we may drive him out, Kabonyi and a few others cry for vengeance against Joshua and his followers. That is what I have come to tell you today. We are all children of Mumbi and we must fight together in one political movement, or else we perish and the white man will always be on our back. Can a house divided against itself stand?”

  “No-o-o,” they roared in unison.

  “Then we must stand together. We must end the ancient rivalry.”

  People seemed moved, and when he sat down they rose and, as if of one voice, shouted: “The Teacher! The Teacher!” And when Kabonyi stood to speak, people began to press toward Kabonyi as if animated with the desire to tear him into pieces. And they would have done it and that might have been the end of threats to their teacher, but for Waiyaki, who stopped the crowd. “No! No!” he shouted. “Do not touch him.” It was as if Waiyaki at that moment realized that Kabonyi and the Kiama were also in their way an expression of something felt and desired by the tribe.

  They listened to their Teacher, their savior, as if they would say, We shall never give you up. And Kinuthia thought of moving forward and giving a warning to Waiyaki, but a big fear settled on him, weakening his knees so that he did not move from where he sat. Instead he sought to hide himself in the crowd as if he did not want to be identified with the Teacher. As for Waiyaki, he was amazed because he did not know that he had such power over the people.

  He could not even listen to what Kabonyi was saying about the break with the missions, and about purity. It was only when Kabonyi mentioned something about the oath that Waiyaki grew attentive. And he found that every other person was attentive to Kabonyi, who now spoke with a broken voice, full of grief. To break oath was
one of the most serious crimes that a man could commit. Such a person was doomed to destruction.

  People knew that Waiyaki had taken an oath given by Kiama never to contaminate the tribe with impurity and never to reveal the secrets of the Kiama, secrets which involved the political destiny of the hills. So when Kabonyi said that Waiyaki had broken that oath people roared back “No-o-o.” How could they believe it? How could they believe that Waiyaki was in league with Joshua for the destruction of the ridges? They again shouted “No-o-o!” Waiyaki remembered Nyambura at home and he felt afraid. He wanted to go back to his hut and see if she was safe. Then he wondered about Kinuthia. He had not seen him at the meeting. Maybe he was with Nyambura. He felt relieved and heard Kabonyi’s next words.

  “I can prove to you, beyond any doubts, that he is a Joshua’s man in spite of his oath.”

  They cried “Prove! Prove!” He waited for the confusion to die and then said, “He is marrying his daughter.” Another hush fell over the land before there were cries of “No! Not the Teacher,” and Waiyaki trembled slightly and he waited fearing, yet did not know what he feared. He wanted to rise and speak to the people and tell them about Nyambura and how he had gone to rescue her, but his knees failed him as he saw Nyambura in the gathering twilight, brought by Kamau and two other young men. She was made to stand before the people.