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Patrick Kimani's avatar

The mũthĩrĩgũ songs were both morale booster as well as information broadcasting. Since kikuyu women usually sang as they worked, a certain sgt major nicknamed Gachomo demanded songs extolling his virtues. One sang by my mother’s gang had the refrain, “ sajini-meja Gachomo, gatũri ũngirokua”. The tough women survived the mzungu. I still have my father’s bathibuku:

Kimemia Macharia's avatar

Omg

I forgot to talk about muthiringu. Thanks for mentioning Kimani🙏🏾

Ive written about it here tho

https://hingesoftime.wordpress.com/2024/11/05/colonial-villains-edward-grigg/

Patrick Kimani's avatar

Do we have a repository of the old maumau stories in Kenya? That generation is slowly dying out and our national archives has meager resources and is a joke . Keep up the good work and research. I used JSTOR journals when researching the history of the church from Vasco Da Gama to Bishop Hannington and found some good material in British museum in microfiche ( I know, old tech. 2002). Worth research

Kimemia Macharia's avatar

Maumaum chronicles does a good job of preserving them

Wambura G's avatar

I am loving your work, every bit of it👌

Good work

jean.archived's avatar

I love how well researched this is. And it covered so much.

Kimemia Macharia's avatar

Thanks Jean 🙏🏾🙏🏾