Chapter IX
Anti-Christian Traditions: The War Against Converts

"When they first came, we feared them so strongly that we used to flee into the forest and crouch in hiding as they passed. Later they ceased to be a terror to people, and became truly lovable friends."^[1]
Daudi M'Raria
Early convert, Church of Scotland Mission
Mwimbi

Gikuyu Converts

The first African converts to appear in Meru regions were Gikuyu, often barely of warrior age. Having been baptized in their own region, they were sent on to Meru to preach the new religion until white missionaries arrived. For Gikuyu to proselytize in Meru regions in the first years after British conquest must have required an unusual combination of religious zeal and private courage. It was a time, remember, when the Meru considered the Gikuyu their mortal enemies. Nor were they overawed by blacks who dressed and spoke like whites, dismissing them as Kamuchunku, or "little whites." In that era a Gikuyu in Meru had reason to be fearful.

The first European missionary order to rely entirely on Gikuyu converts within Meru was the Church of Scotland Presbyterian Mission (CSM), subsequently known as the Presbyterian Church of East Africa. The CSM first entered Kenya in 1891, initially settling at Kibwezi, an isolated plateau one hundred miles inland from the coast. At that time the plateau was barely inhabited, and the few Kamba tribespeople with whom the early missionaries came in contact took no interest in the Christian message.

The CSM was delighted, therefore, at the chance to acquire land in the cooler, healthier, and more densely populated Gikuyu highlands. The extension of the railway into those areas, however, triggered a frantic competition for new sites among the missionary orders. In 1902 the

British Church Missionary Society and the Church of Scotland Mission effectively divided the entire highlands, with the British acquiring the western side as its exclusive sphere and the Scots receiving the eastern. Both areas were far too vast for either order to occupy effectively. Notwithstanding, in 1903 the CSM established an initial mission station among the southern Gikuyu (Kikuyu Mission), and in 1908 a second, among the northern Gikuyu (Tumutumu Mission).

By 1912–1913 the British Church Missionary Society had become uncomfortably aware of the sheer magnitude of the region it had claimed, which comprised thousands of square miles and tens of thousands of people. In a burst of generosity it transferred "two sections of the Kikuyu tribes," known as Chuka (now Cuka) and Mwimbi, to the Church of Scotland Mission, asking only that they be occupied immediately by missionaries. The challenge was accepted within weeks. In October 1913, Rev. John W. Arthur, an evangelical and medical missionary from Glasgow, and head of the Church of Scotland mission at Tumutumu, left his Gikuyu region to inspect Cuka-Mwimbi and select a mission station site.^[2]

Accompanied by W. O. Tait, the mission carpenter at Tumutumu, Arthur trekked around Mount Kenya's southern slope, entering Cuka-Mwimbi from the Embu region. On arrival he noted the "first sign of British civilization," the systematic destruction of the great forest barricade that had protected the Cuka from their enemies. The entire structure had been ordered cut down by Orde-Browne in one of his first acts as assistant district commissioner to remind every African that peace was now maintained by England.

Orde-Browne had also established a thriving government station along the Naka River, in the heart of Cuka. By 1913, Fort Naka, as it was called, consisted of a "stone house, log-cabin office, neat compound of twenty clean huts for native soldiers, a couple of broad roads, and an Indian shop."^[3] Orde-Browne proved exceptionally knowledgeable about both the Cuka and Mwimbi peoples, whom he estimated at fifteen thousand and twenty-five thousand, respectively. He then provided Arthur with detailed routes and an expert guide. Over the next few days Arthur visited the villages of Kabandango, Kiambati, Gaitungi, and Mbogore M'Mwendo, whom he described as "paramount chiefs," of Cuka and lower, central, and upper Mwimbi, respectively.^[4] On reflection Arthur selected sites near each of the first three as points on which to launch his mission.

In October 1914 a second CSM expedition entered Cuka-Mwimbi, essentially following the same route as the first.^[5] A tentative decision was made to construct the first station at "Gaitungi's," actually the village of Mwiria ya Mburia in lower Mwimbi. The individual selected to pioneer the effect was Rev. Stanley E. Jones, a medical missionary with several years' experience in Gikuyu. In their isolation, however, the CSM had failed to reckon with the impact of World War I, which had erupted in Europe in August 1914. Within months the conflict had reached East Africa, diverting the energies of every white in Kenya colony. As a result all missionary expansion stopped, as it proved impossible to send even one European to occupy the Cuka-Mwimbi area.

The CSM then shifted strategies, reasoning that a beginning, at least, could be made of carrying on the projected expansion with the aid of Gikuyu converts. At the very least the presence of a staff of "experienced native Christians" would be sufficient to meet government requirements that the missionaries occupy their promised lands.

In October 1915, therefore, a procession of six Gikuyu Christian converts marched bravely out of the Church of Scotland's southern mission, trekking northwest to Cuka-Mwimbi. They were led by Daudi Makumi, then perhaps eighteen years old. Before the conquest he would have been a very junior warrior. Now, his spear had been replaced by a Bible. He was accompanied by Samsoni Maingi, perhaps sixteen years old. Samsoni had been trained in Tumutumu as a medical dresser and was instructed to establish a "hospital" at the new site. Daudi was also accompanied by his wife, Priscilla, her sister, and two other recent converts.^[6] Two "pagan" Gikuyu served as porters to them all, in sharp contrast to the thirty to three hundred that had accompanied their European predecessors.

The trek took seven days, and it is still remembered by those who took part in it as a time of dread. No member of the group was gichiaro (allied) to any Cuka-Mwimbi clan, and each one feared they would be seen as enemies. On arrival, however, they were directed to Mbogore M'Mwendo. The chief informed them that they were now "under his cloak" and thus could proceed to the preselected village of Gaitungi's (Mwiria ya Mburia) and build what they wished.

The "cloak of Mborgore," however, provided them with nothing but protection. They were given just enough land to build three huts. "Not a handful was given to let women hoe their men a garden."^[7] Rather the "little whites" were expected to buy daily food from local Mwimbi,

paying for every bite with the money that was assumed all "whites" would have in endless quantities.

The huts were built—for cash—by Mwimbi labor. In addition Samsoni set up an English tent as a medical dispensary. That done, Daudi set out to preach the word of God. Given the insecurity of his position, Daudi's tactics were quite practical. Rather than either wandering among the villages or trying to lure people into his huts, as had his English and Italian predecessors to the north, he began each day by walking purposefully to the hut of a chief.

On arrival he asked for "readers" and expected each chief to supply them. His best reception came from Mbogore. The chief, as decisive as Daudi, initially welcomed Christianity. Always convinced that European innovations would enhance Mwimbi power, he was quick to honor the convert's request. Mbogore's first response, therefore, was to provide a wooden table, sufficient children to sit around it, and the command that they remain until they all could read. His second reaction was to compel each headman within his Mwimbi region to do the same.

Other chiefs, whether impressed or cowed by Mbogore's decisions, fell hesitantly into line, providing chairs, children, and an occasional older listener. In addition Daudi himself made special efforts to preach among those who came to Samsoni's dispensary for medicine, believing that only the afflicted would consider appeals to a new god.

Daudi's cheerful persistence produced results. He preached only in Gikuyu, a language incomprehensible to the children who had composed his earlier audiences. The language was familiar, however, to those warriors who had worked for whites within Gikuyu-speaking regions. Often, hearing him speak the language, they would stop and listen to his preaching and then return to learn more.

Several of the Ndinguri (elder boys) were also fascinated. To them, Gikuyu was the language of adventure, the door to experiences beyond the tribe. Their goal was to imitate their older brothers, who now earned praise and glory by learning how to work for the whites. "Those who came, of course, were not so much attracted to the new faith as the new learning," but for Daudi it was sufficient that they stayed.^[8] As a Gikuyu, non-European, and relatively young man, he made several adaptations in preaching strategies that might have shocked his dour Scottish sponsors. One change was a decision to restrict his preaching solely to men, perhaps through fear that Mwimbi males might misunderstand his efforts with their women. His message also changed. Assuming—

perhaps unconsciously—the legitimacy and reality of African religious traditions in a way a European of that era would have found impossible, he tried constantly to recast Christian concepts into terms his listeners would understand. As his wife subsequently recalled: " 'What is the difference,' my man [Daudi] would cry, 'between the blood of Ikristo [Christ] and the blood of ndurume [a ram]? As the blood of a dying [sacrificial] ram serves to remove Mugiro [curse, condition of impurity], so does the blood of this white son of God serve to remove sin.'"^[9]

The converts also differed from Western missionaries in their willingness to assume traditional roles within the African community in addition to their labors as the messengers of Christ. Samsoni Maingi, for example, held no illusion about his ability to preach. A quiet man, he refused to march through the villages, preferring to remain near his hospital tent and treat anyone who appeared. Nor would he evangelize as he healed, believing that his work alone would spread the Christian message. Instead, it spread his reputation as a "wonder worker and quick healer," especially after he displayed his skill in minor surgery.^[10] As a result he gradually took on the duties of a circumciser, performing the traditional operation with increasing confidence and thus acquiring a traditional role within the tribe.

Daudi also assumed a traditional role. On occasion he would pass Mwimbi elders meeting in Kiama to resolve a local conflict. More rarely, spokesmen from several localities would assemble to form a council-of-councils. At such times Daudi simply joined the assembly, squatting on the fringes of the gathering with others of his age-set. There he would remain, silently listening to what the elders had to say, as both Gikuyu and Mwimbi tradition required from Meru his age. Many elders found this behavior worthy of their praise, and several chiefs, among them Mbogore, commended him as one who had not yet forgotten that wisdom only comes from listening to elders.

Daudi and Samsoni left Mwimbi after two years, in October 1917, in obedience to CSM policy that required converts to move on regularly. After their departure the demands of war kept the CSM from naming their replacements, and the mission compound was thus unoccupied for two full years. In October 1919, however, Ismaili Wangu, a second CSM convert from Gikuyu, appeared in Mwimbi to take up the work.

Wangu served in upper Mwimbi from 1919 to 1921. He found that Daudi's work had fallen into ruins. The "Wasomaji [readers] had lost their skills, those who listened to Samsoni [preach] had returned to

pagan rituals and even the huts had begun to collapse due to insects and rain."^[11] Nor did the local warriors intend to welcome a new Gikuyu convert. When asked to rebuild the collapsing huts into a Western-style mission compound, they demanded so much money that Wangu felt bound to refuse.

Initially, Wangu was in despair. In November 1919 the rains poured so heavily through what remained of the mission rooftops that his wife and baby "had to live under an umbrella" to survive. For the next few weeks he cajoled and threatened, always to no avail. Finally, he returned to CSM's Gikuyu station in apparent surrender, only to reappear days later with a letter—written by Arthur—for the assistant district commissioner at Cuka. Wangu recalled later: "When I showed this letter to the [assistant] District Commissioner, he read it and looked at me angrily. Then he sent for M'Muga, the oxen-beater, a blanket-policeman known for beating people like oxen. At first I thought I should be beaten, but the District Commissioner told the oxen-beater he should be sleeping in my home [mission compound] until the roofs were secure."^[12] Wangu then returned with the policeman to the mission compound: "On the next day I blew the trumpet—for I had no [church] bell. When the people came, I called out to the warriors, and told them, 'You asked me to give you posho [porridge, slang for money]? Your posho is this policeman.' "^[13] The rebuilding of the mission compound proceeded without further incident.

Enforced completion of the buildings, however, did not ensure they would be filled. For weeks, when Wangu blew his trumpet, no one came. Nor did visits to surrounding villages at first produce results. Wangu soon learned, for example, "never to report in advance to which place [village] I was coming, since whenever I did so, I would arrive to find nobody there."^[14] He found, however, that unannounced appearances transformed him, in local eyes, from alien to guest, and thereby one deserving of traditional courtesies. His welcome was also enhanced by descriptions of his intended work. Perhaps unconsciously, he emphasized that he had come to teach young men to read. Only incidentally did he mention a second aim, which was to teach all men the word of God.

Such statements did make Wangu friends. Over time a tiny group (ten to thirty people) began to respond to his trumpet calls, straggling to the mission for chanted prayers, a little sermon, and, for those who stayed, the chance to read. As in European missions to the Meru north, Wangu's listeners were mostly younger children with a sprinkling of elder boys.

Surprisingly, Wangu also drew several girls, a development that was less a reflection of their desire to become readers than of the unsettled times in which they lived. The years 1919–1921 brought drought and famine, when the harvest of sufficient grain meant life or death. In consequence chiefs throughout Mwimbi sought more girls than ever to labor in their farmlands, a practice also imitated by their personal retainers and one that increasingly required the girls' attendance overnight. Wangu responded by offering overnight shelter from such obligations to those few girls who came to him as readers. If the girls' fathers objected in their turn and seized his pupils, Wangu went after them by force.

The test of Wangu's power to protect his pupils came in 1921. A chief from lower Mwimbi, M'Kiambati, became incensed at what he perceived as the "flight" of several youngsters working on his farmland to the safety of the CSM in upper Mwimbi. With the support of several other chiefs he lodged charges against Wangu, accusing him of shielding youths of both sexes from government-required labor and advising them not to pay their hut tax. The charges were backed by Kithamba Kirume, a lower Mwimbi government servant. If proved, they were intended to provoke Wangu's dismissal and the closing of the CSM station.

Wangu, a man capable both of great anger and considerable eloquence, argues his case with skill, carefully presenting arguments phrased in a way he believed the district commissioner would understand. His opponent based his counterarguments on Meru tradition, citing precedents in Meru oral law that the district commissioner failed entirely to comprehend. Finally, the district commissioner settled the issue.

He stood and asked each chief in turn, if they had children in [Wangu's] school. Each assured they did not. He then asked if men could join a cow-case [a case in which the ownership of a cow came into dispute] if they themselves owned no cow. Each answered they could not. If no man joins a cow-case without a cow, then no man joins a school case without a child in school.^[15]

Chief M'Kiambati was fined the then staggering sum of sixty shillings and a goat. Thereafter no chief dared raise his voice against the mission.

Despite winning such battles, however, the converts never won their war. Over time both Daudi and Wangu became part of the colonial structure. Unwelcome among the population at large, they were able to operate only through protection of the chiefs, and ultimately the colonial administration. Politically, their initial acceptance came from

feelings held not only by Mbogore but also several of his comrades that the Mwimbi were being left behind by other regions, notably Embu and Imenti, because of their high number of white officials. These Mwimbi were at least partially convinced that whites of their own were required to restore the balance. They were thus understandably distressed at the decision of both Catholic and Methodist missions to expand to the north rather than into their area. To counter this trend, they sought a mission of their own and were happy to accept Gikuyu converts as long as whites would eventually appear.

In religious terms, however, the impact of these Gikuyu converts was almost nonexistent. Too few responded to their message. Though several youths learned to sing and pray, and a few began to read, no one converted. Nor were even the most avid forced to change the rhythm of their lives in ways disruptive to the community. No one intimidated the few who came to read; no one cursed, ostracized, beat, taunted, or obstructed them in any way. The Mwimbi's basic reaction to the Gikuyu converts was one of apathy. Between 1915 and 1921 they proved almost wholly indifferent to both the new faith and the new knowledge that seemed so little relevant to their communal lives.

The Scotsmen

The ministers at the Church of Scotland's Gikuyu missions were only too aware that their Gikuyu converts' failure at the Mwimbi station had been matched in Cuka, where a site had been developed at Chief Kabandango's camp, two miles from the protection of Fort Naka, Orde-Browne's district headquarters. It seemed ideally placed. Nonetheless, it was abandoned after only a few months, having drawn the attention of only a single Cuka boy.

By late 1919 the successful end of war in both East Africa and Europe drew government attention to the missions once again. By 1920 the CSM received official notice that its sphere in Cuka-Mwimbi had to be occupied by at least one European missionary within the next few months, or the area would be transferred to another mission. As an inducement the colonial government offered to donate all of the existing buildings that made up Fort Naka—including Orde-Browne's well-built stone house—to the CSM for use as a base, the government having decided to move its own Cuka operation to another site. The cost to the CSM was to be £800, at that time a relatively nominal sum.

Arthur responded to the government's offer with a plea to England for funds. None proved forthcoming. The Fort Naka purchase was abandoned, and consideration was also given to abandoning the entire Cuka-Mwimbi salient as well. At this point a financial sponsor appeared—from a quite unanticipated source—offering funds sufficient for a whole new start in Mwimbi.

The sponsor was Ernest Carr, a wealthy Nairobi contractor. At the war's end his daughter had married Dr. A. Clive Irvine, a medical missionary, who had joined the CSM at Tumutumu in July 1919.^[16] Irvine had grown up in Liverpool, where his father had served as a Presbyterian minister. A young man of both intelligence and energy, he had obtained degrees in both the arts and medicine at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland.

In 1917 he joined the British armed forces as a medical officer and was posted to the former German East Africa (Tanganyika), where he served for the next two years with the ammunition column service of the Camel Corps. As a medical officer his work brought him into frequent contact with African porters (karia , or carriers), men drawn from among tribes in Kenya and Uganda.

Many of the karia were from Mount Kenya's highlands, and the two years gave Irvine a solid base in what then was known as "native medicine," as well as language fluency in both Swahili and Gikuyu. As the war ended, Irvine met Arthur, who described the work of the CSM within Gikuyu and invited him to join. Irvine accepted, taking temporary charge of medical work late in 1920 at Tumutumu Mission, where he married the daughter of Ernest Carr.

Carr's subsequent financial offer electrified the entire mission. In the winter of 1921 he offered to finance the entire Cuka-Mwimbi missionary effort by guaranteeing £1,000 per year over the first five years of the station's life. The sum granted for the first few months could be used to survey and select a suitable site. Funds thereafter would be allocated for construction of a house, hospital, school, industrial (carpenter's) workshop, and whatever other buildings might be required to operate in modern style. Electricity and running water were to be provided as required. In short it was to be a missionary's dream station, and thus the envy of its Methodist and Catholic competition. In return Irvine had only to agree to occupy the site for the entire period, take charge of its activities, and tour the United Kingdom as the five years ended to raise funds to continue the work.

Irvine and his wife were in England when Carr made his offer, having completed two years' work in Tumutumu and gone on leave. They accepted within hours and made immediate plans to return. Meanwhile Carr himself joined forces with Arthur to trek into the Cuka-Mwimbi region in January 1922 to select a site. Accompanied by both the provincial commissioner of Gikuyu and the district commissioner of Embu, they followed the same route Arthur had chosen during his pioneer venture into Cuka-Mwimbi in 1915.

The chiefs of Cuka and lower and upper Mwimbi were visited in turn. Kabandango's Cuka region was rejected out of hand, as was the lower Mwimbi chiefdom of M'Kiambati. Surprisingly, Arthur also decided to abandon the upper Mwimbi mission at Gaitangi's (Mwiria ya Mburia), where both Daudi Makumi and Ismaili Wangu had labored with such diligence the previous four years. Instead the group trekked uphill toward Mbogore's headquarters near the lower edge of the black forest.

Mbogore greeted them with enthusiasm, indicating a fertile site along the Maara River and thus adjacent to his administrative camp. The party was more impressed, however, with a second, lower site along the Kamaara (Little Maara) River, downhill from Mbogore's village and thus much closer to the geographic center of Mwimbi itself. The site, now known as Chogoria, was comparatively near the Horne Road (named for E. B. Horne) that connected Mwimbi both to Meru and Embu district headquarters. More important, it possessed a striking waterfall that could provide not only irrigation but also hydroelectricity and thus assure the mission's further growth.

The whites were jubilant. Mbogore was appalled. His own plan called for the mission's location to be in or near his camp, where he could supervise and thereby benefit from its activities. He argued forcefully with Arthur for the higher site, describing with some accuracy the relative poverty of soil in the lower area, as well as the presence of malevolent spirits in the nearby forest glades. Arthur, however, fully aware of Mbogore's intentions, firmly insisted on the Chogoria site.

Work completed, Arthur and Carr left Mwimbi to return to their respective posts. Before departure, however, they left Mbogore with extensive instructions. Within a few weeks tribal policemen were sent to round up laborers from every location in Mwimbi. These were put to work constructing simple bridges across that region's racing rivers in anticipation of the coming rains.^[17]

A few days after the bridges' completion a massive caravan of seventy-four carts arrived in April 1922, each hauled painfully across the rising rivers by stumbling teams of oxen. Within the carts were materials sufficient to construct a modern house, hospital, school, sheds, and whatever else the Irvines might require: "It was indeed a missionary's dream station. There was none of the struggling along with inadequate buildings and equipment. . . Everything was planned and provided beforehand, ready for the work to go ahead."^[18]

The construction was completed by September 1922. On 12 October a single ox wagon arrived containing Dr. and Mrs. Irvine and a newborn son.^[19] Irvine plunged into his work with exceptional enthusiasm; the very next morning tribal police were sent around to the local villages urging "anyone who sought shillings to come and work for the new white man." The response was enormous. A large proportion of the former warriors had worked for whites in more than one capacity, either as karia of ammunition or on the coffee farms emerging near Nairobi. Many who were warriors at that time recall their fear that the new white man would "seize them and put them in a school."^[20] Nonetheless, by 1922 the need for money had become universal, and Irvine had his pick of eager workers.

A man of unflagging zeal, Irvine worked unceasingly to earn a welcome from his hosts. The people in his immediate area were poor. Many had been forced to flee from the drought, famines, diseases, and locusts that had ravaged the area. Others had been strong-armed into the Carrier Corps and had never returned. As a result land in much of the Chogoria region had reverted to bush, often simply for lack of men to clear it. The remaining population was therefore forced to struggle not only with poor soil but also constant depredation from bands of bush pigs, which raided the farm plots each night. Irvine earned the gratitude of many Mwimbi by waging war against the pigs with strychnine, poisoning them in sufficient numbers to reduce the problem.

The missionary also made full use of Western medical knowledge. Unlike Samsoni Maingi, who preferred to heal the sick in silence, Irvine interpreted his healing mission as a major portion of his work for Christ. He was particularly fortunate to have arrived in Mwimbi when several of its more visible diseases proved amenable to new discoveries in Western medicine. One of the more striking examples was yaws, a condition in which the legs and lower body are covered with open, gaping sores.

Irvine believed that almost half of the Mwimbi population showed symptoms of the disease. In 1917, French scientists had developed a medicine known as Galyl, based on arsenic. By 1920 the treatment was available in East Africa. Irvine had previously used it to treat yaws among the Gikuyu. Drawing from that experience, he brought to Mwimbi vast quantities of the compound, which he used with conspicuous success.

Irvine wasted no chance to demonstrate the relative effectiveness of his medicines in contrast with those of the "witch doctors." When possible, he competed directly with local ritualists, contests in which the latter did indeed come off second best. As a result many of the aged who had previously enjoyed both financial security and community standing as healers became increasingly subject to verbal taunts and even physical abuse from youths influenced by Irvine. This abuse was sometimes so intense that the healers were virtually sent fleeing from the very homesteads where they had once practiced their skills.

Irvine proved equally enthusiastic in his attacks on the concept of Mugiro, or the ritual curse. As a doctor he inquired often about what the Mwimbi themselves believed to be the causes of the various illnesses that beset them. As a missionary he was both amused and angered by their continued assertions that almost every form of illness was the direct result of a curse having been ritually placed upon the sufferer, either by an ancestral spirit or a living person with whom the afflicted individual was in conflict.

Irvine lost no opportunity to convince those youths with whom he came most frequently into contact that they no longer had to fear either curses or the ancestral spirits believed to have imposed them. His central argument was that faith in Christ was like a shield, protecting Christians from the curses cast against them as they advanced against their enemies. To dramatize his point, he bid them enter with him into the spirit forests (sacred groves) in which ancestral spirits were believed to live.

These forest groves had been considered sacred to spirits for generations. No living person was allowed within one, whether by intent or accident. Those who strayed incurred an automatic curse that could be removed only by intercession of the proper ritualists, who would require sacrifice of livestock to appease the spirits involved.

The spirit forest closest to Irvine's rising mission at Chogoria was called Muriru. In it was a pond, welling up between two huge rocks, which was believed to be the opening through which the ancestors en-

tered the grove itself. Upon hearing of it, Irvine entered the forest and blocked off the pond with stones, thereby symbolically locking the spirits into the ground. He then invited the small number of youths who had accompanied him to gather that night's firewood from within the grove itself.

This pattern was repeated in at least two other sacred areas, the groves of Gikarangu and Iiga via Mukuri.^[21] Irvine may also have visited others. In each case the destruction was essentially symbolic rather than physical. In each case people from the surrounding localities waited for the ancestors' retribution against those who had desecrated their homes.

Irvine, aware of their expectations, taught those accompanying him to shield themselves against the fear of either illness or calamity by using Western rites of prayer. "The spirits [fear] could be kept at bay, he reassured them, simply by calling out to Jesus as their shield, then believing He would guard them."^[22] Each day that illness or calamity failed to strike, Irvine led them in mass prayers of thanksgiving, reassuring them that continued righteous conduct would cause Jesus to shield them throughout this life and beyond it, into heaven. On those occasions when someone did fall sick, Irvine usually effected a cure with Western medicines. As belief in the new faith took root, the converts themselves began to enter the sacred groves, deliberately felling the ancient trees and, with them, a tradition that had endured for generations.

It was not the new faith that drew people to Irvine, however, but the new learning. By the early 1920s many youths had become interested in acquiring an entire range of European skills. Informants now recall with amusement the intensity of their boyhood desires to "speak through their noses like White men" or "talk the same tongue as a book."^[23] More realistically, they were also aware that mastery of reading might lead to jobs within the colonial economy that could earn enough not only to pay taxes but also to purchase European goods.

In striving to acquire this new knowledge, however, these youths were exposed to the new faith, which began to attract them as well. Irvine sought to meet both needs. Those who sought work during the construction of his mission were initially required to participate in twice-daily prayers, at dawn and dusk. The evening prayer sessions were then extended to include instruction. Irvine began with stories from those sections of the Bible that he felt might most appeal to youths and warriors. His sermons, woven around the biblical selections, were

in Gikuyu, the language in which he was most fluent. Inadvertently, Irvine had chosen a language unknown to Meru women, which had the effect of restricting his audiences to young males. To his listeners, however, the language was "secret," in that it spoke of things that they felt were suitable only to men. Thus, the number of listeners grew.

Eventually, the telling of biblical tales was broadened, in turn, to include an introduction to reading. At this point evening sessions were no longer of use, and special messengers were sent out to nearby villages with a school proclamation inviting anyone who wished to come and learn. Few came, but enough for Irvine to decide school could begin.

The first school teacher was Daudi Makumi, recruited from the Kikuyu Mission to take up the work he had begun with such enthusiasm back in 1915. The first group of readers fluctuated between five and ten.^[24] For every youth that came, however, there were many others who wished they dared. On one hand they too were fascinated by the Europeans' knowledge and the sudden opportunities it seemed to offer in a world beyond the walls of their homeland. On the other they feared the scorn, contempt, and ridicule that would be heaped upon them by their age-mates, kin, and indirectly, every member of the tribe. One informant recalled: "One needed to be bold enough—just not care about people insulting you. I myself would have gone to school if it were not for those people who were laughing at others. Almost everyone was laughing at the Wasomaji [readers], insulting them, calling them names, and singing songs against them. In fact, at first I was among those who sang the songs."^[25]

Protestants And Catholics: Opposing The Faith

Not once did the ruling elders of any Meru region act in defense of their religious traditions. Not once did the highest Kiamas, whether in Cuka-Mwimbi, Imenti, or the north, speak out against the new religions, even when the sacred groves were desecrated and their ritualists abused. In theory the regional Kiama systems could have provided a relatively centralized base from which to mount a campaign against the first intruders, or at least an appeal to colonial authority. In fact the very existence of these systems immobilized the age-set that should have been the most involved.

Since all Kiamas were ruled by tradition, they resolved conflict by applying precedents from the ancestral past. For generations, men of

the mainstream had responded to deviance by publicly ostracizing deviants. By refusing to share rituals with men of the fringe, a Kiama of ruling elders could deny them all status within mainstream society. This pattern of exclusion had begun with the hunters and ironsmiths, at the time of the Meru beginnings. It had extended, successfully, through the appearance of each deviant form of Kiama. Each had remained on society's fringe.

Now, perceiving the various missionaries and their few converts as nothing more than new forms of fringemen, elders applied tradition once more. By ignoring the new religions, they could deny them status in the same way as they had the old. Better, by relegating them to insignificant positions on the Meru social fringe, they would be following tradition. This decided, the ruling elders were content.

The family heads/apprentice elders felt less secure. It was not the destruction of sacred groves that generated apprehension but the construction of schools. Their very appearance interrupted patterns of normal existence in homesteads nearby. Custom did permit children to assemble, chant, and listen to stories, but only when they lacked work. In Meru that meant at sundown, after days spent tending the family flocks. European custom, however, restricted school to daylight hours, especially when students began reading. In addition once students had begun, they were expected to remain. Absences were not allowed, even for family chores.

Under such circumstances conflict between mission youths and their families was inevitable. The issue was not one of faith but of how they spent their time. For elder boys the schools could be irresistible alternatives to the monotony of daily chores, but the loss of their labor could cause great concern if families were threatened by famine. Absence from work also suggested deviant behavior, which if not corrected could shame every member of the youngster's clan.

In many instances, therefore, the mothers of the so-called mission boys reacted first to their sons' absences. Women in certain localities became so frightened that they spread increasingly fearful rumors. In Mwimbi, Imenti, and Igembe, for example, women who had watched medical personnel perform simple surgery decided the Christians were cannibals, who caused blood to flow in order to drink it.

More often, however, the mothers turned to tears, appearing at the Catholic or Protestant mission compounds to implore their sons to give up "madness" (deviance) and return to normal, traditional lives. This pleading became particularly intense when a mission boy fell sick.

One informant recalled: "When my mother heard I was sick, she came to stand at the window near my [hospital] bed, weeping and asking,. . . 'Child, how can you wait for death in a hut of sickness [the hospital] when you can come home to a Muga [curse remover] and be made well?' "^[26]

Frequently, the women's tears triggered their husbands' anger. In both Catholic and Protestant regions family heads would silently appear before a mission school hut to lead their sons away. Shortly thereafter at least some of the Ndinguri would return. Angered, the family heads would appeal to their Kiama. In several instances the ruling elders responded by sending a contingent of warriors—now armed only with the power of tradition—to seize the errant youths. The warriors would appear before a school hut, their very presence an unspoken command that every boy be off to work. Overawed, the mission boys would flee. Thereafter the warriors stood guard, "protecting" the compound against the boys' return, until ordered off by a missionary's hasty appeal to the district commissioner.

The family heads became more hostile, however, when school attendance and the consequent loss of labor became permanent. Elder boys, in particular, had specific responsibilities toward their kin, age-mates, and the existing warrior age-set. To avoid these by flight into a school hut was perceived as a return to "smaller boyhood." With few exceptions, therefore, family heads reacted to the deviance of those sons approaching warriorhood with curses, kicks, and beatings. As one early convert recalled: "He [my father] cursed me as a Mwiji [small boy: a deep insult], shouting that he had many cows that I could tend instead of lying idle like a child and hearing endless tales."^[27]

Other fathers proved even less gentle, publicly expelling a son from the homestead, declaring that he "had been spoilt for manhood and had become no longer worthy of receiving cows to help him marry."^[28] Converts treated in this fashion lost all contact with both age-mates and kin. The loss, traumatic within any society, was terrifying to youths raised in a communal setting, and one that sent them swiftly into the Christian embrace.

Hostility also appeared among family heads who had become chiefs. Once again the issue was the converts' obligation to labor during the time they wished to spend in school. Angry at the emergence of a group seeking to avoid communal obligations, they saw the mission youths as threatening their power. In Mwimbi, for example, the conflict centered around Chief Mbogore. Initially receptive to a mission within his

district, he developed a deep respect for Irvine. He was shocked, therefore, once Irvine had established himself, to learn that the missionary had requested that every boy within the mission be freed from work on Sundays.

As always Mbogore's actions were decisive. In late 1922 and several times thereafter he appeared personally at the Church of Scotland mission compound, "arrested" every student he could find, put them to work within his camp, and subsequently freed them only on their pledge never to disobey his orders. Each time, the students marched directly back to the mission, Irvine would protest to an official, and the status quo would be restored. The pattern was similar in other districts, as chiefs from Igoji to Igembe tried to preserve their right to make the converts work. Because they always failed, they grew more hostile to the rising Christian power.

Warriors Versus Elder Boys: The War Against Conversion

The warriors, however, actually spearheaded resistance against the missions. Their antagonism was communal. It erupted only when it became clear that members of the set approaching military age might join the Christians rather than themselves. To them it was once again a question of tradition. Elder boys supplied the one remaining challenge of their warriorhood: training them to assume their future duties. To permit them to evade the tasks assigned them by tradition was a threat to warriorhood itself.

Initially no force was used against potential deviants. Rather, warriors throughout Meru chose to shame the mission schoolers with bursts of song. Imenti war bands, for example, taunted Methodist and Catholic insistence on shearing the magnificent red warrior braid: "Who is the hairless animal? Who is the fearful animal? It is the mission boy."^[29] In Mwimbi potential converts were taunted with the striped-mouse song: "Your little heads are shaved [in stripes], making you seem [striped] just like the mouse. You mission warriors."^[30] In Igoji: "Why do you shave your heads so that you look like mission fools? Why do you dance [in Western fashion] so that you look like mission fools?"^[31]

Other songs derided mission boys as "termite eaters," referring to the insect eaten only by small boys. Still others referred to "egg eaters" and "bean eaters" (women) or "wild game eaters" (A-Athi hunters).

Another type of song was sung to girls, although intended for the ears of converts. It derided girls who looked at "mission warriors," warning that those who married them would spend their lives on their knees (i.e., in prayer).

Warriors also responded to the deviants by using no song at all, or by musical ostracism. As converts approached a village or simply passed a war band, all song would die, only to start up once more after they had passed. To many converts this was worse than taunting, and several now remember wondering if they would ever sing again.

Warriors also showed their antagonism through dance. In Igoji for example, the Mujwa Catholic mission had been founded on a warriors' dancing field. Although angered, the warriors of that area took no action until several years later, when one of their potential members decided to join the church. His loss, from their perspective, meant one less participant in their dances and one less homestead from which to gather the food that made each dance into a joyous feast. All too suddenly the warriors saw the future: if one was allowed to be lost to their ranks, others would follow.

Aware of the missionaries' distaste for male nakedness, the warriors gathered to perform what priests within the mission subsequently described as "dirty dances." In fact they carried out a last magnificent Authi, or dance of the battle vows. One by one the warriors bounded across the dancing field to within inches of the mission door. Naked except for the short goatskin cloaks across their shoulders, and holding fighting sticks as substitutes for the now forbidden spears, they shouted out their battle vows as if the whites had never come. In the past they would have sworn never to return to their homesteads unless with captured herds. Under colonialism they swore never to leave the dancing field until every comrade within the mission rejoined their ranks. Then, completing their ritual, they dispersed to their homes. There was nothing more to be done.^[32]

Warriors might dance their disapproval of Christian converts more directly. For example, those of the Maua region in Igembe were both scandalized and angered by the appearance of Samsoni M'Mutiga, an Imenti convert to Methodism. From their perspective M'Mutiga was clearly of warrior age, thus entitled to join their ranks. Yet be behaved like an "uncircumcised boy." Rather than come to the war hut, as tradition demanded of age-mates, he went straight to the chief's camp, demanding "children to teach."^[33] The warriors responded by proclaiming a night of Authi, inviting both M'Mutiga and the chief to share in the battle vows.

Upon his arrival the young convert was horrified to learn that the entire Authi was directed against him. Warrior after warrior, clad only in skin cloak, shield, and fighting stick, bounded across the dancing field directly at the beleaguered Christian. Standing inches away, each threatened him in turn, hurling insults, obscenities, and battle oaths instead of spears: "If I scratch my ribs [draw the sword that hangs by the ribs], oh man-of-the-coast [a Swahili, or non-Meru, i.e., an insult], you would no longer like me [i.e., you would die]."^[34]

Each time a warrior raised his arm to strike, the chief ordered him back. Abandoning tradition, the warriors halted, then danced and converged on the chief, their cries shifting from symbolic insults to specific complaints: "Why does man-of-the-coast [M'Mutiga] shame our warriorhood by wearing women's [Western] clothes? Why does man-of-the-coast shame our warriorhood by speaking softly to children [to whom warriors only barked orders]? Why does man-of-the-coast shame our warriorhood by giving children sugar [to lure them to school]?"^[35]

As M'Mutiga now recalls it, the ordeal seemed to last forever. From the perspective of tradition each charge was true. The chief, also of warrior age, admitted the justice of their cause but was helpless. In fact, caught between his own traditions and those of colonial Kenya, he could do nothing but assure M'Mutigi of his protection. Blocked by the power of both the colonial administration and the mission, the warriors could only dance out their rage.

Warrior bands in other regions, however, proved more adept at striking back at those who chose the mission over the war hut. As early as 1912, Imenti warriors near Ka-Aga had grown particularly enraged by the appearance of aggressive bands of converts within their villages, a pattern that was repeated in localities near every other mission station within the next decade.

Initially these youths appeared in timid groups of three to five, silently accompanying their priest or minister as he preached. As they gained courage, the converts would fan out around their leader, exhorting everyone they found to come and hear his message. Inevitably, as their numbers and courage grew, certain of the converts tried to "extend the work of God" by beating the traditional Meru ritualists and destroying the goatskin bags in which they stored their magic.

Now, we church boys often used to extend the work of God by beating the Aga [ritual healers] and Aragoli [diviners]. We would find them practicing

their rituals, . . . and because we feared them we beat them with long sticks. Then we seized the [antelope horns in which they kept their magic] and threw them in the Kazita [Rivers], as Kangangi [E. B. Horne] himself had done.^[36]

The missionaries strongly disavowed such actions, but a single incident of what was viewed as the converts' arrogance could enrage an entire community. Fear of the missionary inevitably kept the warriors from striking back directly, but many soon developed ways to revenge themselves upon the converts by playing tricks upon them as they preached and prayed. One favored trick was to wait until the converts knelt and closed their eyes in prayer. Knowing they would be forced to complete the entire prayer before rising, a single warrior would slip forward and slash their Western clothes.

Converts also learned they could no longer return to their villages for brief periods to take up traditional pursuits. One of the early Methodists, for example, soon realized that each time he returned to his village warriors were awaiting him. He was never harmed, but when he began to herd his family's goats, the warriors would run them off and scatter them in the bush. Eventually, to preserve the animals, he was forced to give up herding them.^[37]

Warriors also sometimes forgot traditional restraints and attacked individual converts outright. In 1912, for example, a single warrior, drunk and angry, began to beat three of the Ka-Aga mission converts with the shaft of a spear, calling them "Biiji," or uncircumcised boys, always a deadly insult. The three instantly abandoned their Christian training and attacked him in turn, thereby also violating the Meru tradition that permitted warriors to beat elder boys at will.^[38] The violation deeply angered the warrior's age-mates, who felt the honor of their age-set had been compromised. Thereafter, they waged covert war against converted elder boys.

Unfortunately, certain types of conflict between converts and warriors were not only unavoidable but repetitive. Meru tradition required both groups to play out certain roles against each other, as the younger boys approached their time of warriorhood. Christian tradition called for other roles. Caught between the two, neither warriors nor converts proved able to give way.

One illustration of the impasse occurred each Sunday morning in front of the Methodist mission. Before each service Worthington would send his little band of converts onto a path that ran before the church. This was also the route taken by local warriors as they drove the family

herds to water. Acting solely from an English perspective, Worthington asked his converts to stop the passing warriors and urge them to come to church.

The request was wholly suited for their Christian roles, yet entirely at variance with their role as elder boys. As Ndinguri they were required by tradition to display exaggerated forms of respect to warriors, thereby avoiding conflict. One of the most widely practiced of these customs called for every boy to race into the bush and crouch and hide at the sight of an approaching warrior. In war the custom cleared the paths for raiders. In peace it reinforced warrior status in the minds of those who would one day assume the role themselves.

Trapped between the demands of two conflicting cultures, the converts opted for Christianity, appearing each Sunday to coax warriors into the church, often even trying to block their way. This double violation of traditions permitted the warriors to overwhelm and beat recalcitrant Ndinguri with the flat of their spears or swords, yet they dared not display their rightful power against the converts without risking retaliation by the whites.

The converts, moreover, were not slow to exploit what they perceived to be a favorable situation. Secure within the mission's shadow, they asked permission to play at the conclusion of each service upon a field that once had been the local warrior dancing ground. Once more, when warriors raced to reclaim their field, the converts refused to flee. Once more, no warrior dared strike, yet to evade the Ndinguri challenge meant abandoning the purpose of their warriorhood.

Meeting collectively within their war hut, the Ka-Aga warriors decided to restore the proper social order. Following tradition, they felt this should be done by arranging for the circumcision of every convert, thereby transforming them into warriors whom they could welcome into their ranks. Their intent was wholly benevolent: to end the conflict once and for all. The pain of the impending circumcision was to remind the converts, finally, of whom they were, driving out the boyish foolishness that had led them into foreign ways.

As the first step in the circumcision ritual, however, the warriors collectively demanded that every convert leave his mission labors and begin to brew great quantities of millet beer. That task was long, tedious, and "shameful," in that it was usually reserved for women. Nonetheless, once completed, the product was considered the "beer of [the brewers' own] circumcision" and was delivered to the warriors with considerable pride. The warriors, forbidden by their own tradition to

touch alcohol, passed the beer on to the Ndinguris' elders, who consumed it while deciding on the circumcision date.

Unfortunately, the converts refused to brew beer, following Methodist tradition that decried alcoholic consumption as sinful. Their refusal caused utter consternation among the warriors. By refusing to take the initial step, the boys were rejecting warriorhood itself, a situation utterly without precedent within Meru tradition.

Totally baffled, the warriors retired into the bush for further deliberation. By August 1913, existing evidence suggests, they had decided that the converts had become Arogi, or cursers, and thus a danger to the community. In consequence the warriors decided to invoke the punishment traditionally given only to men who have acted repeatedly and destructively to curse others with malicious intent. The converts were to be wrapped in banana leaves and burned.

Unwittingly, Worthington himself set the stage. By January 1913 the number of converts had reached eleven. By July of that year, the conflict between them and the warriors of Ka-Aga had reached such proportions that the converts were virtually isolated on the mission ground. There they lived within the "schoolers' dormitory," a pseudo-war hut composed of wooden poles, papyrus reeds, and dry banana leaves.

In early August 1913, Worthington left Meru for Nairobi, leaving Mimmack in charge of the converts' schooling. Emboldened by his absence, several warriors silently appeared outside the schoolers' hut around 4 A.M. , the traditional predawn period for a raid. All eleven converts were asleep in the hut, as well as one or two of the Gikuyu who had accompanied Worthington to Meru at the mission's inception.

Survivors of that night still wonder at the anger shown by the raiders. Silently binding the door shut with a vine, they first piled wood across the opening, blocking it shut. Then, they set the pile afire. The first two youths to realize what had happened were Filipo M'Inoti and Wanjoe, the Gikuyu cook. Their shouts awakened the other converts, who rushed for the door.

The fire, of course, had been laid at the door to prevent their escape. Worse, a wind whipped up the initial blaze so that it spread instantaneously along the roof and walls, igniting the papyrus and banana leaves. Within a few seconds, or so it seemed to those inside, the entire hut was aflame.

Inside, the hut filled instantly with choking smoke. Several boys lost their direction, groping blindly for where they thought the door would be, then finding only the tightly interwoven poles, each bound with pa-

pyrus, that formed the structure's frame. Next, the poles themselves began to burn, dropping onto the screaming boys' heads and shoulders, then burning them once more as they rolled underfoot. At this point they were consumed by terror, making any unified action such as charging a single point in the wall no longer possible: "We were like frightened buffaloes charging and stumbling against one another, as each shouted out what the other should do."^[39]

At some point the vine that held the door shut must have burned away, allowing an opening to appear. Seeing it, Filipo M'Inoti lunged toward it with all his strength, bursting through the entire structure to safety. The others followed, still screaming at the pain of their burns, as M'Inoti led the group at a run toward the mission cabin and the protection of Frank Mimmack.

Mimmack, deeply shaken and more than a little fearful of an attack on the mission itself, did his best to treat the boys' burns, but five of the eleven boys died. The district officers, of course, launched an immediate investigation but were met with a wall of silence, as warriors and elders alike expressed their ignorance of the deed.

Neither the local Kiama nor the Imenti Njuri were consulted by colonial officials. In fact members of either council could easily have identified the culprits simply by placing their collective curse upon anyone who had harmed the elder boys. Those involved would have then succumbed to combinations of mental anxiety and physical illness of such severity as to force them to seek the assistance of ritualists. In publicly lifting the curse, of course, they would have openly admitted their guilt. Before the conquest the incident would have been settled by the transfer of livestock from their fathers' herds to those of the victims' kin. In 1913, discovery meant imprisonment and death by hanging.

Neither of the elders' councils took this course. From their perspective the warriors had acted to preserve tradition. The behavior of the converts, through their contact with white men, had become so deviant that it endangered the very framework of a social order that had always based its sense of identity on an orderly division of its members into age-sets. For members of one set to refuse passage upward into the next was a deviation of such magnitude that it endangered the entire structure.

Tradition permitted the execution of deviants when they threatened society. In the past these had usually been Arogi, cursers who repeatedly abused their powers beyond a community's capacity to bear. In such cases the individual was cloaked in dry banana leaves and set afire. In

1913 the acts of the Christian converts had become too deviant for local warriors. They had tried to resolve the problem in the same way. Their elders may even have agreed with the decision. In consequence the guilty went unpunished so that warriorhood might survive.

The Christian Islands

In the face of such overt hostility, some converts abandoned the Christian faith and returned to both ancestral tradition and their former communal way of living. To prevent this, Catholic and Protestant missionaries alike realized that their missions must become "Christian islands," in isolation from the surrounding tribal sea, if they were to survive.

The concept of a Christian island was a departure from earlier visions in which Catholics and Protestants saw themselves as embracing Africans with open arms. It was not, however, without precedent in colonial Kenya. During earlier colonial decades, pioneer colonial administrators had soon realized they would require "Western islands" of their own to ease the strain of daily contact with an alien culture. At a physical level they needed "health islands," within which European standards of sanitation and hygiene could be imposed to minimize the risk of tropical disease. At a psychological level they created "social islands," usually in the form of private clubs, where officials could relax and act "like Englishmen."

The missionaries, beset with similar problems, were quick to follow suit. The shift from open arms to Christian island was partially financially motivated. No Meru mission, Protestant or Catholic, proved able to operate within a predetermined budget. Thus each appealed continually to its sponsors for more funds, often without success. To lighten their financial burdens, most missions, particularly Catholic, urged converts as they reached the age of marriage to settle around their respective stations, where the harvests they produced could contribute to their Christian faith. Often, this meant estrangement and growing isolation from their kin.

The Christian island was primarily intended, however, to permit missionaries to shield their fragile followers from both temptation and harassment. In addition it was meant to offer solace for the often devastating loneliness that came to every convert who left the tribal world where African religion, whether concerned with God, spirits, or human rituals, was tightly interwoven with community life. Shared beliefs

formed the web that held communities together, binding individuals into a social whole. For single individuals to step outside that web was shattering, not only to the departed but also to those they left behind. One convert noted: "It was the greatest disobedience conceivable. Breaking such news, that you were going to join the new learning and new faith, was a blow to family, age-mates, friends, everyone. Oh, people mourned for such people. To the clan, they were gone. To their kin, they were lost. To their parents, they were dead."^[40]

The converts, however, were not "dead," for they could always return. The missionaries, aware of this, tried to deter them. Drawing on Western traditions, they recreated the European boarding school and its dormitory as places of refuge wherein the converts could live in peace. Informants recalled, however, how too often in those early years the sounds of singing carried through the darkness to where they slept, and they awoke to hear songs that either mocked their manhood, or begged them to reclaim it simply by joining their age-mates in a dance that would transform them once again into comrades-at-arms.

In the years to come the Christian islands would take on new functions, becoming islands of Western agriculture as well as of the Christian faith. Faced with years of famine, the mission responded with drives toward local self-sufficiency. Deep furrows were gouged across the mountain slope, to bring fresh water to each station and with it the promise of electricity. The flow of water also led to bumper crops on mission grounds, providing enough to feed those who converted and to lure others who might.

Yet, despite the rising material wealth of all the missions, their pioneer years yielded marginal success. Between 1910 and 1924, Methodists, Presbyterians, and Catholics alike recorded fewer than three hundred conversions, a meager result for so many years of selfless labor, representing the barest fraction of the 160,000-person Meru tribe.^[41] Aside from children, the few adults who joined the faith were often fringemen: half-castes, outcasts, malcontents, and even deviants. Oral evidence suggests, for instance, that several of the first adults to joint the Mwimbi mission were former men of Mwaa. In Igoji those drawn to Catholicism had once been Kagita. Perhaps, from their perspective, each mission appeared to be a new Kiama, appearing on the Meru social fringe. Certainly, they proved most attractive to the fringemen, for it was mainly those who stepped outside the sacred circle of tradition to try a wholly alien way of life.

The vast majority of Meru, however, proved utterly indifferent to the Christian message. Secure within a dynamic system of belief and ritual that fully met their spiritual, social, and physical needs, they remained relentlessly conformist to a society that praised conformity as an ideal. In the first years after conquest that religious system stood intact, unshaken and virtually untouched by Christian crusaders. Not until the 1930s, when the Meru experienced the still sharper impact of Western capitalism, would the walls of communal belief tumble, the rituals that held them up be cast aside, and the Christian islands finally drain the pagan sea.