Tinkerers And Destroyers: The Anglicizing Years

Given the distorting reports of the interpreters, it is not surprising that the new generation of administrative pragmatists turned enthusiastically to the task of anglicizing the Meru, particularly the ways they were ruled. Their approach to the Meru way of rule, as personified by the Njuri councils, was ambivalent. One group regarded the Njuri system as an ethnological curiosity, to be tinkered with and thereby anglicized in one's spare time. Others associated it with the "dark" aspects of Meru society, equating it primarily with witchcraft. The first group wished to turn Njuri meetings into replicas of English village councils and was concerned primarily with selecting Meru who had proved sufficiently anglicized to play by British rules. The second wished to replace it altogether, banning its gatherings, burning its huts, and transferring its functions to wholly British institutions, staffed by British educated youngsters.

Perhaps the most memorable of the "tinkerers" appeared in 1920. Soon after D. R. Crawford was appointed district commissioner, he proclaimed a "General Kiama" for all Meru, asking leading members of the regional Kiamas (actually, the Njuris) of Tigania-Igembe and Imenti-Igoji to meet at the Meru district headquarters. Dutifully, selected elders from the various ridgetop communities walked the many miles to appear. Having gathered, they sat down to begin deliberation while waiting for the new white man to appear.

They were initially amazed to learn that the discussions were, in fact, to be conducted by a number of younger men, handpicked by the district commissioner for their "administrative willingness and speaking skills." More disconcerting, the elders were informed that decisions were to be made in British fashion (i.e., by majority rule), with total dis-

regard for the intricacies of Meru debating tradition, the need for consensus, and the presence of meat and beer. To no one's surprise, the elders swiftly concluded that no Kiama had in fact been convened. They quietly drifted away—to the intense satisfaction of the district commissioner—who noted subsequently that his "handpicked" group had continued to function after the tribal elders proved unsatisfactory.^[21]

The "handpicked" group continued to meet as a General Kiama for the next two years. Its work was increasingly hampered, however, by the unwillingness of any other normal elders to bring any cases before it for judgment. Instead they universally continued to rely on the traditional system of Kiamas and Njuris. Starved for conflicts to resolve, the General Kiama for all Meru gradually collapsed.

The second type of administrator appeared in either 1921 or 1922 (tradition is unclear), with an alternative solution. His real name has been forgotten by informants, who refer to him only as Kivunja, "the destroyer."^[22] Kivunja proved unusually outspoken against the entire system of judgment by Kiama in general and the two Njuris in particular. From a colonial perspective he had excellent reasons. In keeping with the beliefs of many British throughout the period, Kivunja saw the Njuri as not merely unprogressive but reactionary, intent on dragging its people "backward" into a stagnant and unprogressive past. Nor could Njuri gatherings be dismissed as "dogs without teeth." By using curses to support their positions, the councils still retained the power to overawe the Meru and thereby paralyze each British effort to improve and anglicize their lives. The Njuris thus stood squarely in the path of England, in a conflict in which the prize was loyalty of the entire tribe.

Kivunja came to Meru, however, during what informants remember as among the last of the famine years, thus probably 1921–1922. During his first weeks in the district he is recalled as having grown particularly angry to learn of the Njuri practice of "feasting," that is, consuming the meat of bulls provided to the Njuri members by parties to the conflict they had assembled to resolve. Meru tradition sanctified such feasting because it affirmed that the conflict had been considered by the elders and resolved.

Kivunja, uninformed about the symbolic context of the feasting, accused the elders of Tigania's Njuri Nceke of accepting bribes. Worse, he proclaimed their consumption of so much meat in time of famine as an insulting and extravagant waste. His response was to ban "the Njuri organization" throughout Meru, enforcing the decision by burning several alleged Njuri huts. The ban proved unexpectedly effective;

members of the highest elders' councils in Igoji and South Imenti subsequently seem to have abandoned their meetings. The Njuri ya Kiama in North Imenti initially tried to ignore the ban, but found "informers too many and police posts too near."

Tigania's Njuri Nceke, however, sent a delegation of elders to Kivunja to protest. During their meeting they informed him that "it had been [they] who had first welcomed Kangangi [Horne] to Meru, and that . . . Kivunja's failure to cooperate would force [them], if further harassed, to bring him [Horne] back to rule [them] as before."^[23] Perhaps amused, the district commissioner replied by permitting the Tigania Njuri to meet "at the Boma [Meru district headquarters in Imenti] every Wednesday" to settle its affairs. He warned them, however, that a chief and a clerk would always sit with them during their meetings, to record their discussions and assure that nothing was said against England.

Kivunja's reply threw the elders into consternation. Initially they meekly agreed to his terms. Thereafter selected groups of spokesmen placidly appeared for a while "on Wednesdays" to satisfy the white man, but the actual Njuri deliberations continued in traditional fashion within Tigania, shielded from administrative interference by a conspiracy of silence. After a short time, however, the weekly delegations also ceased to appear at district headquarters, and subsequent administrators never realized they had come. From a British perspective the Njuri had passed into tribal history, quietly ceasing to exist.

It seemed reasonable, therefore, for subsequent district officials to follow Kivunja's path to its logical end, creating a series of wholly British administrative institutions to fill the void left by the demise of the more "primitive" indigenous ones. The first step, taken in 1919–1920, was to reorganize the African Native Courts that had initially been established after 1911 by Horne and Platts. Now almost moribund, the courts were rechristened Local Native Tribunals and established in each of the four major regions. The number of participants within each tribunal was reduced from sixty to thirty. More important from the British perspective, the entire corps of "senior" (i.e., ruling and above) elders was gradually "weeded out," to be replaced by an energetic group of younger men, drawn almost wholly from the ranks of colonial police, thus familiar with British colonial traditions.

In the early 1920s the Local Native Tribunals were each supplied with an administrative staff, intended not only to record and regulate their decisions but also to assist in their enforcement. By 1924, for ex-

ample, each tribunal had been "given" a president to guide its members, by this time reduced to twenty, in both their selection and judgment of cases. Court clerks, provided a year earlier, not only recorded evidence but also assisted in phrasing the language in which judgments were to be set down in final form, a position that gave them unusual power over the severity of sentences. Finally each tribunal was provided with five to ten process servers, chosen from the tribal police and charged to ensure swift implication of every tribunal judgment.^[24]

In July 1925 the Local Native Tribunals were formally supplemented by the creation of an all-Meru Local Native Council (LNC), which was opened by the acting governor of Kenya with great solemnity in what is now known as Meru Town. It was composed of carefully chosen nominees, young, British-trained, and loyal to England. Eight of the nominees were "elected" by contending with others, equally anglicized within their respective districts. Fourteen, however, were directly nominated by the district administration, which thereby assured itself a voting majority on every issue that might arise.

Local administrators of that time described the LNC as "unmistakably popular" with the Meru, judging by the enthusiasm with which its members were elected. This popularity, they felt, was because of the opportunity offered the "more advanced and perhaps restless young men of political tendencies" to share responsibility for the ruling of their people. It seems more likely, however, that the enthusiasm of both candidates and voters was grounded in the administration's willingness to release sizable funds for the new council to spend. Armed with an initial bankroll of 2,065 shillings that had been diverted from the hut tax, the council moved enthusiastically and rapidly to spend it.^[25]

Thus the era closed with the anglicizers in complete control. From the British perspective they were simply training the Meru ultimately to rule themselves in British fashion. To do so, they were following tactics used by colonizers throughout history, eliminating indigenous institutions, then filling the void with their own by training the young to assume the positions of the old. Beholden solely to the conquerors for its power, the new generation would thus forgo old ways and transform British rule into reality.