MAL57:23 | Page 96

LAST WORD

On Extremism

During a civic education class , about comparative tribal structures , the teacher assigned a Kenyan tribe to each student to research and present their findings at the end of the term before exams and that is how Ochieng found himself investigating the Kikuyu .

Ochieng was puzzled to discover that there are nine Kikuyu clans and all of them are female . He soon found out that the original Kikuyus , according to legend , Gikuyu and Mumbi , had nine daughters and the clans are named after them .

Again , according to legend , when the nine daughters were ready for marriage , Gikuyu prayed to his God , Ngai , who sent nine young men and Gikuyu and Mumbi ’ s daughters married them . So , was Kikuyu a matriarchal tribe ?

This question became a moot question

“

It is morally reprehensible that a group of people that endured the horrors of the holocaust are capable of unleashing horrendous terror on another group . The description that Palestine is the world ’ s largest openair prison is not an exaggeration . and Ochieng could not find a satisfactory answer to explain at what point the males , who were sent and it is not clear from where , took control of the Kikuyu tribe that at present , to all purposes , typifies patriarchal tendencies .

Intrigued and unable to find a plausible answer Ochieng decided to consult , as a last-ditch effort , a classmate ’ s grandmother , who had come to visit her son , a trader , who lived in a nearby town and whose family run a general merchandise shop .

The story that the old lady told him in halting Swahili supplemented by dubious translations from his classmate , who struggled with his kikuyu language was an amusing story which Ochieng was unable to corroborate .

According to the old lady , in those far off times , the kikuyu women were the rulers of

96 MAL57 / 23 ISSUE