The Kikuyu Conforming to Christianity Essay - 599 Words

The Kikuyu Conforming to Christianity Jomo Kenyatta’s ethnography, Facing Mt. Kenya was written in the 1930’s about Kikuyu society during 1890-1910, the early years of British colonialism in Kenya. Since the coming of the early colonization the Kikuyu people have tried to develop a religious attitude that would define it’s own culture while adapting forcefully to the European conforms of religion. The preconceived European ideas about the African natives were unjust and unsubstantiated. The missionaries viewed the Africans as savages and that everything that they did was evil. Missionaries that were sent to spread the view of Christianity would have to change their beliefs and their social interactions to save them from the†¦show more content†¦Missionaries tried to break up the any polygamous relationships that existed between Kikuyu men and women without any concern to what it meant to the two sexes and the community. The need for women to be mothers and wives was rooted deep in traditional collective beliefs. In Kikuyu communities the raising of a family is great cause for rise in social status. The larger a mans family the better it was for the community as a whole. This principle now being thwarted by the white missionaries was hard on the whole family unit. Men would have to send away some of their wives and children whom were a part of the community. Wit hout polygamy, women would be driven away and risk being unmarried then shunned out of the community. The Kikuyu people tried to show the missionaries that the bible itself had polygamy prevalent throughout and that some of the most religious men had several wives. Kikuyu men even tried to take on name of biblical men who practiced polygamy to help prove themselves in front of God and the missionaries. To the dismay of the clan these attempts to prove that polygamy was just, were ultimately ignored and thrown out by the missionaries. In order to keep their cultural and religious heritages existent new adaptations of religions begin to form after the invasion of the Europeans. The