With a prehistoric people, the Akikuyu of British East Africa: being some account of the method of life and mode of thought found existent amongst a nation on its first contact with European civilisation

Routledge, W. Scoresby (William Scoresby); Routledge, Scoresby, Mrs., b. 1866

Book

With a prehistoric people, the Akikuyu of British East Africa: being some account of the method of life and mode of thought found existent amongst a nation on its first contact with European civilisation

Edward Arnold • London • Published In 1910 • Pages:

By: Routledge, W. Scoresby (William Scoresby), Routledge, Scoresby, Mrs., b. 1866.

Abstract
This source is a highly regarded example of early British ethnology, written by two skilled and sensitive observers who spent two years among the Kikuyu. Major attention throughout the book is focussed on detailed description of custom and artifact, and relatively little attention is paid to inference and to theoretical considerations. The data on food, clothing, shelter, arts and crafts, customs associated with birth and the various stages of life and death, are predominantly concrete and factual. There is a short sketch of political organization, in which appears a complete transcription of careful notes taken during several sessions of the local native courts. The section on religion outlines the Kikuyu conception of the soul with very little dilution by European preconceptions, and also includes a rather extensive discussion of the role and function of the medicine man in Kikuyu culture. The concluding section of work contains translations of 13 Kikuyu folktales.

External relations

Ethnosociology

Historical reconstruction