Book
Facing Mount Kenya: the tribal life of the Gikuyu
Secker and Warburg • London • Published In 1953 • Pages:
By: Kenyatta, Jomo.
AbstractBrief abstract written by HRAF anthropologists who have done the subject indexing for the document
This book was first published in 1938. The author, a Kikuyu himself, was the grandson of a seer and a leader of his own age group. He was the General Secretary of the Kikuyu Central Association and the founder of the first Kikuyu journal, 'Mui gwithania', and acted as the spokesman of his people in dealing with the British government on tribal land matters. Kenyatta studied anthropology under Professor Malinowski. His strong feelings against European encroachments upon his native land and institutions are forcefully expressed in this book. Later, he participated actively in the Mau Mau movement which led to his capture and imprisonment. 'Facing Mount Kenya' is a description of tribal life with special emphasis on the interdependence of various social, economic, and religious institutions in giving the Kikuyu society its organic unity. The disintegrative influence of European missionary and political efforts upon tribal life is trenchantly commented upon. This source is particularly useful for the understanding of the Kikuyu kinship system, land tenure, handicrafts, the education of the young, initiation rites, age groups, political and legal organizations, and finally religious and magical practices. The presentation is sometimes marred by the misapplication of European terminology to native institutions.
- SubjectsDocument-level OCM identifiers given by the anthropology subject indexers at HRAF
- Mythology
- Real property
- Inheritance
- Marriage
- Family
- Kin relationships
- Kin groups
- Community structure
- Disasters
- Revelation and divination
- External relations
- Division of labor by gender
- Tillage
- Mutual aid
- Metallurgy
- Techniques of socialization
- Transmission of cultural norms
- Infant care
- Body alterations
- General sex restrictions
- cultureCulture name from the Outline of World Cultures (OWC)
- Gikuyu
- HRAF PubDateThe date HRAF published the document
- 2010
- RegionThe area the document pertains to
- Africa
- Sub RegionThe more specific area the document pertains to, which is located within the Region
- Eastern Africa
- Document TypeMay include journal articles, essays, collections of essays, monographs, or chapters/parts of monographs
- Book
- Evaluation
- Creator TypeThe type of person writing the document, e.g. Ethnographer, Missionary, Archaeologist, Folklorist, Linguist, Indigenous Person, and so on.
- Anthropologist
- Document Rating A ranking done by HRAF anthropologists based on the strength of the source material on a scale of 1 to 5, as follows: 1 - poor; 2 - fair; 3 - good, useful data, but not uniformly excellent; 4 - excellent secondary data; 5 - excellent primary data.
- 5: Excellent Primary Data
- AnalystThe HRAF anthropologist who subject indexed the document and prepared other materials for the eHRAF culture/tradition collection
- Robert Lee ; 1958
- Field DateThe date the researcher conducted the fieldwork or archival research that produced the document
- no date
- Coverage DateThe date or dates that the information in the document pertains to
- 1920-1938
- Coverage PlaceLocation of the research culture or tradition (often a smaller unit such as a band, community, or archaeological site)
- Kenya
- NotesAdditional notes
- by Jomo Kenyatta ; with an introduction by B. Malinowski
- LCSHLibrary of Congress Subject Headings
- Kikuyu (African people)