Dear Reader,
Traditionally the Kikuyu were skilled agriculturalists cultivating millet, sorghun, yams, beans and sweet potatoes, later shifting to cash crops like coffee, tea and maize.
Society was decentralized and organized around extended family units, age sets, and councils of elders rather than centralized kingdoms. They practiced monotheistic worship of Ngai - believed to reside on Mount Kirinyaga (Kenya) and held in deep reverence for ancestral spirits and sacred fig trees.
With the arrival of British colonial rule in the late 19th and early 20th century, European settlers appropriated large swaithes of fertile Kikuyu land in the central highlands.
Today while many Kikuyu have embraced Christianity and urban modern life, traditional customs - such as marriage negotiations remain culturally vital.
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I wrote this poem after seeing a documentary film of this story. I found it all very upsetting and have never forgotten this young girl. After being with her new family for a fortnight or so she commit ed suicide.
*
From Francis Kilvert November 3rd 1874 in Wiltshire
'....the strange hoarse belling of the buck, the fluttering of the coot as she skimmed the water with her melancholy note, the cry of the swans across the lake, the clicking of the reels as the fishermen wound up or let out their lines, the soft murmur of the woods, the quiet rustle of the red and golden drifts of beech leaves, the rush of the waterfall, the light tread of the dappled herd of deer dark and dim glancing across the green glades from shadow into sunlight and rustling under the beeches, and the merry voices of the Marquis's children at play.'
From James Woodforde November 6th in Norfolk
'There was a most violent gale of wind this morning early about 3 o'clock, continued more than an hour. It waked me. It also shook the house. It greatly frighted our maids in the garrett. Some limbs of trees blown down in my garden. Many windmills blown down.'
Bridal Red
I saw
a young girl smiling,
laughing, threading beads, minding goats
holding hands with sisters, friends,
chattering, gossiping, rough and tumbling
in bright sunlight.
I saw
scrub-plains,
blue mountains, straw huts,
men on haunches, and thin dogs, fat babies,
loving families, happiness.
I saw
men, suddenly, appear from a distant village,
offering cows and sheep as an exchange
for a shepherd in need of a wife.
The girl was chosen,
a bargain was struck
I saw
her stand silently, acquiescent,
red ochre paste and mud
plastered on her shaven head,
necklaces of golden wire
wound tightly round her neck,
ankle bracelets in profusion.
I saw
her sisters, her friends, not laughing now,
offering presents,
a carved stick, a beaded purse.
At dawn she would leave as the sun rose,
to walk over the mountain pass
to an unknown bridegroom,
an unknown life.
I saw
as she left
her tears trickling,
then flooding through the paste and mud.
I saw her sorrow as the colour red,
and a crown of thorns her maidenhead.
*
With very best wishes, Patricia
