Main Reference Books:

Level:

High School
 

Introduction:

FAMILY LAND IS VERY IMPORTANT IN MOST AFRICAN SOCIETIES

A. Pre-colonial Africa

Land was communally held in most African societies before European colonization. Many African people believe that they cannot own land but rather they are caretakers of the land for the next generation. Land remains the link between the living, dead, and future generations. According to Dr. Joe Alie, a historian from Sierra Leone, "Land is home, the place where your umbilical cord is buried." Land in some parts of Africa gives members of the community their identity and sense of cultural continuity. Camara Laye describes the close relationship his uncle had with the land in his autobiography, The Dark Child (p. 57-64).

Many African people were part of farming communities in which large families worked the land together. In some communities a group of elders or a chief, usually men but women in some communities, made decisions that affected the other people. Chiefs currently play a significant leadership role in many African communities.

Some people were herders who moved from place to place to graze their cattle, like the Masai (East Africa) or Fulani (West Africa) people do today. A few were hunter-gatherers who moved from place to place in search of food like a few San people in the Kalahari Desert did until recent times. The film, "The Gods Must Be Crazy, " depicts this way of life which is now virtually non-existent.

African resistance to European colonization and settler rule occurred early on and continues in South Africa today. In 1885, the European countries of France, England, Portugal, and Germany decided to divide Africa up as colonies so the Europeans would not fight with each other over the land. France, Great Britain, Portugal, Belgium, Germany, Italy, and Spain claimed African land as their colonial land. It was at the Conference of Berlin in 1885, that they divided the continent among themselves. All of Africa was colonized except Ethiopia and Liberia.

European colonial powers maintained two relationships with their colonies. They used (1) indirect or (2) direct rule:

(1) In Nigeria, the British officers employed indirect rule. British authorities controlled through the local African authorities. In Chinua Achebe's novel, Things Fall Apart, the characters describe the traditional feeling people have for the land and the way the British authorities controlled the territory.

(2) In Kenya, British settlers came to stay and ruled directly. The settlers appropriated lands they called "wasteland, " that is, land not currently under cultivation. In fact, there is no such thing as "wasteland" in Africa. Africans use the "slash and bum" method to prepare the land, thus leaving it fallow for two to seven years. In that way, the "wasteland" is being prepared for future use.

The British introduced individual ownership which was unknown to Africans. When the British asked Kenyans to claim their land individually, such a regulation created many problems since families occupied and worked the land communally. For that reason, few Africans registered their land and, hence, they lost their claim to it. After independence some of the appropriated land was returned to families if they could prove they had an original claim to it.

As Kenyans (often Kikuyus and Kambas) were forced off their land, British settlers were given the land which they farmed as their own. In Weep Not Child by Ngugi, the main Kenyan character, Ngotho, describes the traditional feelings he has about the land. Howland, a British settler, also feels strongly about the land he believes is his. Some of Ngotho's sons participate in the MAU MAU resistance movement to restore Kenyan rights to land.

In South Africa, European settlers of British, Dutch, and French heritage ruled directly for generations. Africans were dispossessed of their land and pushed onto "reserves" much like Indian reservations in the United States. The settlers farmed or mined land as if they were owners. Africans were relegated to poor farming lands which were designated as "homelands" in rural areas or to ghetto "townships" near cities. This policy of racial segregation called "apartheid" existed until 1990. One of the manifestations of apartheid is depicted in Beverly Naidoo's story, Journey to Jo'burg, when Africans were not allowed to even sleep in European areas unless they were the servants of white people.

Teaching Strategies/Student Activities:

LESSON ONE:

European Division of Africa

Teacher Preparation:

1. Make overhead projections of the maps of ethnic groups in Africa prior to colonial time and the European partitions done in 1885 or 1915 (found in Maps on File, New York: Martin Greenwald Associates, Inc., 1981).
   

LESSON TWO:

Excerpts from Weep Not, Child (in 1987 edition from Oxford: Heinemann) about land in Kenya

For each of the following excerpts state:

• who makes the statement or to whom it refers (if applicable) and,
  
• the concept of land implied in the statement.
  

(a) "You could tell the land of Black People because it was red, rough and sickly, while the land of the white settlers was green and was not lacerated into small strips. (p. 7)

(b) "Any man who had land was considered rich. If a man had plenty of money, many motor cars, but no land, he could never be counted as rich. A man who went with tattered clothes but had at least an acre of red earth was better off than the man with money. " (p. 19)

(c) "For Njoroge, it was a surprising revelation, this knowledge that the land occupied by Mr. Howlands originally belonged to them. Boro thought of his father who had fought in the war only to be dispossessed. (p. 26)

(d) "He just loved to see Ngotho working in the farm; the way the old man touched the soil, almost fondling, and the way he tended the young tea plants as if they were his own ... Ngotho was too much of a part of the farm to be separated from it. (pp. 29-30)

(e) "He had to escape. East Africa was a good place. Here was a big piece of wild country to conquer. " (p. 30)

(f) "Mr. Howlands lost all faith - even the few shreds that had begun to return. He would again have destroyed himself, but again his god, land, came to the rescue. He turned all his efforts and energy into it. He seemed to worship the soil." (p. 3 1)

(g) "For Ngotho felt responsible for whatever happened to this land. He owed it to the dead, the living and the unborn of his line, to keep guard over his shamba. Mr. Howlands always felt a certain amount to victory whenever he walked through it all. He alone was responsible for taming this unoccupied wildness." (p. 3 1)

(h) "'Education is everything,' Ngotho said. Yet he doubted this because he knew deep inside his heart that land was everything. Education was only good because it would lead to the recovery of the lost lands." (p. 39)

(i) "'Do you think it's true what father says, that all the land belongs to black peopleT 'Yes. Black people have their land in the country of black people. White men have their land in their own country. It is simple. I think it was God's plan.' 'Are there black people in EnglandT 'No. England is for white people only.' 'And they all left their country to come and rob us acres of what we haveT 'Yes. They are robbers. ' 'All of themT 'Yes. Even Mr. Howlands. "' (p. 43)

(j) "To this God, all men and women were united by one strong bond of brotherhood. And with all this, there was growing in his heart a feeling that the Gikuyu people, whose land had been taken by white men, were no other than the children of Israel about whom he had read in the Bible. " (p. 49)

(k) "Moses had led the children of Israel from Misri to the Promised Land. And because black people were really the children of Israel, Moses was no other than Jomo himself. It was obvious. " (p. 50)

(1) "No. Mau Mau is not bad. The Freedom boys are fighting against white settlers. Is it bad to fight for one's land? Tell me that.' 'But they cut black men's throats.' 'Those killed are the traitors! Black white settlers."' (p. 72)

(m) "And yet he felt the loss of the land even more keenly than Boro, for to him it was a spiritual loss. When a man was severed from the land of his ancestors where would he sacrifice to the Creator?" (p. 74)

(n) "There was only one god for him - and that was the farm he had created, the land he had tamed. " (p. 76)

(o) "The Mau Mau had come to symbolize all which he had tried to put aside in life. To conquer it would give him a spiritual satisfaction, the same sort of satisfaction he had got from the conquest of his land." (p. 77)

(p) "'But don't you think there's something wrong in fighting and killing unless you're doing so for a great cause like oursT 'What great cause is oursT 'Why, Freedom and the return of our lost heritage."' (p. 102)

(q) "When the time for Njoroge to leave came near, many people contributed so that he could go. He was no longer the son of Ngotho, but the son of the land." (p. 105)

NOTE: There are additional statements about land beginning on page 23 (Creation story), page 25 (Drought story) and page 57 (Jomo Kenyata speech).

B. Students could pick three personalities and illustrate each person's concept of land in one of the following methods:

1. Write a comparative essay.
2. Make a chart (story mapping).
3. Make a piece of art using symbols, colors and/or words.

C. For the following excerpts ask the students to consider how colonialism and the concept of land ownership and control are shown. The analogy might be expressed in more modem terms as well. Ask the students to create a skit or role play that would exhibit the same sense of loss and theft (excerpts in C and D are from Ngugi wa Thiong'o: Ae Making of a Rebel: A Source Book in Kenyan Literature and Resistance by Carol Sicherman).

It is a common saying in many parts of Africa south of the Sahara that"The white man came to us with the Bible in one hand and found that we had land. He gave us the Bible and took the land. Now we have the Bible and he has the land. " The same idea is expressed in a story about a man and a boy. The man found the boy wearing his shirt back to front, unbuttoned, with the tail hanging down in front. Said he: "Son, I see you do not know how to use your shirt, let me show you how to wear it. " Whereupon he took the shirt, putting it on himself the right way. Then, having instructed the boy, "This is how to wear a shirt", he walked away, leaving the poor lad naked. (p. 292)

D. The excerpts below typify the attitude of many colonial administrators. How does the administrator feel about "his natives," women, and the value and purpose of land? Is his argument legitimate? Why or why not?

I invariably had trouble with my natives when they were not occupied. The native has no means of amusing himself, nor idea of making occupation, and consequently, like women similarly situated, has recourse to chatter and the hatching of mischief. Work, I am convinced, is the keynote to the betterment of the African ... Up till now this mine of wealth [African labor] has been squandered at the bidding of the noxious faddist, or by the supineness of British Colonial administration...(p. 330)

The first essential in opening up a new country in Africa is for the Administration to fix a rate of pay, and to make that rate a very low one... At first sight this seems severe on the native, but in reality it is not so. As he is, he has every necessary of life, and everything that we give him is a luxury. The taste for pay is a cultivated taste, and three shillings really gives him as much satisfaction as three pounds... There is a short-sighted inclination amongst British officers to give the nigger more than he requires or even asks for, presumably simply because he is a nigger. (p. 330)

E. As shown in the earlier excerpts from Ngugi's Weep Not, Child the control of the land was very important to Kenyans and those who were members of the Mau Mau. For the poem shown above, what values are evident? How do members of the Mau Mau feel about wealth, pride, race, religion, community, liberty and land? The students could make a chart with each of these terms and state how they define each and how it differs (if it does) from those of the Mau Mau. It might be of interest to note that this poem or call is in a "call and response" form. This form is popular in song as well, evident not only in African music but also in African American music. The teacher might want to use a well-known spiritual such as "Let My People Go" as a means of introducing the form.

The Call

There is no success without a struggle
What are you waiting for?
Where are you when the struggle for land is on,
What are you waiting for?

(Chorus) What are you waiting for?
The moment has come
What are you waiting for?

Have you not yet joined,
What are you waiting for?
Join our Mau Mau army,
What are you waiting for?

Even if you think you are rich,
What are you waiting for?
Land is truly our national wealth,
What are you waiting for?

What sort of man are you,
What are you waiting for?
Or are you one of the whites,
What are you waiting for?

And you, man of religion,
What are you waiting for?
Remember land is the source of national strength,
What are you waiting for?

Even if you think you are too important,
What are you waiting for?
Let us unite in struggle,
What are you waiting for?

Unity is strength,
What are you waiting for?
Mau Mau is the people's movement,
What are you waiting for?

We are struggling for our liberation,
What are you waiting for?
Don't you yourself like to be free,
What are you waiting for?

The Mau Mau (Kenya)

Translated from the Gikuyu by Maina Wa Kinyatti (From Voices From 20th Century Aftica - Griots and Towncriers, ed. Chinweizu, pp. 58-59.)

Bibliography and Background Reading:

Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart, Oxford: Heinemann International, 1958.

Achebe, Chinua. Apartheid: Calibrations of Color. New York: Rosen Publishing Group, 1991.

Bjorman, Ingrid. Mother Sing For Me - People's neatre in Kenya. London: Zed Books,1989.

Chinweizu. Voices from 20th Century Aftica - Griots and Towncriers. London: Faber and Faber, 1988.

Fugard, Athol. Master Harold and the Boys. New York: Penguin Books, 1982.

Hegenscheidt, Rosmarie. A Wind of Awakening: Modern Political Poems form Kenya and Uganda. Druck: Obersee-Museurn Bremen, 1977.

Laye, Camara. The Dark Child. New York: Noonday Press, 1954.

Lindfors, Bernth. Mazungumzo Interviews with East Affican Writers, Publishers, Editors and Scholars. Athens, OH: Ohio University Center for International Studies, 1980.

Naidoo, Beverley. Journey to Jo'burg. New York: J.B. Lippincott, 1985.

Maja-Pearce, Adewale. Heinemann Book of Affican Poetry in English. Oxford: Hememann International, 1990.

Ngugi wa Thiong'o. Weep Not, Child. Oxford: Heinemarm International, 1964.

Sichermann, Carol. Ngugi wa Thiong'o: The Making of a Rebel - A Source Book for Kenyan Literature and Resistance. New York: Hans Zell Publishers, 1990.