The Imposition of New Religion in East Africa

            The soul of a civilization is its religion, and it dies with its faith.
            
             Kenya, Jomo Kenyatta's ethnography, was written in the 1930's during the early years of British colonialism in Kenya. The Gikuyu traditionally were monotheists, believing in a unique and omnipotent God whom they called Ngai. .
             Since early years of colonization, the Kikuyu people have tried to develop a religious attitude that would define its 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 "eternal fire- (p.269). Missionaries overlooked the higher educated and the more well to do and focused on the more ignorant and less educated. Many Mzungu (Europeans) were, interestingly enough, often very uneducated in the process they were about to embark upon. Europeans felt that it was unnecessary to have formal training when dealing with such savages as the Kikuyu people. Intelligence would suggest that if you were dealing with uneducated and ignorant people you should have some of your most qualified people on the task. Missionaries who were devoted to the change of the Kikuyu people took into account none of groups' communal life, due to traditions and customs. .
             One of the principal attacks on the Kikuyu people was the attempt to demolish polygamy. In order for them to be accepted by the missionaries, they would have to end the practice which was at the heart of the tribe's social structure. Despite these reckless attacks on their culture the natives saw the chance of an education, a white mans' education. In order to receive this small amount of reading and writing lessons from the missionaries the Kikuyu would have to convert to Christianity and totally disregard most of their religious and communal beliefs.