that had to be paid in the white man’s money. This forced many men to work for wages. He conscripted outright many
of our men into his army to carry provisions and build a road that would allow automobiles to pass. He surrounded
himself with Luos who wore clothes like the white man to serve as his agents and tax collectors. We learned that we
now had chiefs, men who were not even in the council of elders. All these things were resisted, and many men began to
fight. But those who did so were beaten or shot. Those who failed to pay taxes saw their huts burned to the ground.
Some families fled farther into the countryside to start new villages. But most people stayed and learned to live with
this new situation, although we now all realized that it had been foolish to ignore the white man’s arrival.
During this time, your grandfather worked for the white man. Few people could speak English or Swahili in those
days-men didn’t like to send their sons to the white man’s school, preferring that they work with them on the land. But
Onyango had learned to read and write, and understood the white man’s system of paper records and land titles. This
made him useful to the white man, and during the war he was put in charge of road crews. Eventually he was sent to
Tanganyika, where he stayed for several years. When he finally returned, he cleared land for himself in Kendu, but it
was away from his father’s compound and he rarely spoke to his brothers. He didn’t build a proper hut for himself, but
instead lived in a tent. People had never seen such a thing and they thought he was crazy. After he had staked his claim,
he traveled to Nairobi, where a white man had offered him a job.
In those days, few Africans could ride the train, so Onyango walked all the way to Nairobi. The trip took him more
than two weeks. Later he would tell us of the adventures he had during this journey. Many times he chased away
leopards with his panga. Once he was chased into a tree by an angry buffalo and had to sleep in the tree for two days.
Once he found a drum lying in the middle of the forest path and when he opened it, a snake appeared and slid between
his feet into the bush. But no harm came to him, and he eventually arrived in Nairobi to begin his work in the white
man’s house.
He was not the only one who moved to town. After the war, many Africans began working for wages, especially those
who had been conscripted or lived near the cities or had joined the white missions. Many people had been displaced
during and immediately following the war. The war had brought famine and disease in its wake, and it brought large
numbers of white settlers, who were allowed to confiscate the best land.
The Kikuyu felt these changes the most, for they lived in the highlands around Nairobi, where white settlement was
heaviest. But the Luo also felt the white man’s rule. All persons had to register with the colonial administration and hut
taxes steadily increased. This pressured more and more men to work as laborers on the big white farms. In our village,
more families now wore the white man’s clothes, and more fathers agreed to send their children to mission school. Of
course, even those who went to school could not do the things the white man did. Only whites were allowed to buy
certain land or run certain businesses. Other enterprises were reserved by law for the Hindus and the Arabs.
Some men began to try to organize against these policies, to petition and hold demonstrations. But their numbers were
few, and most people just struggled to live. Those Africans who did not work as laborers stayed in their villages, trying
to maintain the old ways. But even in the villages, attitudes changed. The land was crowded, for with new systems of
land ownership, there was no longer room for sons to start their own plots-everything was owned by someone. Respect
for tradition weakened, for young people saw that the elders had no real power. Beer, which once had been made of
barré
(Barré)
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