Freedom to have a distinct sense of time

The European notion of time was one of the major reasons behind their perception of the “other” as behind the course of history. Since they saw a linear progression of time as the marker of civilizational superiority, for them the colonized were stagnant in time, given they had not abandoned inhumane practices like Sati, Irua, and FGM. Kenyatta’s text seeks to counter this approach by defying the notion of enlightenment and instead offers an alternate sense of time entrenched in the culture of the Gikuyu people. For him, to abandon a ritual just because it is inhumane to a human body, as he calls it ‘surgical, is a shallow analysis of practice. Instead, these rituals have much more to offer to these people. I argue that he presents a cyclical notion of time which is premised on the practice of irua i.e. circumcision. The practice defines the life cycle of an individual because it is a ‘rite of passage from childhood to adulthood’. Physically maturity was measured not in modern perception of time, but through an act of circumcision. Modern biological progression of humans is seen in terms of months and years, which was not the case for the Gikuyu people who expressed these biological developments through rituals. This explains how a ritual, which is perceived as inhumane by the enlightened thought symbolizes the transmission from one life stage to another and directly shapes the individual lives of these people. Those who deemed the ritual as barbaric could not comprehend the fact that the ritual granted an individual a progression of his or her biological life. Abolishing the ritual meant that the society would go directionless because it regulated their personal as well as social and political life as a community. By defending the ritual, he is demanding free practice to have a cyclical sense of time.

Names were given during this rite. This activity was also tied to the ongoing social and political happenings in the society. For instance, if there was a famine, the group born at that time was named after that. This shows that history was manifested not through dates and chronologies, but through individual and group identities. Those who criticized the ritual saw only the ‘surgical’ aspect of it and ignored how a ritual defined the past and the present happenings of the tribe. Since they could not write, it was the ritual that served as a window to the past. To recall a specific moment of past did not mean to refer to a calendar. Rather, the names of groups would tell about the happening of that respective era. 

 A different sense of Gikuyu history was an outcome of this temporality. It was also cyclical and was a repeated phenomenon that would happen every time they had to carry out circumcision. The Gikuyu people had not fixed its date, but the biological changes in people decided when to initiate the ritual. So, this activity in itself was an alternate sense of being in the world because it repeated itself after every specific period. By highlighting this timeless world, where instead of text, performance through a ritual managed the history and social life of Gikuyu people, Kenyatta impresses upon the missionaries and other opponents of the ritual that in case the ritual is abolished, people will lose their history, their collective memory of events, and their sense of being in a particular horizon. In other words, the ritual gave the people a way to shape their lives and abandoning it meant complete chaos because it would take away the freedom to shape their history as per their method. Modern notions of history recording did not apply to them, given their inability to write.

Kenyatta’s argument, however, has a slippery slope which leads him to believe that the sense of time he is referring to has been existing since ‘time immemorial’. He presents the ‘tribe’ as historically been the same cultural site with a ‘Centuries-old custom’. This fixation of culture ignores the fact that the ritual of irua is the product of historical evolution. The circular notion of time does not mean that the rituals are not prone to changes. Rituals, cultures, and traditions are a product of their time and various factors contribute to their continuation and possible changes in them. So, if the argument advocates for a separate sense of being distinct from that of the Europeans, it simultaneously preconceives the fact that cultural practices have always remained the same.