Muthoni Kirima: Difference between revisions

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Muthoni Kirima first took the Mau Mau oath in 1952.<ref name=":1">{{Cite web |last=Haynes |first=Aaron |date=12 February 2024 |title=Revolutionaries: Muthoni Kirima |url=https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-womanica-45926723/episode/revolutionaries-muthoni-kirima-149584107/ |access-date=26 July 2024 |website=iHeart |series=Wamanica Podcast |publisher=Wonder Media Network |type=Podcast episode}}</ref> From then on, she had to balance being part of the revolution with family responsibilities. She started out by using her connections as a trader to get information and events that were happening to the Mau Mau that were in the forest. She also organized the oaths of other people. This was extremely hard on her because at this time her husband didn’t take the oath and she felt guilty lying to him. This changed in 1953 when her husband Mutungi Gichuhi finally decided that he wanted to take the oath and join the Mau Mau. That same day, Muthoni Kirima took him and a goat to her father in law’s home in the Kinaini forest where he swore his oath to the Mau Mau fighters. That was the last time that she would see her husband for 11 years, as he lived in the forest until 1963.

The next day, Chief Muhoya, who was an African colonial chief in Kenya, sent soldiers to Muthoni Kirima’s house to check on her husband, as he was a candidate to be a member of the Kamatimu, a loyalist group under Chief Muhoya. When they questioned her, she told them that he went to get eggs and had not returned, so they eventually left. Three days later, they came back with the suspicion that he joined the Mau Mau fighters. To get the information that they needed, they beat her relentlessly. In an interview, she describes this by saying, “I was beaten up. They kicked me with their boots until I could hardly move. Blood oozed from my nostrils. They left me unconscious.”{{Citation needed|date=July 2024}} She credits this moment as the turning point that made her want to not just be in the village helping the Mau Mau fighters but to be a forest fighter. This was when she took off to the forest and after a week by herself, she found the Mau Mau fighters.

Kirima started her time in the forest as a non-combatant; like most of the other women, she just cooked and looked after the soldiers while getting them ammunition and grenades from the market. But she quickly impressed her fellow soldiers with her shooting skills and quick thinking. Before long, she was leading her own platoons and helped break the gender norms of the Mau Mau fighters. In an interview in 2015, a woman veteran soldier says, “There was one woman called Muthoni, I was with her. She feared nothing. She used to go to war with men because she did not fear. She was a dangerous woman; even men feared her.”{{Citation needed|date=July 2024}} Muthoni was one of the female leaders of the movement and she rose up the ranks quickly. However, not all of the promotions of rank had to do with combat, Mau Mau fighters also rewarded people for non-military achievements to encourage development in their movement. She was promoted a few times because when a shortage of food was a problem, she went out of the way to get food for the movement and for her troops. Acts like this, as well as her skill in combat, was why she was promoted to field marshal. She was also a great medic and took care of the injured.

After the war ended in 1956 Muthoni and other Mau Mau fighters had a very hard time getting back into society. As the Mau Mau group was still seen as a radical organization and after the war, they were put in detention camps and beaten as others tried to create their new life. Muthoni was one of those who tried to create a new life, but she was struggling. She and her husband had no money or capital and although they were part of the people who fought for independence, they did not get any of the benefits of the new government. People forgot and didn’t care about them, so they had to struggle begging for food on the street and sleeping next to toilets, until Muthoni was fed up with the situation. She went right to the Mayor of Nairobi, and according to her biography, this is what happened next: “When I walked to his office, I didn’t first talk to him, I just lay down on the mat. He rose up and asked me what my problem was. I told him I was not going to leave until he gave me a place to stay and if none was available, he was to leave me sleeping on his office mat as he went home.” {{Citation needed|date=July 2024}} After this the mayor found her the place that she lived in Nyeri where she stayed until her death. Although not a lot of people knew who she was or what she has done, she got visitors who liked to hear her story.{{Citation needed|date=January 2024}}

As of 2013, she still wore her hair in the long [[dreadlocks]] that she had grown while she was hiding from the British. She has said that she will not cut her hair until she sees the benefit of independence.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21575787-female-veteran-mau-mau-laments-new-order-historic-hair|title=Historic hair|date=6 April 2013|newspaper=The Economist|issn=0013-0613|access-date=19 December 2016}}</ref> On 2 April 2022, Muthoni cut down her dreadlocks. The operation was carried out by Mama [[Ngina Kenyatta]] the wife of Kenya's first president [[Jomo Kenyatta]] and the mother of [[Uhuru Kenyatta]] another Kenyan president.<ref name=":1" /> [[Ngina Kenyatta]] led the celebration, as the two reminisced about their youthful life, friendship and freedom fighting.{{Citation needed|date=January 2024}}