Kunapipi XXV:2

BRENDON NICHOLLS

Clitoridectomy and Gikuyu Nationalism in Ngugi wa Thiong'o's The River Between

This essay examines the production of the sign 'woman' in Ngugi wa Thiong'o's early novel The River Between.¹ The analysis of signs and of signifying systems in the novel is only viable if one examines the movements of history that have facilitated and necessitated the production of signs. Equally, it is important to examine the subject-formation of the historical person, (James) Ngugi, who acts as an agent of particular discursive practices, motivated by specific ideological interests. The River Between provides insight into a pivotal moment in Kenyan history that of the Kenyan circumcision debate.² This historical moment is interesting for three reasons. Firstly, it highlights the contest between conflicting power bases (traditionalism, education, Christian revivalism, Gikuyu nationalism) in colonial Kenya. Secondly, the debate is particularly revealing of the Gikuyu woman's production as a subject under conflicting discourses and her marginalisation from political debate (since she becomes the site of contest in the debate). Thirdly, Ngugi's re-presentation of the debate in The River Between points to his own ideological unease in relation to the discourses that inform his novel.

The circumcision debate erupted in Kikuyuland in 1928 when several of the missions located there (most notably the Church of Scotland Mission) initiated a campaign against clitoridectomy and required their followers to renounce both the custom and their membership of the Kenya Central Association (KCA), a traditionalist party of which Jomo Kenyatta was the general-secretary. The Gikuyu community, under the leadership of the KCA, initiated a counter-campaign of protests, letters to the press and pro-circumcision politicking. The mission schools instructed pupils that circumcised students would not be admitted. In the short term, the debate cost the missions most of their adherents, although many later returned. More importantly, it provided the KCA with an issue around which Gikuyu solidarity could be fostered. The KCA also began to see the need for an independent school system and an African-controlled church, which would sanction both polygamy and clitoridectomy. Rosberg and Nottingham inform us that 'the missions were increasingly regarded as the spiritual edge of the colonial sword. In particular, the dominant mission role in education was no longer regarded as sacrosanct. Out of the controversy there developed a drive to establish a comprehensive educational system independent of missionary control' (125). The KCA set about establishing the Gikuyu Karing'a Education Association