History of Kirinyaga
About Kirinyaga Way Back When
Brief History of Kirinyaga County
There’s little difference in the relations existing between the Kikuyu and their kin around Mount Kenya. Having migrated into the region around 400 years ago, the Agikuyu, Akirinyaga, Aembu, and Ameru are a homogenous block, culturally and socially, their languages being only a slight tempering of the next. The Akirinyaga are also known as the Kikuyu from Kirinyaga. All Bantu speakers, they migrated, each to their region around Mount Kenya, from the Taita Hills in southern Kenya.
Before demarcation of boundaries in the early 1900’s, the Kikuyu, a term loosely used to refer to these intertwined communities, all had decentralized clan-based political system led by elders and age-set groups. Socially, they were organized by families, age sets marked through circumcision rituals, and brotherhood (riika) units. Their economy centered around agriculture of crops like millet, maize and beans. Also, pastoralism, fishing, hunting, beekeeping, ironworking, and pottery.
Still, there was relatively little differentiation between the southern and northern Kikuyu at the dawn of colonial rule. The said southern Kikuyu were the first to be integrated into the colonial economy via proximity to Nairobi, as well as colonial land alienations and the creation of the ‘white highlands’ to their north and west. The northern Kikuyu were less affected, but the mountains and forests of Mount Kenya and the Aberdares would later serve as the twin hubs of Mau Mau revolts.
The initial interaction of Kirinyaga people with the outside world was through the Anglican Church mission centres, which were bent on starting schools, hospitals, demonstration gardens and artisan skills. The mission communities in Kirinyaga, arriving in the early years of the 20th Century, became agents for early converts and change. As historians would later put it, these missions constituted “the germ of the missionary spirit”. The converts, too, took a great deal of pride in spreading the “germ” to many villages in Kirinyaga, ‘infecting’ the more susceptible natives.
In quick succession, the colonial government, with the initial pacification of the Anglican, set about their development agenda. The area we now call Kirinyaga, then still part of Embu, was zoned for development. The midland transition area, of lands ranging from relatively steep-sloped at elevations up to about 4,800 feet in the north, to gently-sloped at elevations down to about 3,900 feet in the south, was the focus. This area, whose colonial legacies are still visible, was designated as coffee, tea, sunflower, maize, cowpea, and cotton experimental farmland zone.
Of course, the adverse land policies would in short order become a major political issues that agitated the Kikuyu. The benefits were lopsided! The Crown Land Act of 1915, the Maxwell Committee of 1929 and the Carter Commission of 1952-3 had raised points which seriously seemed to undermine the Kikuyu rights to land. This impelled the The Mau-Mau Wars of independence in Kenya, and self rule, fought after the returnees of the World Wars I & II (1919–1945), who were mainly devout Christians, succeeded in politicizing the black majority in the then Kenyan colony.
The first stage of the war was seen in the change of contents in the African dances that young men and women had gotten hardened to. In time, these songs became dilettante songs that prepared people for a major war that was in the offing. The second stage was the secretive binding oaths. The third stage was the positioning of the rebels in enclaves of forest fighters, for combatants who were to engage the British forces in guerrilla warfare. The third stage also saw some rebels positioned as spies, oath administrators, resource mobilisers, and food porters to the forests.
While Kirinyaga does not boast a line-up of lauded Mau-Mau kingpins as does the near Nyeri County, its rank and file role in the fight for independence was salient. During the 1940’s, the “Mau Mau Oaths” were indiscriminately administered to all able members of the community, and in the latter stages, all the able men were positioned as troopers (forest gangs) to engage the British colonial forces in wars.
Kirinyaga District was created in 1963, hived off the western area of Embu District. Since, Kirinyaga has been a vibrant county known for its agriculture, particularly rice farming in the Mwea Scheme, coffee, and tea production. It is also a cultural hub and an emerging touring destination, thanks to its great draws like Thiba Falls, Mount Kenya trails, and cultural villages. Despite modernization, Kirinyaga retains much of its Kikuyu heritage, with traditional practices and folklore still celebrated.
Known for its agricultural productivity, breathtaking landscapes, and cultural heritage, Kirinyaga is a key contributor to Kenya’s economy. Located at the foot of Mount Kenya, its landscape is characterized by lush green tea and coffee farms, rivers, and rolling hills, and the weather, year-round, is temperate and salubrious.
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About Kirinyaga Way Back When
35 Destinations in Kirinyaga County , arranged as one would visit these - south, west, east then south - with the aid of narratives, images, strip maps and distance chart:
Sagana Getaway Resort , Camp Malta , Tana Station , Thingira Cultural Village , Kwetu Home , Gatitika Falls , River Nyamindi , Mwea Rice Scheme , Mwea Classic Marathon , Ndaraca ya Ngai , Rukenya Islands , Murinduko Hill, Njukiini Forest , Kijani Camp , Timstep Hotel & Campsite , Savage Wilderness , Rapids Camp, Sagana Fisheries , Ruamuthambi Falls , Thiba Falls , Thiba Dam , Kamuruana Hill , Ragati Conservancy , Kiburi Farm & Stay , Thiba Fishing Camp , Outdoorsman Cabins , Kathiri Falls , Castle Forest Lodge , Castle Falls , Mount Kenya , Kamweti Route , Kangere Falls, Gichugu Farms, Karumandi Falls
Know More About Kirinyaga County: Its Geography, Land-Use, Highlights, Population, Roads - with aid of strip maps, Airports, Climate & National Monuments
What’s The Air Like In Kirinyaga?
Kirinyaga has a true tropical climate with equatorial rainfall pattern. Mean temperature ranges from a low of 8 o C in the upper zones to 30 o C in the lower zones about Mwea.
What’s The Lay Of The Land In C.20?
Mount Kenya, occupying on the northern half of Kirinyaga, to a large extent influences both the landscape and the climate. The dryer lowland, typified by pleasant rolling plains, covers most of Mwea.
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