Characters: (with pronunciation)
Njoroge (nyo-ro-ge): central character he is the child of Nykabi and Ngotho.
Nyokabi (nyo-ka-bee): mother of Njoroge and Kamau, second wife of Ngotho.
Kamau (ka-mao): brother of Njoroge.
Ngotho (n-go-tho): patriarch of the family, married to both Njeri and Nyokabi.
Njeri (nyer-ee): first wife of Ngotho; mother of Boro and Kori.
Boro: son of Nyeri and Ngotho; becomes a guerilla fighter.

Jacobo: father of Mwihaki; rents land to Ngotho, works for Mr. Howlands.
Mwihaki (mwe-ha-kee): daughter of Jacobo; childhood friend of Njoroge.
Mr. Howlands: British settler and landowner; becomes district chief of police under emergency orders.
Jomo: Jomo Kenyatta (see below).
 

Words in Kikuyu:
thiringa: hut
njuki: servant or underling
muhoi: one who rents land, does not own land
shamba: a plot of land, a farm
ustaarabu: respect for elders, manners
bwana: boss, chief

Kenyan independence involved some of the most characteristic elements of the African liberation movements: trivial division, settler resistance, a wavering colonial policy and a charismatic black leader, Jomo Kenyatta. The grandson of a medicine man of the Kikuyu, Kenya’s dominant tribe, Kenyatta was unsure of the date and year of his birth, probably 1891. Like other modern revolutionaries, his name was an adopted one; Jomo means "burning spear" and Kenyatta refers to the beaded belt, or kinyata, that he habitually wore.

Kenyatta spend much of his youth traveling in Europe. He returned home in the 1920’s, became secretary of the Kikuyu Central Association and began to involve himself in his country’s future. In 1929 and again in 1931 he went to London to argue his tribe’s rights to the land on which it had settled. The British government refused to grant his request by allowed the Kikuyu to establish their own schools. Over the following years he attended the London School of Economics and wrote anthropological studies of his people as well as an autobiography, Facing Mount Kenya (1938), that became a bible of the independence movement.

In October 1945, Kenyatta was one of the organizers of the landmark Pan-African Congress that met in Manchester, England. Seizing the postwar moment, young radicals such as Kwame Nkrumah demanded full independence for Africa. When Kenyatta returned to Kenya in September 1946, he became president of the Kenya Africa Union (KAU), a political party that sought to unify Kenya’s tribes. While urging his followers to act with discipline and restraint, he fought for African voting rights, the elimination of racial discrimination and the return of tribal lands.

When the British rejected these demands, Kikuyu militants organized a terrorist underground, the Mau Mau, which prompted the declaration of a state of emergency, Kenyatta was accused of masterminding the Mau Mau, a charge almost certainly false; unquestionably, however, the KAU had links to the Mau Mau, and in 1952 Kenyatta was imprisioned. But British ascendancy was on the wane, and with Ghana’s independence in 1957, Kenya’s drive toward nationhood accelerated. The KAU, now the dominant black party, refused any participation in a transitional government until Kenyatta was freed. In 1961, he returned home in triumph, his captivity having made him the moral leader of his people’s struggle. In December 1963 he became the first president of the Republic of Kenya.

Kenyatta’s firmest base of support was among the Kikuyu, who formed but 20% of the black population of Kenya. As president, he reached out not only to other tribes but also to white and Asian settlers, assuring them of their place in a multiracial society. Europeans continued to serve in his government, and despite his rhetorical commitment to the slogans of "African Socialism," he rejected Soviet assistance and built up a wealthy black proprietor class under settlement schemes financed by the British treasury and the World Bank. This elite continued as the backbone of support for his successor, Daniel Arap Moi (born 1924).

A man of enormous vitality, Kenyatta, more than any other figure, came to represent the new Africa on the world stage. never losing touch with his origins -- he lived on a farm outside his capital, Nairobi, and regularly worked the land -- he became a familiar figure at international conferences and assemblies. Wearing alternately impeccably tailored suits and resplendent tribal robes, he symbolized both the revolutionary charisma that had built modern Africa and the political pragmatism by which he hoped to forge its future. He died in 1978.

From Richard Greaves et. al., ed., Civilizations of the World: The Human Adventure, vol. 2. Pages 1114-1115.