President Jomo Kenyatta, Anthropologist (by Johnny Coleman II)

"To Moigoi and Wamboi and all the dispossessed youth of Africa; for perpetuation of communion with ancestral spirits through the first for African Freedom, and in the firm faith that the dead, the living, and the unborn will unite to rebuild the destroyed shrines."

--Jomo Kenyatta

The Dedication to Facing Mt. Kenya 

"Anthropology begins at home"

--Bronislaw Malinowski

Introduction to Facing to Mt. Kenya

Did you know that Jomo Kenyatta was an anthropologist?  He is remembered as Kenya's first prime minister and first president (1963-1978).  

Born Kamau son of Ngengi, in 1929 Jomo Kenyatta left Kenya for London.  His goal was to lobby for the human rights of the Kikuyu people.  

To support himself he worked and took classes in the:  University College London (UCL), then the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), and finally at the London School of Economics (LSE).  

His contribution to anthropology scholarship was "Facing Mt. Kenya: The Tribal Life of the Gikuyu," the title of his Master's thesis.  The Gikuyu are better known as the Kikuyu.  Mount Kenya is the highest mountain in Kenya is the second highest in Africa. It is over 17 thousand feet tall.

Photo Credit: Mount Kenya (World Atlas)

His book gave a human image to African people by showing them to have their own history, culture and traditions.  The book also dealt with sensitive topics such as female genital mutilation and applied anthropological functionalism' (taught by Dr. Bronislaw Malinowski).  Functionalism in anthropology is intended to describe the different institutions of an ethnic group.  Then to explain their social function and show their contribution to the overall society.

Photo Credit: Bronislaw Malinowski (LSE)

Malinowski made a career as a serious ethnographer and is called the 'Father of social anthropology.'  When he met Kenyatta they became friends and he welcomed him because he wanted to support the work of an indigenous student and is quoted to say: “one of the first really competent and instructive contributions to African ethnography by a scholar of pure African parentage.”  As an anthropologist who traveled and wrote about other people Malinowski was not part of the groups he wrote about like Kenyatta.  During that time Kenyatta's work was revolutionary.  

Kenyatta's thesis was later published by Vintage Book publishers.  It challenged Europeans and 'white' Kenyans who firmly believed that the indigenous Kenyans were "primitive savages" who needed whites in order to be civilized.  

Once published, the book received positive reviews.  When the book was sold the cover showed Kenyatta in his traditional clothing, a skin cloak, and carrying a spear.  This was also the first time he used the name Jomo Kenyatta; Jomo means burning spear.  This was Kenyatta's way to show pride in his traditional culture, with no shame or need for explanation.  

Jomo Kenyatta is one of the world's great anthropologists!