Elders and ‘Frauds’: Commodified Expertise and Politicized Authenticity Among Mijikenda

Abstract

Among Mijikenda of the Kenya coast, the male Kaya elders (azhere a Kaya) – custodians of sacred spaces and customary knowledge – traditionally undergo years of secretive ritual training and tribulation in order to accrue both expertise and seniority. Over the past few years, however, a series of scandals have fragmented this group, casting them into the national spotlight while fomenting debates about the nature of elders’ expertise. In the ethnically fraught context of Kenyan politics, politicians of Mijikenda and of other ethnic backgrounds have sought out and paid Kaya elders for ritual ‘anointing’ or ‘blessing’ in order to win Mijikenda allegiance in their political campaigns. As public cynicism toward these events has mounted and elders have traded barbed accusations of fraudulence, much discourse has revolved around an idealized and nostalgic model of the kind of expertise considered to be under threat. I discuss the roles of morality, secrecy and ethnic identity in this model, suggesting that these ways of thinking about expertise are not merely reflections of ‘tradition’ but also emergent from presentist struggles for elders’ personal power and for the collective identity of Mijikenda.

Mobile phones and Mipoho's prophecy: The powers and dangers of flying language

“…Giriama have long found themselves marginal to vast circuits of mobility that took their neighbors, coastal Arabs and Arabo‐African Swahili traders, deep into the African hinterland for trade and out into the Indian Ocean for further commerce. Today, many Giriama look on with envy as Arabs, Swahili, and other ethnic groups partake of (and in some cases, commandeer) new forms of transportation such as the bus lines and matatu minivans that travel up and down the coast as well as transnational flights to the Middle East, Europe, and elsewhere (McIntosh 2009b). And the hordes of European and North American tourists who come to the Kenya coast looking for a sun and sand vacation tend to broadcast an image of infinite wealth from faraway lands—wealth that some young Giriama hope they just might partake of if they can forge a sexual or romantic bond with one of these visitors.…”

“…This suspicion infuses the myth of Mipoho's final prophecy, which foretells the arrival of cars, trains, and aircraft but sees these as rupturing youthful respect for customary ways and elders. It appears as well in Giriama narratives about the Swahili‐ and Arab‐dominated transportation business on the coast; in Giriama narratives, such domination is facilitated by morally repugnant flying jini spirits who demand human sacrifices as payment for their efforts (McIntosh 2009b). Witches themselves, as in narratives across Africa, are often said to control preternatural powers of flight and speed, flying from one place to the next “in the blink of an eye.” And with new technology, older anxieties surrounding velocity are grafted onto telecommunications, which make voices and words (already ontologically mysterious) “fly” by invisible means—a new kind of terror, perhaps.…”

“…Wirtz 2007). Among Giriama, condensed and obscure symbols in both written and spoken form are often used in talismans and contexts of divination, spirit possession, and witchcraft, and elders conventionally control “secret” occult knowledge that regulates everything from rainfall to fertility (McIntosh 2009a, 2009b). Giriama elders are evidently concerned that the younger generation now seems to command a potent, potentially supernatural register of the sort normally reserved for older or more quintessentially Giriama ritual specialists, thus further detracting from the power and prestige of elders and of Giriamaness.…”

Tradition, Tribe, and State in Kenya: The Mijikenda Union, 1945–1980

“…The uncertainty and rivalry over the status of elders, which has been identified in recent scholarship on the Giriama, has a long history. 42 For at least some of these older men the idea of the Mijikenda offered a new way to address these problems, by deploying the discursive contrast between tradition and modernity to affirm a vision of a wider legitimacy that placed older men at the center of traditional authority, as a new kind of kambi. A variant of the term Mijikenda had first been used in the 1920s precisely in this context of elder men's authority: the "Midzichenda Native Tribunal" was created in 1924 to handle cases under customary law in nine locations in Kwale district-Midzichenda means, literally, "nine settlements."…”

Regulating Religious Coexistence

“…The Giriama initially settled in the Rabai hills, close to Mombasa, from where they moved north when this area became overpopulated; they settled in the Malindi environment from around the 1880s onwards. Scholars have emphasized how in precolonial times there was considerable fluidity, trade, cooperation, intermarriage, and interdependence between coastal Muslims and various hinterland populations such as the Giriama (Spear 1978, 70-3, 97;Sperling 1978;Sperling and Kagabo 2000;McIntosh 2009a;Willis 1993).…”