A White King in East Africa: The Remarkable Adventures of John Boyes, Trader and Soldier of Fortune, Who Became King of the Savage Wa-KikuyuBoyes, John
History
A White King in East Africa: The Remarkable Adventures of John Boyes, Trader and Soldier of Fortune, Who Became King of the Savage Wa-Kikuyu
Boyes, John
Africa, East; Kikuyu (African people)
be quite different from any Kikuyu I had ever seen, his features being
more of a European type, and he had not the thick lips of the ordinary
native, whilst his skin was more of a copper colour than black. He also
seemed a good deal more intelligent than the others I had met, and his
people were not in the least afraid, as most of the others had been.
The chief’s name was Jugana-wa-Makura, and he had with him a friend, a
neighbouring chief, named Bartier, and we were soon very friendly
together. Makura brought his old mother to see me—a Masai woman, who
wore a dress of skins, plentifully hung with iron-wire ornaments. The
old lady was very friendly, shaking hands with me, and telling me that
she had heard a lot about the white man, and that it had been her
greatest wish to see one before she died. They gave me a lot of presents
of sheep, and also food for my men, and though I did not allow myself to
be taken off my guard by these professions, I found that they were
absolutely genuine.
Both of these loyal chiefs, unfortunately, paid for their friendship to
the white man with their lives. Some two years after this I came into
the country with an expedition sent by the Government to punish the
Kalyera for some outrages, and called on Jugana-wa-Makura and Bartier
for the assistance of some of their warriors, which was readily given.
After our expedition left the country the Kalyera ambushed both these
chiefs and murdered them for having assisted the Government expedition.
As is usually the custom in such cases, the criminals escaped scot-free,
no steps ever being taken by the Government to find out and punish the
murderers.
I had had great difficulty in obtaining milk from the previous Kikuyu we
had met, as, being very superstitious, they thought that if I drank the
milk the cow from which it came would die. I found that this
superstitious objection to giving away the milk of their cows prevailed
throughout the Kikuyu country. The people themselves use very little, if
any, milk for food purposes, preferring to allow the calves to have it,
and seldom or never milking the cows themselves, so that butter was
unknown in my time among them, though they may now have been taught to
go in for dairy-farming to some extent. They were at that time, however,
perfectly convinced that to allow a stranger to drink any of their milk
was a sure way of bringing disaster on the cow.
Owing to milking not being a general practice, the cows would never give
their milk unless the calf was near by, so that if the calf died it was
their practice to stuff the skin and place it by the cow when they went
to get any milk.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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