In 1940 one of the more aggressive of these settlements appeared along the lower boundaries of the Ngaia forest in Igembe. Its appearance shocked district administrators and Njuri elders alike, for it was the first time Gikuyu had dared to penetrate the Meru north. Igembe elders initially approached the settlers with offers of adoption into their respective clans, a decision that would have placed them both within tradition and under control. They were contemptuously spurned.
The elder's anxiety deepened when members of the Ngaia settlement began to cultivate the very land that the Njuri Nceke had set aside as a protected zone. In Meru strips of land immediately beneath the lower forest rim had traditionally been protected, by Njuri proclamation, from cultivation, wood cutting, grazing, or any other activity that might harm trees. The result was the creation of an unmarked but universally respected buffer zone between human activities and the forest.
It was this zone, no doubt still highly fertile, that the Gikuyu chose to farm. In January 1940 a delegation of Njuri elders ordered them to leave. The Gikuyu refused. The Njuri Nceke then appealed to the district commissioner. In February 1940, Lambert personally visited the settlement, heard claims from both sides, then ordered the Gikuyu to depart within twenty days.
Initially they agreed. During the subsequent weeks, however, they worked day and night to plant every inch of the buffer zone with millet. In so doing, they followed both Gikuyu and Meru tradition, establishing the right to remain ("by their seed") on the disputed land until the harvest.
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Had the incident occurred during the 1800s the Njuri Nceke would have sent warriors to expel the intruders at the moment they appeared. Had they come in the 1920s it would have done nothing, stripped of its powers and officially banned. Its decision in the fall of 1940 illustrates the degree to which the institution had recovered both its traditional authority and self-respect.
In October 1940 Njuri elders appeared in scores along the entire length of the Gikuyu fields. Singing, dancing, and waving tufts of grass as the traditional sign that they came in peace, the elders reaped the entire crop. Furious, the Gikuyu appealed en masse to the district commissioner. Completely aware of the symbolism behind the Njuri actions, Lambert dismissed their suit and expelled them from the district.[34] This became a symbolic act in itself, setting a precedent of which every elder soon became aware: if the Njuri reaped what aliens had sown, the government would support them.
For Lambert the incident must have proved a quiet triumph, a moment marking the culmination of his work, McKeag's, and perhaps Hopkins's before him: the restoration of the dignity of indigenous authority so that it could once more take up its work, then stand side by side with England to administer the tribe. The fragile alliance, colonial and Meru, had come to life. Ruling elders from the missions, regional Njuris, and district headquarters were in accord. To Lambert, it must indeed have seemed the dawn of a golden age.
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Topic: Njuri Versus Gikuyu: The Meru Golden Age (Read 2670 times)