By Vincent Bartoo

?The role of women in Kenya’s liberation struggle from colonialism is often overlooked with majority of feted heroes being men.

In life and after death, nothing much is said of them as many have either died or are living in their sunset years in utter neglect and abject poverty.

Majority of them were widowed with children to raise after their husbands were killed in the liberation struggle. Sadly, the nation has since independence turned a blind eye to them.

As a matter of fact, no monument in the country bears the figure of a woman in any landmark in the country. This manifests how their roles have failed to get recognition.

Like many before her, the death of Margaret Tabaigoi Bartiony, passed unnoticed by many and her burial on May 26 in Nandi County was a low key ceremony.

Her name may not ring a bell in the ears of many Kenyans, but Tabaigoi’s contribution to the defeat of the British colonialists should earn her a place in the country’s Hall of Fame.

Her burial in Sang’alo passed like any other, save for her family and a few guests who paid glowing tribute to the unsung liberation heroine.

Tabaigoi was the daughter-in-law of the legendary Nandi freedom fighter Koitalel arap Samoei who was a revered Orkoiyot (Seer) from the Talai community.

She was married to Koitalel’s nephew, the late Kipng’erechi Bartiony arap Buigut.

British enemy

Tabaigoi was instrumental in holding together the Talai community as their fathers and sons were sought after, detained and killed by the British colonialists.

Due to their divine powers as seers, the Talai became enemy number one of the British who viewed them as a threat to their colonial administration.

Before they ventured into Nandi, Koitalel saw in a pot a long snake spitting fire and smoke invading. His father Kipnyolei Arap Turugat would later interpret it.

His vision came true, only that it was the British who invaded Nandi and built a railway with trains (snake) that helped them colonise the area.

Koitaleel and his brothers then launched a resistance that saw them leave home to fight the British although many ended up detained and killed.

The women, like Tabaigoi, were left behind to fend for the families and this they did with extraordinary strength and courage.

Tabaigoi’s step son, David arap Saina, recalled how the late Tabaigoi would play hide and seek with the British colonialists who sought after boys and men from the Talai community to annihilate them.

“He would hide them because the British had appropriately branded them wizards and sorcerers to create more enemies against the Clan (Talai) including the host Nandi community,” he said.

white settlers

?Saina recalls an incident when Tabaigoi was spiriting boys from the community into hiding when white settlers pounced on them demanding to know whether the boys were from the Talai clan.

“She confidently told them off saying they were Nandi and were on an excursion. However on further prodding, the women who were with Tabaigoi got intimidated and gave them away leading to their detention,” Saina tells The Standard.

The British then started a plan to separate the older generation of the Talai with the younger ones, detaching them to have the latter lose identity.

“They took the young ones to Luoland to integrate them with the community there while leaving the older generation in detention areas in Nandi,” Saina adds with a faraway look.

George Samoei Kemboi, a grandson of Koitaleel arap Samoei, recalls his mother throwing him over to his aunt after they ran into a roadblock.

“We were going to rejoin my father, Barsirian arap Manyei who had escaped Nandi to go to Laikipia when we ran into the British along the way,” he said.

?Instinctively, his mother asked the aunt to quickly go through the check and catch the baby boy she would throw on the side of the vehicle they were travelling in.

?The aunt caught Kemboi and secretly slid with him through the dragnet to return to Nandi as the rest proceeded to Laikipia. ?“Had I been discovered to be a Talai, worse still from the Koitalel family, we would not be here sharing this story,” said Kemboi, 59.

Kipchoge Arap Chomu, Secretary of the Koitalel family in charge of Logistics and Research, said apart from shielding the boy child like it was in the Bible during the birth of Jesus, the women also acted as spies.

When men from the clan were arrested and hounded into detention camps, Chomu said it was women like Tabaigoi who gathered intelligence on the British.

“They were allowed to visit their husbands and sons in detention and they would tell them what the British were planning and doing out there,” he explained. This helped the men plan how they would counter the white settlers. Chomu added that some women from the community even faked their identity and sought employment in British families and the colonial Government so as to spy on them.

“And when the men planned detention breaks, the women would help sneak in weapons undetected to the detained Talai men,” he said.

Tabaigoi’s granddaughter, Judy Koskei said her grandmother was widowed at an early age, but stood firm and gallantly soldiered on, protecting and catering for her children.

“At one time after she was released from detention, she escaped further harassment and imprisonment with her family to Mt Elgon on the Uganda side,” she explained.

After Koitalel’s death, life became unbearable for his immediate family as the colonialists hunted them down.

Tabaigoi would later find her way back to Kenya after the British had forgotten about her and sought employment as a Prison Warden in 1952.

“She used proceeds from the job to educate our parents, especially the girls since the boys were either in detention or hiding with the men,” said Koskei. Tabaigoi had nine children and through the great injustices meted out to her by virtue of her being married to the Talai clan, four of them passed on.