When Mau Mau used animals to ward off British soldiers

British soldiers in action during the crackdown on Mau Mau fighters. [File, Standard]

When former First Lady Mama Ngina Kenyatta took the lead in shaving Muthoni wa Kirima’s dreadlocks last week, some of the younger generations may have taken the action as merely discarding a lifestyle. 

But for the 92-year-old Ms Muthoni, the locks represented life in the forests where she fought the British government for about seven years. With little time for grooming, the thick hair would naturally twist and ‘lock’.