Facing Mount Kenya

Jomo Kenyatta, the first president of independent Kenya, wrote this book as a graduate anthropology student in London. As a primary source, this book is invaluable. It gives detailed analysis of many aspects of pre-Mau Mau Gikuyu cultural ceremonies. However, as it is a product of the structuralist school of anthropology, many of its conclusions and findings are problematic, most notably in its opinion of culture as a fixed entity which determines human behaviour. For students of colonial Africa, this piece will inevitably be of use.