Who knows where the name Mau Mau came from?

One of the most salient yet unsettled issues in Kenya’s colourful history is what exactly the name “Mau Mau” means. Even today, the closest to an etymological source are merely theories, legends, and guesses. While some sources claim it is an abbreviation, others suggest it was a corruption of a phrase.

It is true that Mau Mau was not the original name of the freedom fighters to whom it now refers. Its founders chose the more generic Kenya Land and Freedom Army (KLFA), a name that identified their main goals and aspirations.

However, the colonial government wanted to depict the freedom fighters as a group of ragtag terrorists out to disturb the peace. With a monopoly of state propaganda, the government initiated and labelled the fighters Mau Mau.

The latter, as deft to adaptation as their condition demanded, quickly adopted the name and made it more relevant to their cause.

This ingenious adaptation would eventually evolve such etymological versions as Mzungu Aende Ulaya, Mwafrika Apate Uhuru. The abbreviation of this phrase, MAU MAU, is one of the leading theories of the source of the name. In essence, it was a translation of the ideals of the KLFA.

One of the most commonly cited etymologies is the prosecution of Magroui ole Kedogoya, a Mau Mau sympathiser, in 1949. Maina Kinyatti wrote in 1992 that Kedogoya allegedly told the trial judge, “Ndingikwira maundu mau mau nderirwo ni kiama. (I cannot tell you the things that I was told not to tell you by the movement).

This claim explains that as the trial received wide coverage, journalists assumed that “Mau Mau” was the name of the proscribed organisation.

MILITARY WING

The Mau Mau had been preceded by a group of ex-servicemen, the Group of 40, also known as the Kikuyu Maranga African Union (KMAU), which could have eventually led to the name of the military wing it bore.

JM Kariuki wrote in Mau Mau Detainee that the name came from the homeguards/loyalists. As the freedom war was as much an intra-tribal conflict as it was a fight for independence, the latter had vested interests in labelling the freedom group a militia. It would succeed in doing so by using a label that had derogatory conotations.

JM further wrote that the fighters referred to themselves as ‘‘muingi’’, the alternative name for “kiama kia muingi’’, which meant “Party of the Masses” or “Movement of Unity” in Kikuyu.

Bildad Kaggia and other former freedom fighters claimed that the name could have come from the Mau Mau codeword “muhimu” which meant “important”.

This claim is plausible as the name most likely originated from the mishearing of a word used by the freedom fighters among themselves. As they were almost exclusively from the Gikuyu, Embu, and Meru communities, its etymology is most definitely Bantu.

Some sources further claim that the name was taken from the Mau Ranges in the Rift Valley whose thick forests were teeming with the freedom fighters.