BACKING STORY OF MEKATILILI WA MENZA IN KENYA

STORY OF MEKATILILI WA MENZA

By: TARCISIO F. B. GICHUNGE

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

INTRODUCTION
By Gichunge WA M’Thirua
The Europeans arrived in Kenyan Coast in AD 1840’s as Missionaries through John Rebmann and Doctor Ludwig Krapf who founded Protestant Missions in Mombasa in 1840’s.

When British Colonizers arrived later, they started their settlements at the Coast and began their settlements in Giriamaland. By 1910, the British owned plantations in Giriamaland and they needed laborers to work in their plantations. In addition, the colonizers demanded taxes from the natives.

No man had any courage to oppose “forced labor and taxes” from the colonizers other than that old widow named Mekatilili WA Menza who had been born in 1840’s. Mekatilili WA Menza had been born the only daughter in a family of four brothers. Her elder brother Mwarandu had been captured as a slave and never seen again.
The enslavement of her brother by the Arabs and Slave Traders through the mask and frontage of the British Colonizers instigated WA Menza and she grew up in hatred of the colonizers. The disappearance of her brother had hardened her heart to fight for the people’s human rights that much early.

One day, after making her decision to resist the Colonizers’ demands, she approached and consulted a famous local medium and soothsayer by name Wanje WA Mwandori for advice about her decision to administer an oath and mobilize the community to swear and resist harsh colonial demands. Wanje approved her plan and joined her effort in disguise but when the resistance battle started both were arrested on 17th, October 1913 and imprisoned for five years in Kisii Prison.

That was after she had physically challenged Arthur Champion a British Administrator in a public meeting in on 15th, August 1913. Mekatilili and Wanje escaped from Kisii Prison and walked 1,000 Kilometers to the Coast from 20th, April 1914. The long journey took them three months.

They were soon after rearrested and imprisoned in Kismayu Somalia where they again escaped and arrived home in 1919. Mekatilili lived in Magarini where they buried her in Malindi in 1924.
She is rated a Super Hero woman in Kenyan History. Her story is worthy telling and listening by generations.