Word: oaths
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Peaceful, Wise." Although all but one of Lanza's current companions are Roman Catholics, the Ark has no official connection with that church, and membership is open to anyone who believes in God. The 20 permanent adult members of the community have taken vows, and live under an oath of poverty. Husbands and wives live together, are primarily responsible for the education of their children. In imitation of Gandhi, the members of the community begin their day with yoga-like exercises, practice an ardent pacifism. They have joined in sitdown strikes at the Marcoule atomic-energy plant, demonstrated against...
Before the seven-year Mau Mau scourge was eliminated in 1959, the British colonial government decided that it must counter witchcraft with witchcraft, and devised elaborate de-oathing rites, but they were not always successful. Once, when authorities persuaded tribesmen to abjure their bonds to the Mau Mau by sacrificing a goat, a Mau Mau agent slaughtered two dogs, nullifying the "goat oath" with the more potent magic of the "dog oath...
...husky African district officer named Eliud Mahihu asked one of the 200 assembled Kikuyu tribesmen to close his eyes, then led him through the crowd with a broom handle. "He is like a blind man because he has shut his eyes," shouted Mahihu. "If you have taken an oath with the Land Freedom Army, you have shut your eyes too!" By sundown, 130 men and women had stepped forward to renounce their membership in the shadowy army. Suspected members who held back faced arrest and imprisonment...
Magic Rites. Among the superstitious Kikuyu, the British have learned, very little can be accomplished without magic rites. The Mau Mau forced horror-struck natives to violate tribal taboos, and so bound them to the movement by cutting them off from all else. Some of the grisly Mau Mau oath-taking rites called for copulation with sheep, eating the flesh of exhumed corpses or drinking the "Kaberi-chia cocktail," a blend of semen, menstrual blood and sheep's blood...
Accordingly, the government is now also using a far milder de-oathing rite. In fact, it often is more like a civil;,service exam than something out of The'-Golden Bough. Along with a Kikuyu district officer, the de-oathing teams comprise several recorders, who write down confessions, and a court of five tribal elders. Those who come forward to renounce the L.F.A. are asked eleven questions ("When did you take the oath?" "Who are the leaders?"), then are fined an average of 5 or 10 shillings by the elders...