Hero or villain? The battle for Chief Kasina’s disputed legacy

Chief Kasina Ndoo dressed in colonial civil administration uniform: Medals dangle on his limbless torso. [Courtesy]

When history student Levin Opiyo posted the imposing mugshot of Chief Kasina Ndoo dressed in colonial administrators' uniform with medals dangling on his limbless torso, nothing prepared him for the emotional barbs that ensued between his off-springs and descendants of his subjects.

In the Facebook post last week, Opiyo had given a short narration of Kasina’s exploits as colonial chief over the emergency period, attending Queen Elizabeth’s coronation in 1953, to having his limbs chopped off later that year by unknown people.

“Even though Chief Kasina maintained that those who harmed him were Mau Mau, others believed it had something to do with money. Nevertheless, he said he bore no particular malice towards the people who injured him,” Opiyo wrote.

What Opiyo did with this post, in retrospect, was to blow the whistle on the race for writing and rewriting the history of one of the most controversial period of Migwani area of Mwingi, Kitui County.

While family emerged to assert the place of Kasina as a man of honour who suffered the animosity of jealous neighbours and subjects, locals who had heard of him paint the picture of a ruthless collaborator with twitching hands.

And with it, the truth behind his September 22, 1953 attack, in which his two limbs were chopped off, began to emerge in bits.

A son of a heroic raider in inter-tribal warfare of the pre-colonial period, Kasina had but a small taste of education when his protective mother fetched him from school.

She was afraid that the whole business of education in Kitui was a ploy to ship out the young lads as slaves. With a smattering of education, Kasina would later work his way to the hearts of colonial masters, serve in the Kings African Rifles and become a chief, like his uncle Nzambu.

"The man who mutilated me is in jail. He has two sons at an intermediate school in Kitui, and for the last two years, I have paid their school fees. I also provide for his wife if she is in need," Opiyo quoted Kasina as saying of his own attack.

 What followed was a deluge of posts countering the Mau Mau narrative, locals giving insights as to why he was attacked, with one man offering that his grandfather was indeed the attacker and that it was all triggered by the hard-nosed conduct of the chief.

“Kasina was ruthless… actually, it’s my grandpa who amputated the guy in response to land grabbing’s and his ‘uta do’ kind of mentality,” Dennow Muasya revealed.

When someone expressed shock at the revelation, he rubbed it on further, one more time: “Yes he amputated this dictator called Kasina.”

Chief Kasina dressed in colonial garb. [Courtesy]

This attracted the ire of the grandchildren of the famous Kasina who has churches and schools named after him in Mwingi, and who left a large family upon his death in the ’80s. Jackie Munyasya, a grandchild led the charge:

“My grandpa was ruthless? Yet it's your grandpa who was so evil and driven by envy coz he couldn't make it in his life so he amputated his arms. Shame your family is still living off from the charity my grandpa gave to your grandpa even after what he did. See the life of that family where are you today mmmmh.”

Fred Mwendwa supported Muasya, saying there was minimal Mau Mau activity in the area, and that his hands were chopped off by a villager in a land dispute. Evans Mutemi, just like Lilian Syomiti, said they heard a similar story.

“The unfortunate chief's attack was done by a local man who was well known, the man disappeared towards Ikoo valley. It had nothing to do with Mau Mau but land dispute. That's the truth,” Mwendwa added.

The narrative was emerging, that Chief’s attacker was his own relative who had grown weary of his grabbing ways. He lured him to a sugar field by a stream, where he cut him up and left him for dead.

Adding to the debate, Kirimi Raiji claimed that while collecting data for some folklore project, he came across a Kamba song that alluded to the chopping of Kasina. He said it didn’t make much sense during his undergraduate days:

“And here you are with the missing puzzle from the past…..”

Fred Musau, and Jahsure Oduorie pleaded with the grandchildren to offer their side of the story instead of simply trashing others views of the attack.

Flo Matyyn challenged the family to take the initiative of educating people about their grandfather because everyone in Migwani grew up being told he was a ruthless man.

In support, Peter Musyimi told of a popular saying while growing up, which summed this belief: “Indo syaku syavulana na sya kasina wa ndoo ndwi Indo (If perchance your cattle mix up with those of Kasina Ndoo, just begin to come to terms with the new reality you do not have cattle).

James Muthui added a new twist, saying the Chief’s attack had such a profound effect on the people of the area, including moving Mwingi’s market day to the present Wednesday, so that it would be hard to skirt around its truth.

It was his strong conviction that the chief not only grabbed peoples land but also forcefully took peoples wives.

To Munyasya, the chief’s grandchild, all this was “rubbish nonsense” to tarnish her grandpa's name. Albert Ngondi seized her by her collar, saying nobody has any issues with the descendants except for their “baseless attempts to trivialize his acts that had far-reaching impacts on communities.”

Ngondi confessed that his great-grandpa was also a senior chief long before Kasina and that his family has records of happenings from before 1927 when Kasina became a Senior Chief and throughout his reign.

“There are court documents of cases of land grabbing against him with my grandfather and others as the plaintiff. Stop attempting to erase history! Peace,” he said.

Munyasya would not relent. While noting this, she said as far as she was concerned, all those were conspiracy theories against her grandpa. What mattered to her, she said, are the real accounts that she heard from her grandpa, himself.

Chief Kasina (centre) with Provincial Commissioner and District Commissioner after an administrative meeting. [Courtesy]

She also described the critics of her grandpa’s legacy as “small body of determined rumour mongers fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission to alter the course of history.”

“There is no way your grandpa would have told you of his evil side. For instance, did he mention to you that he was a collaborator?” Peter Kamunge cornered her. Munyasya ducked, but for a while.

Then emerged another restless, daring soul, Sheddie Mweu, shooting from the hips. There was neither respite nor courtesies in Mweu’s contribution.

He was resolute that Kasina was a renowned brute who reigned pure terror to the people and whom, he wished, is resting in hell.

Kasina’s other’s grandkids led by Dan Kasina, Maluki Grace, Mukuni Kitonga and Evelyn Kasina led this fresh charge against Mweu, who remained unrelenting, saying he could not rewrite history for their comfort.

“I'll consume it the way the despot made it and the way the people from the area say it may the spirit of those who he mistreated by taking their livestock, land and others hound him to the seven descendant,” he wrote.

One Anwar Olang’o tried to calm him down, saying he was too harsh with words, thereby hindering meaningful discussion. He said all colonial chiefs were very brutal.

Mweu dug in, saying her 104-year-old grandmother told her the whole truth on Kasina’s exploits.

To all this, all Dan Kasina could say was that Kenya is a country with human beings who don’t like getting their facts right, who don’t do due diligence and who portray themselves as holier.

He described Mweu as a “nincompoop with no sense of direction”, further infuriating him.

“Am unapologetically passing history. He was the chief of our area in those colonial eras he ruled with an iron fist he thought he was immortal.”

For Flokin Demeroh, her grandfather was a great man who married 8 wives and got himself 44 children. Mukuni Kitonga, another grandson said Kasina’s family had come to terms with the fact that people had chosen to believe false stories about their patriarch.

“Kasinas are scattered all over the world, very proud of our heritage which we will protect and defend even years to come. We are glad that name Kasina is a household name, unfortunately, we don’t know who Mweu’s grandparents were so that we comment on what they did.”

He said contrary to the claim that his grandfather grabbed peoples cattle, Kasina had been wealthy all through, having settled in Mwanza, Tanzania after the First World War, bringing to Kenya with him immense wealth to add on to what his “well-known war hero” father, Ndoo, had accumulated from the inter-community raids of before.

Mweu claimed Kasina’s donation of land to build AIC Kasina primary school in Migwani was nothing special. He claimed his own grandpa donated land where AIC Tulia, Mutonguni Boys, Tulia Primary School and Mutonguni grounds stand today, and never ascribed his name to them.

“.. because he did it for posterity to serve people. He was not a despot.”

Chief Kasina (left) was a son of a heroic raider in inter-tribal warfare of the pre-colonial period. [Courtesy]

Kalekye Kasina claimed it was all a case of a lie told so many times. Munyasya, her cousin calmed her down: “Keep your chin up and hold your head high. Pay no attention. Don't blame a tortoise for judging a giraffe. They are doing so from their point of view.”

And then there were the crude ones like Moziah Pharaoh who talked of Bolshevik revolution, calling on all to find the man who chopped Kasina and have a street named after him.

Kasina Diana Jane was the only grandchild who came close to admitting the acclaimed ruthlessness of her grandpa. She said the hands were chopped off by his cousin Munyambu who had been sent by some enemies.

She told Conrad Khei, in plain terms, that “there's some truth... only that it is plain... different from the way we know it as told by our grandmother's who were there as the events happened.”  

In a strange twist, Diana would later change and claim although the piece of writing about her grandfather was good, “some of the information given is not as it happened.”

When Opiyo hit back asking for specifics so that he can prove her wrong, by her grandpa’s own writings, Diana ducked for good. The kitchen got too hot.

Evelyn Kasina also conceded to some measure that her grandpa was no saint but “a human being like you and I, living in a world with difficulties.”

Nevertheless, she said, “because of him we are here and we are proud of him, we celebrate him and believe it, we will defend him because that is family; that is what unconditional love is - acceptance.”

But it was not all gloom and doom. There was a little humor in it all. Musyoki Tom couldn’t come to terms with the courage of Muasya’s grandpa who attacked the Chief. He compared attacking a colonial chief to attacking today’s Deputy County Commissioner.

For Grace Sangie, another of Kasina’s grandchildren, the ruminations on what the chief did or did not do were not as important as her immortal wish.

“I wish those who chopped off his hands left one at least for the handshake, tulisalimia koti all through, but he was a hero with great history.”

Another grandchild served another dose of laughter when she said as of the 2019 census, Kasina family population stood at 1000 plus in immediate family members.

“We usually meet every 5 yrs and it's such a wonderful occasion we interact with each other and still is not possible to interact the 1000 of you!”

Munyasya added; “We are more than United Nations.”

Beneath the humor, however, some still found room to sneak in some missiles.

“Awesome. You can use those numbers and plan on how to repay the people of Migwani cattle they claim Kasina took from them forcefully,” Riq Nzioki, to which Munyasya responded:

“Yes we'll use our numbers to sue all the people who falsely accuse our grandpa unjustly, it's about time.”