Prophetess Moraa, Kisii hero who led rebellion in 1943

Kisii town in the 1950s. [File, Standard]

Long before Kenya erupted into a volcano of political violence and millions demanded right to self-determination, the Abagusii people had made a name by trying to dismantle colonial shackles.

The colonial government dismissed the freedom fighters as woolly, bhang-inspired rabble-rousers only fit to be confined to a mental hospital ward.

A 1943 annual report summarising the year's occurrences capture the disdain with which the government viewed the people of Kisii even as it acknowledged source of their bile.

“During the year, a considerable amount of distrust which still remains from the effects of war and carrier cops, I think it has been dispelled. The young men have been got to come in fairly freely including the wild and the woolly individuals who live at the back of Manga some of whom have considerable influence," reads part of the report.

The government was frightened by a wave of unrest and in November of 1943 complained of emergence of Mumboism in Kitutu originating with a prophetess who the colonialists perceived as mad. The prophetess, the colonial government feared naming, was Moraa.

The government claimed Moraa had collected several individuals who were leaders of a cult the late Sakawa, a famous prophet had great influence on before Kisii town was established.

The government went about breaking up this school of believers in the liberation of their people. The woman leading this group, the South Kavirondo District Commissioner reported, was confined to a lunatic asylum after she was found insane.

Another woman and three men were deported to Lamu, a decision expected to bring “excellent results of discouraging this sort of rather dangerous folly."

The administrator noted that one of the deportees was the son of a woman who had inspired another freedom fighter who had single-handedly inspired a rebellion when he speared a Kisiii District Commissioner, GAS Northcote in 1907.

Trouble had started in 1904 when the colonial government sent 100 soldiers and 50 police officers on punitive expedition to teach the Kisii a lesson for raiding a neighbouring community.

The soldiers impounded over 3,000 animals, burnt thousands of homes and granaries and killed hundreds, leaving an entire community destitute.

This is why when Northcote was posted to administer the district in 1907, Otenyo a local hero, inspired by Moraa, a prophetess believed to possess mystical powers, volunteered to kill the face of his people's oppression.