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Mau Mau Uprising
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[O]f the events in Kenya, the verb "to mau mau" meaning "to menace through intimidating tactics; to intimidate, harass; to terrorize," entered English usage, especially in a political and/or racial context. One example is Tom Wolfe's 1970 novel, Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers. Another example, in the second episode of Law & Order (Subterranean Homeboy Blues), a detective uses the verb in this way: "If the lady popped you because you were mau-mauing her..."
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The very title of this documentary comes from a 1954 travelogue called "Mau Mau," featuring footage of the Mau Mau uprising in Africa narrated by Chet Huntley. Dan Sonney acquired the footage but didn't know how to sell it, so he hired some black actors from Los Angeles to pose as naked warriors, slitting the throats of bare-breasted women, and this three minutes of faked footage was inserted into the movie and used as the trailer.
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From this time (1938) the colonial government accused Muindi Mbingu of leading a revolt called Mau Mau. It was against this background that he was arrested and detained for seven years in the Coastal Islands of Lamu.
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"The Mau Mau caused such a great deal of trouble that for them to suggest they were the victims is preposterous," said Mr Hastings. "The Mau Mau were a small group who caused a lot of disruption, not only to the British but ... to their own people."
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Eventually, more than 300 men gave confessions to the Mau Mau killings at Lari. But as Anderson documents, it's impossible to know what sort of coercion might have extracted them. Recognizing that their statements would be suspect, police encouraged traumatized survivors to corroborate their testimony. Anderson finds that unreliable testimony provided the basis for eighteen hangings. Still, in the end, after appeals through the British legal system, acquittals in the Lari cases outnumbered convictions, and outraged settlers pressed for and won even harsher measures and more summary justice. The story of the countermassacre and the increasing use of systematic state counterterror, meanwhile, was buried.
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In March 25-26 1953 Mau Mau attacked a village of Lari, where they burned 84-150 (sources disagree) non-Mau Mau Kikuyu alive in their huts. Most of them were wives and children of Kikuyu Home Guard soldiers serving elsewhere.
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Mau Mau Uprising