Scholarship until recently has focused on the reaction to colonialism among African elites, often urban elites. Little attention has been given to the perceptions that rural people had of colonial rule and its many manifestations, including missionary activity. As a result, rural dwellers have often been viewed merely as carry-overs from earlier times, living in static societies. They have rarely been seen as adaptive and innovative peoples, coping with or, indeed, thwarting the colonial/mission intrusion.

This article on the Kikuyu of Kenya seeks to describe what happened among one group of rural people as they confronted changing conditions and new opportunities created by British colonialism and American mission activity. It is difficult to escape the conclusion that a great many ordinary people were involved in grass roots activity, activity that calls into question our common notions of rural, early twentieth century Africa.

When the African Inland Mission (AIM) arrived in 1903, they became part of the flux and motion that had been taking place in Kikuyu society for some time. The close control of leadership positions in the primary descent and territorial group, the mbari, and the age organization, the riika, sent ambitious Kikuyu looking elsewhere for challenge and achievement. Within their society a few were able to find this in the areas of magic and divination, but greater numbers were attracted to the frontier as settlers, where they established a new mbari with themselves as leaders. Others found sources of challenge outside their society, particularly in warfare and trade. This combination provided a lively relationship for some Kikuyu with other Mt. Kenya peoples and the neighboring Maasai.