The River Between Chapter 1 Pdf Free Download
Salvator Grimard
Two boys, Kamau and Kinuthia, emerge in the plain. They are wrestling, but it soon becomes violent. Another boy emerges and orders them to stop. It is Waiyaki, and he asks why they are fighting. Kamau says the other boy called his father a convert to the white man, and Kinuthia says Kamau made fun of him for his father dying poor. They begin struggling again.
The boys come home in the darkness and Waiyaki goes to Chege. Chege warns his son that it is dangerous in the darkness, but Waiyaki boasts that he knows the way of all the ridges. He realizes his father was worried about him, and his heart warms. Chege tells his son that he must remember tomorrow is the day of his second birth. Waiyaki trembles with excitement.
One evening Chege calls him into his hut and asks if he has been to the hills deep south of Kameno. Waiyaki says no. Chege then asks if he has heard of the sacred grove, and Waiyaki says he has. Chege tells his son they will go there tomorrow. Waiyaki feels a thrill course through him and wonders what manly secret they will see.
The next day, Waiyaki follows Chege through the labyrinthine plants and thorns. It is quiet, but Chege often stops to comment on something he knows about a bush or plant. Waiyaki feels close to his father and thinks that the hidden things of the hills are being revealed to him.
At the top of the path, there is a small hill; this is the sacred place. A big Mugumo tree looms on the edge of the tree, huge and strange. It looks holy, and Waiyaki knows it is the tree of Murungu. He can see across the whole land; he can that the ridges are not antagonistic, but rather have merged into one.
Chege is moved by what he sees and tells his son this land is beautiful to the eye, that it is all their land, and that the Father and Mother of the tribe were made by Murungu. Murungu showed them the land and brought them here.
Chege seems like he is in a vision and Waiyaki, while a little frightened, senses something great in his father. Chege continues to speak of this blessed and sacred place. Kameno is where the father and mother started and were supported; their children spread throughout all the land.
After a moment, Chege looks at his son and tells him he descends from those who came to the hills. He then tells his son of Mugo the seer and how he warned the people of the men with clothes like butterflies. The people thought he was crazy and scorned him, so he became bitter and hid himself away. He went beyond the hills but finally came back, disguised, to live. Chege adds that he and Waiyaki are descended from Mugo.
Waiyaki is dumbstruck. Chege tells him not to fear and that he is the last in their line. Waiyaki feels a weight on his soul and a presentiment stirring within him. His father tells him to sit and, staring off into space and trembling a bit, explains that this is the ancient prophecy of Mugo: the only way to stop the butterfly men was to learn their ways, trap them, and fight them back; salvation will come from the hills and a son shall rise.
Chege stops. He says only he and maybe Kabonyi know the prophecy. He looks at Waiyaki and tells him he must heed this, go to the Mission, and learn the wisdom and secrets of the white man; he must be true to his people and his ancient rites.
Waiyaki, Kinuthia, and Kamau go to Siriana to live and learn together under the Reverend Livingstone of the Siriana Mission. Many boys from the hills go there. They work hard and Waiyaki impresses everyone. Some think he will be a great Christian leader.
Nyambura sits by the Honia river, feeling it call to her. This is the place where boys and girls come for their circumcision ritual, but she knows that it is sinful and a pagan rite that she and her sister are saved from. Her father, Joshua, is a man of God and helped them realize this.
Finally, Muthoni admits that she wants to be circumcised. Nyambura is stupefied and sits in silence. She reminds Muthoni that their father will never allow this and that they are now wise in the ways of the white people. Father teaches them what he knows, and missionaries do not like this rite.
Muthoni will not yield. Nyambura knows their father will never allow this, and she begs her sister to explain why. She grows passionate and Muthoni is upset and rushes to her. She says she wants to be a woman: a real girl who knows the ways of the hills and the ridges. She reminds Nyambura that their parents are circumcised and this did not prevent them from being Christians.
That year is not a good one for Joshua. Some in Kameno are restless and blame him for the white men. They hear of a Government Post being built at Makuyu and that they will be taxed by a government in Nairobi. Joshua does not mind these changes and sees the white men as his brothers in Christ. They are not responsible for the ills of the land; the people, in their blindness, are. He often feels great anger and tries to be patient even though he wishes he could punish them.
Sundays are usually busy for Joshua. Sometimes he has Kabonyi preach, but Kabonyi is not as compelling. Joshua is exhausted one Sunday and goes home with his wife. Nyambura is home but Muthoni is not. Nyambura starts to worry, especially for the moment when Joshua, who does not allow his children to stay out late, will ask for Muthoni.
Inside, Nyambura and Joshua are silent. Joshua rages at his wife and Nyambura is torn. Finally, she timidly ventures that maybe Muthoni has gone to visit their aunt. Joshua turns on her and asks why she would do that. Nyambura says she wants to be circumcised.
Joshua grabs her, so infuriated he has spittle coming out of his mouth. Nyambura is terrified that he will hit her. He releases her, though, and she feels a sense of pity at his defeated and pained form.
Nyambura goes and returns the next day, saying Muthoni refuses to return. Joshua is ashamed and thinks of the suffering of Job. From this day inward she is dead to him; she is a disgrace to him and his house.
Ngugi begins on a macro scale and then moves to the micro. He starts with an image of the ancient ridges of Kameno and Makuyu in the remote central highlands of Kenya and takes their history back to the gods and founding Kikuyu. The structure of the hills, river, and valley is already suggestive of conflict, as the river divides more than it unifies. The ambiguity surrounding the founders of the ridge communities (where did they go, where did they stay, etc.) is indicative of that conflict, as are the troubles that follow in subsequent generations. This image of the ridges standing apart from each other thus foreshadows the tremendous divisions to come: the tribe and the white man, Waiyaki and the elders, Muthoni and Nyambura, Joshua and Waiyaki, and more.
The first division of the tribes versus the white men still operates on a macro scale, as the influx of Europeans into Africa had been growing exponentially since the late 19th century. White Christian missionaries were traditionally the forerunners of companies and governments, and even though they may not have directly advocated for colonialism, they were often indirect implements of it. Tellingly, the tribe in The River Between is not dealing with just the missionaries and educators but also with the government and its imminent taxation.
In terms of religion, Kenya achieved independence in 1964, many chose to join the Christian faith. By 2000 over 75% of the population claim to be Christian or Catholic. There are more than 4,000 registered churches in Kenya.
The story is laced with symbolism and the story line greatly resembles the story of Jesus' crucifixion. The lore of the region as told by Chege is that there will be a savior and that sets the stage for a series of similarities between this story...
When Muthoni tells her sister that she wants to get circumcised, Nyambura points out that this tradition is a sin and the work of the devil. However, Muthoni reveals the irony of their own Christian community:...
The story opens with a description of the lore describing the area of two ridges, Kameno and Makuyu, and the river, Honia, that runs between them. The river is strong, even in the dry seasons, and the name means "cure." The legends of a magician, a seer and a warrior are ingrained in the children of the tribes that live there and those who live there are largely untouched by the outside.
Chapter two begins with two young boys fighting. The boys are Kamau, son of a man named Kabonyi from Makuyu, and Kinuthia, a boy who lives with his uncle two ridges from Kamau. Kinuthia's father had died and now the two boys are fighting, first with sticks and then with their bare hands, apparently because Kamau said that Kinuthia's father had died poor and Kinuthia...
About ten I came to a little bay, beyond which the canyon walls went on again, thirty- to forty-foot sheer on either side, with no beach and with a swift current between them. At the far end of this canyon reach I could hear the roar and see the boiling white water of a bad rapid.
The Nahanni swept downhill here, at great speed, round a right-hand bend: suddenly, at the foot of the bend, the river made a right- angle turn to the left, entering the low-walled canyon. But the current and the whole volume of the Nahanni could not make that sharp turn.
I walked back to the canoe and took out my axe and rifle, my pack-sack and some food and clothes, and laid them on the beach in case I lost the whole outfit but managed to get ashore myself: then I started up into the canyon.
After supper I strolled back along the trail and cut into the sides of a couple of old blazes that marked the path. I counted the rings: thirty years, as near as dammit, since they were made; that looked as if some, at least, of the Klondikers had got this far, and I wondered whether they had won through in the end to their Eldorado on the Yukon River, or whether the Nahanni or the Indians could best tell what became of them.
As I bailed I heard a grunting noise from upstream: a cow moose and her calf were swimming the river; the calf was having a tough time of it in the fast water, and the cow was talking to it and encouraging it. She probably intended to land where I had beached the canoe, but she saw me and headed straight for the bank, landing about a hundred yards upstream. The calf, however, had been doing its utmost and had nothing in reserve: it was swept down river and into the eddy, from which it splashed ashore about fifteen yards below camp.
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