Mourning the Fallen Mzee

And a eulogist sounds a warning about wolves

It was a fitting funeral for a man who had led his country to independence. While thousands of rural Kenyans flanked the highway, craning for one last look at their fallen President, a flatbed Land Rover bearing a flag-draped coffin with the remains of Jomo Kenyatta rolled slowly along the highway to his house in Gatundu. There, in accordance with Kikuyu custom, it lay overnight near the verdant hills and ridges of his tribal homeland. Next morning the body was returned to Nairobi, transferred into a British-built ceremonial coffin crafted from African oak and mounted on a two-ton gun carriage.

Drawn by 72 soldiers in red tunics from the Kenya Rifles, the cortege moved at a stately pace down Kenyatta Avenue toward Parliament grounds. Thousands of wananchi (Swahili for "common folk") lined the street, trying to glimpse the passing coffin, which was bedecked with Kenyatta's military cap, his sword and his Kikuyu beaded belt. The mourners were eerily silent, as though numbed by grief. The only sounds were the tramping of feet and the muted strains of an army brass band.

Awaiting the procession at the Parliament grounds were representatives of 82 nations, among them Britain's Prince Charles. Also present were Tanzania's Julius Nyerere and Uganda's Idi Amin,* with whom Kenyatta had quarreled in the past. The U.S. delegation, headed by Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, who had helped to draft Kenya's constitution, included Ambassador to the United Nations Andrew Young, Coretta Scott King and President Carter's son Jeff.

The body was installed in a glass-walled mausoleum supported by four stone towers, topped by eternal flames. The interdenominational service, conducted in both English and Swahili, was simple and dignified. Some ambitious government ministers in the audience may have squirmed as the Very Rev. Charles M. Kareri, a retired Presbyterian minister, admonished Kenyans to "remember how St. Paul also warned his people, saying 'I know that after my departure fierce wolves will get in among you and will not spare the flock. And from among your own selves men will rise speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them.' " Kareri beseeched Kenyans to "watch against the fierce wolves who will want to come in and will not spare Kenya nor the good deeds and legacy that the late Mzee [the Old Man] has left to us."

So far, potential rivals for Kenyatta's power seem to be heeding Kareri's words. Acting President Daniel Arap Moi seemed to be picking up support from many of Kenya's most powerful politicians. If Moi succeeds Kenyatta, there is little chance that Kenya will deviate from the pro-Western policies laid down by Mzee.

* At the service, Charles pointedly turned his back when the Ugandan dictator tried to greet him.

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