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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What did the government of the Gikuyu become eventually?
(a) A democratic government.
(b) A communal system.
(c) A dictatorship.
(d) A kingdom ruled by royalty.

2. When a man becomes ill, ________________ are sought.
(a) Medicine men.
(b) Gikuyu gods.
(c) Seers.
(d) Elders.

3. When is a man initiated into the council of peace?
(a) When a man is 50 years old.
(b) When a man owns his own hut and land.
(c) When a man marries.
(d) When a man has a child to be circumcised.

4. What are the stomach contents of the sacrificial animal mixed with during the harvesting ceremony?
(a) Fruit and nuts.
(b) Sap of a tree and the bark.
(c) Ground up fish.
(d) Spices.

5. On what day is the woman admitted into the husband's clan?
(a) The eighth.
(b) The seventh.
(c) The nineth.
(d) The sixth.

6. When do the Gikuyu make sacrifices to their god?
(a) For fertility.
(b) For good health.
(c) Only in dire circumstances and when rain fails to fall.
(d) For a good harvest.

7. What did the Gikuyus consider "white man's magic"?
(a) Reading and writing.
(b) Western medicine.
(c) Money.
(d) Having one wife.

8. What is done to the girl's body prior to surgery?
(a) It is blessed by the medicine man.
(b) It is washed in the mother's hut.
(c) It is painted with sacred colors.
(d) It is massaged and adorned with beads.

9. Where do the men, women, and children beat the bushes to chase the evil spirits away?
(a) In the jungle.
(b) Toward Mount Kenya.
(c) At the river.
(d) Toward the center of the village.

10. For what did the Europeans condemn the Gikuyus?
(a) Circumcision.
(b) Polygamy.
(c) Medicine men.
(d) Magic.

11. What does the father teach his son about plants and roots?
(a) Nothing.
(b) Which ones have magic power.
(c) Which ones are poisonous.
(d) The names and uses.

12. What are the young taught?
(a) How to bathe themselves.
(b) How to dress themselves.
(c) History of the tribe and family traditions.
(d) The Gikuyu language.

13. How do the mother and the nurse educate the very young?
(a) With toys.
(b) Through stories.
(c) Through poems.
(d) Through lullabies.

14. What kind of games do the young Gikuyu play?
(a) Hide and Go Seek.
(b) Pretend fighting and house.
(c) Singing songs.
(d) Climbing trees.

15. When does a man become a member of the Court of Elders?
(a) After one child is circumcised.
(b) When he marries.
(c) When he owns a house.
(d) After two children are circumcised.

Short Answer Questions

1. What is the first stage of Gikuyu courtship?

2. When is the piercing of the child's lobe done?

3. What are taught as underlying principles of Gikuyu education?

4. What does a man pay when he is initiated into the religious and sacrificial council?

5. When an animal is to be sacrificed to God, where is the ceremony held?

(see the answer keys)

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