Today, it is a common phenomenon to see a child sitting while his/her elder struggles to contain fatigue due to standing for too long.
It could be on our public transport system, food joints or any other place where the sitting space is limited.
While such behaviour can today easily be dismissed and swept under the carpet, among the traditional Kikuyu people, this was simply unacceptable.
This is because each member of this community had a designated sitting place, especially within the homestead.
This was meant to avoid among other things embarrassment like in the case where your mother visits you in town but your 5-year-old kid simply can't just rise up from the only chair in the house to let their grandmother to at least take a breather after a long, tiring journey from the village.
Below we focus on where every member of the Kikuyu household was supposed to sit, as documented by Gikuyu Centre for Cultural Studies (GCCS).
1. Man/husband/father
"A man’s seat was called 'njũng’ũa' which was either three or four legged and was carved from a tree trunk as a whole piece without jointing. 'Njung'wa' was made by a professional woodcarver known as 'mwai wa itĩ'," GCCS notes.
This seat was strictly reserved for the man of the house and nobody could dare sit on or move it around.
2. Woman/wife/mother
The woman's seat was referred to as 'giturwa' and was made almost in a similar manner to that of a man only that it had a wide sitting diameter.
GCCS writes, "This seat was never moved about and the woman would get very irritated with a daughter who moved it even a little. This seat was never moved outside even when people sat outside the nyũmba in outdoor cooking or other activities."
3. Children
Children had no reserved seats for them and were supposed to sit on the ground or on the haunches of either 'kweru' side.
Grown-up children, however, had smaller seats that resembled those of their father or mother according to their gender.
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