[Wambui] believed in the power of women to influence events, especially where men had failed to act, or seemed indecisive […] Let therefore such men,… - Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o

He was caught red-handed,’ some were saying.
‘Imagine, bullets in his hands. In broad daylight.’
Everybody, even we children, knew that for an African to be caught with bullets or empty shells was treason; he would be dubbed a terrorist, and his hanging by the rope was the only outcome.
‘We could hear gunfire,’ some were saying.
‘I saw them shoot at him with my own eyes.’
‘But he didn’t die!’
‘Die? Hmm! Bullets flew at those who were shooting.’
‘No, he flew into the sky and disappeared into the clouds.’”

I am human, i am a human being, a soul, and not a piece of garbage, no matter how poor and ragged I look, and I deserve respect, he heard himself say, time and again as he descended to and repossessed his body."

Then the white men had come, preaching a strange religion, strange ways, which all men followed. The tribe's code of behaviour was broken.