Fragmentation, Distortion and Dispossession of Indigenous Values: A New Historicist Reading of Ngugi Wa Thiongo's Dreams in a Time of War

Abstract

western scheme used as a ploy to dispossess Africans not only of their wealth but also of their cultural identity (61)”. This was a deliberate attempt to obliterate the cultural values of the colonized while constructing that of the colonizer. Juneja (1995) concurs this when he posits that: “The colonizer destroys the past of the colonized by changing the frame of reference of history from the colony to that of his mother country. He distorts and disfigures the historical past of the colonized to his advantage (4)”. This is what the colonizer did that made the colonized to hate his language, dressing, religion, food, and other cultural values to start considering that of the colonizer.A man without a culture or history has no roots as such, the colonizer succeeded in separating the colonized from their indigenous practices. The centrality of this paper grapples with Abstract: Most African countries in general and Kenya in particular had an organized way of life during the pre-colonial era. Cultures were respected; virtues/morality was prime and was handed down from one generation to the other through the lore. Unfortunately, the colonial encounter distorted the way of life of the colonized. The colonized values were brought to question and the colonized was made to shun his tradition. Eventually, the colonized was compelled to follow the colonizer’s trend which put the former’s values at risk. This changed the way the colonized could perceive themselves. Today more than ever before, post independent states find their values in crises due to colonial contact. Ngugi (2010) captures these cultural set ups before the advent of the colonizers. He rewrites history in prose form hence; this paper illustrates and argues that colonial incursions have fragmented and distorted indigenous values thereby putting it in crisis (at the brink of extinction).