[5][6] Before the establishment of East Africa Protectorate in 1895, the Agĩkũyũ preserved geographic and political power from almost all external influence for many generations; they had never been subdued.

[7] Before the arrival of the British, Arabs involved in slave trading and their caravans passed at the southern edges of the Agĩkũyũ nation.

[9] Relying on a combination of land purchases, blood-brotherhood (partnerships), intermarriage with other people, and their adoption and absorption, the Agĩkũyũ were in a constant state of territorial expansion.

Ngai cannot be seen but is manifested in the sun, moon, stars, comets and meteors, thunder and lightning, rain, rainbows, and in the great fig trees (Mugumo).

[22] The Gĩkũyũ people believed the departed spirits of the ancestors can be reborn again in this world when children are being born, hence the rites performed during the child naming ceremonies.

The said person also had to demonstrate and practice the highest levels of truth (maa) and justice (kihooto), just like the supreme God of the Gĩkũyũ people would do.

Mathew Njoroge Kabetũ's list reads, Tene, Kĩyĩ, Aagu, Ciĩra, Mathathi, Ndemi, Iregi, Maina (Ngotho), Mwangi.

[27] Here is Mũriũki's list of the names of regiment sets in Metumi (Mũrang'a): Kiariĩ (1665–1673), Cege (1678–1678), Kamau (1704–1712), Kĩmani (1717–1725), Karanja (1730–1738), Kĩnũthia (1743–1751), Njũgũna (1756–1764), Kĩnyanjui (1769–1777), Ng'ang'a (1781–1789), Njoroge (1794–1802), Wainaina (1807–1815), Kang'ethe (1820–1828), Mbũgua (1859–1867), Njenga or Mbĩra Itimũ (1872–1880), Mũtũng'ũ or Mbũrũ (1885–1893).

[28]) Karanja (1759–1762), Kĩnũthia (1772–1775), Ndũrĩrĩ (1785–1788), Mũgacho (1798–1801), Njoroge (1811–1814), Kang'ethe (1824–1827), Gitaũ (1837–1840), Manyaki (1850–1853), Kiambũthi (1863–1866), Watuke (1876–1879), Ngũgĩ (1889–1892), Wakanene (1902–1905).

Gaki on the other hand, as far as my geographical understanding of Gĩkũyũ land is concerned should be much closer to Metumi, yet virtually no names of regiment sets are shared.

[27] Gakaara wa Wanjaũ supports this view when he writes in his book, Mĩhĩrĩga ya Aagĩkũyũ,[29] Hingo ĩyo ciana cia arũme ciatuagwo marĩĩtwa ma mariika ta Watene, Cuma, Iregi kana Ciira.

Nao airĩĩtu magatuuo marĩĩtwa ma mĩhĩrĩga tauria hagwetetwo nah au kabere, o nginya hingo iria maundu maatabariirwo thuuthaini ati ciana ituagwo aciari a mwanake na a muirĩĩtu.

[29] Freely translated it means "In those days the male children were given the names of the riika (initiation set) like Watene, Cuma, Iregi, or Ciira.

[34] The Agikuyu, having been unsuccessful in their conflicts with the European settlers and the colonial government, turned to political means as a method of resolving their grievances.

[35] Kenya served as a base for the British in the First World War as part of their effort to capture the German colonies to the south, which were initially frustrated.

However, Lt. Col Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck took command of the German military forces, determined to tie down as many British resources as possible.

Completely cut off from Germany, von Lettow conducted an effective guerrilla warfare campaign, living off the land, capturing British supplies, and remaining undefeated.

To chase von Lettow-Vorbeck, the British deployed Indian Army troops from India and then needed large numbers of porters to overcome the formidable logistics of transporting supplies far into the interior by foot.

The experiences gained by Africans in the war, coupled with the creation of the white-dominated Kenya Crown Colony, gave rise to considerable political activity in the 1920s which culminated in Archdeacon Owen's "Piny Owacho" (Voice of the People) movement and the "Young Kikuyu Association" (renamed the "East African Association") started in 1921 by Harry Thuku (1895–1970), which gave a sense of nationalism to many Kikuyu and advocated civil disobedience.

[36] By the 1930s, approximately 30,000 white settlers lived in Agikuyu country and gained a political voice because of their contribution to the market economy.

The area was already home to over a million members of the Kikuyu nation, most of whom had been pushed off their land by the encroaching European settlers, and lived as itinerant farmers.

To protect their interests, the settlers banned the production of coffee, introduced a hut tax, and landless workers were granted less and less land in exchange for their labour.

KAU acted as a constituency association for the first black member of Kenya's legislative council, Eliud Mathu, who had been nominated in 1944 by the governor after consulting with the local Bantu/Nilotic elite.

The failure of the KAU to attain any significant reforms or redress of grievances from the colonial authorities shifted the political initiative to younger and more militant figures within the African trade union movement, among the squatters on the settler estates in the Rift Valley and in KAU branches in Nairobi and the Kikuyu districts of central province.

Members of the Gĩkũyũ family from the greater Kiambu (commonly referred to as the Kabete) and Nyeri districts are closely related to the Maasai people also due to intermarriage prior to colonization.

[34] Famous stories include The Maiden Who Was Sacrificed By Her Kin, The Lost Sister, The Four Young Warriors, The Girl who Cut the Hair of the N'jenge, and many more.

When the European missionaries arrived in the Agikuyu country in 1888, they learned the Kikuyu language and started writing it using a modified Roman alphabet.

Cultural loss increased as urbanization and modernization impacted on indigenous knowledge, including the ability to play the mũtũrĩrũ – an oblique bark flute.

A minority of the Kikuyu practice Islam, notably through Arab, Indian and Persian missionaries since trade with the rest of East Africa.

[51] In April 2018, the Presbyterian Church of East Africa made a resolution to prohibit its members from the Kikuyu cultural rite known as Mburi cia Kiama and this triggered disturbances among devotees in the region of Mount Kenya.