Mau Mau

mau-mau

(mou'mou') pronunciation

tr.v. Informal, -maued, -mau·ing, -maus.
To attack or denounce vociferously, especially so as to intimidate: "In years past, [the civil rights leadership] ... would mau-mau the government or the corporate sector or the white community" (Joseph Perkins).

[After the Mau Mau, a secret society of Kikuyu terrorists that led a rebellion against the ruling Europeans in Kenya in the 1950s, from Kikuyu mau-mau, sound of the voracious gobbling of a hyena.]

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Mau Mau

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Militant Kikuyu-led nationalist movement of the 1950s in Kenya. The Mau Mau (the name's origin is uncertain) advocated violent resistance to British domination in Kenya. In response to actions by Mau Mau rebels, the British Kenya government banned the movement in 1950 and launched a series of military operations between 1952 and 1956. Some 11,000 Kikuyu, 100 Europeans, and 2,000 African loyalists were killed in the fighting; another 20,000 Kikuyu were put into detention camps. Despite their losses, Kikuyu resistance spearheaded the independence movement, and Jomo Kenyatta, jailed as a Mau Mau leader in 1953, became prime minister of independent Kenya in 1963. In 2003 the ban on the Mau Mau was lifted.

For more information on Mau Mau, visit Britannica.com.

Columbia Encyclopedia:

Mau Mau

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Mau Mau (mou' mou'), secret insurgent organization in Kenya, comprising mainly Kikuyu tribespeople. They were bound by oath to force the expulsion of white settlers from Kenya. In 1952 the Mau Mau began reprisals against the Europeans, especially in the "white highlands," claimed as Kikuyu lands. The settlers retaliated and non-participant Kikuyu were killed by the Mau Mau. Jomo Kenyatta and other nationalist leaders were imprisoned. By 1956, however, British troops had hunted down the Mau Mau in the mountain forests. Most leaders were captured and executed. Later the entire Kikuyu tribe was resettled within a guarded area. The state of emergency decreed (1952) in Kenya was ended in 1960 and Kenyatta was released; he subsequently became prime minister (1963) upon independence, and president (1964) when the country became a republic.

Bibliography

See study by D. Branch (2009).

Oxford Dictionary of Modern Slang:

mau-mau

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verb trans.
/'maυmaυ/ /'maυmaυ/
verb trans., US

To threaten, terrorize. (1970 —) .
Harper's The English Department of Columbia University had been mau-maued by that termagant of Women's Lib (1971).

[From Mau Mau, the name of a secret society fighting for Kenyan independence, from Kikuyu; the verbal usage was apparently coined by the US writer Tom Wolfe ((1931 —) ).]

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		American Heritage Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more
		Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 1994-2012 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved. Read more
		Columbia Encyclopedia. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2012, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/. Read more
		Oxford Dictionary of Modern Slang. Oxford University Press. © 1997, 2008, 2010 All rights reserved. Read more

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