ABSTRACT
I have discussed changes in Meru society under each of the headings used above. Today's ethnography demands the inclusion of change in our descriptions since we cannot agree on the validity of an ethnographic present nor can we leave a discussion of change to a concluding paragraph. But a summary of the major changes in Meru society since colonialism is possible at this point. What strikes me as most important is the expansion of scale of Meru society from people who had developed a system of independent yet interdependent clans which allowed them to adapt socially, politically, and economically to their mountain environment to people who became underdeveloped in a tribal unit which was dependent upon a colonial regime. As a tribe within the British Empire the Meru could no longer satisfy their needs. They went through a process of peasantisation. They became dependent through externally derived values upon externally manufactured goods and thus became underdeveloped compared to those who created the values and controlled the production and distribution of the goods. Both the value system and the expensive, therefore scarce, nature of the goods ensured that Meru society would become stratified not only in terms of who possessed the goods, but also with respect to who adopted the values.
