Not every Kikuyu joined Mau Mau. Thousands sided with the British as Home Guards, defending settlers and hunting forest fighters. Some joined out of fear. Others saw collaboration as survival. Many were Christians who rejected oathing. The Home Guards were brutal. They tortured suspected Mau Mau, burned villages, and executed without trial. When independence came, they expected rewards. Instead, they were sidelined while former fighters were celebrated. The schism never healed. Kikuyu politics today still carries the division between loyalists and radicals, between those who fought the British and those who fought for them.