none of these organizational forms". The initial Giriama response to these colonial policies was based on past pressures "on their whole way of life by strangers who were probably perceived by them as independent or semi-independent warlords; men who pillaged and abused the people in order to enrich themselves and perhaps also the other strangers who now lived on the coast". The Giriama were confronted with the "sudden arrival of these powerful foreigners who imposed taxes, censuses, forced labor, new rules, and regulation of commerce [which] was bound to be extremely upsetting. Moreover, the newcomers showed no respect for the Giriama or their institutions as was clearly shown by the lack of sensitivity on the question of the kay". The Giriama council of elders were unsuccessful in rescinding the British policies as they could not draw on an effective military system, rather it was “was neither permanent, aggressive, nor particularly strong. Nor did they draw on a political bureaucracy to organize all Giriama-their traditional political organisation. (Brantley, 1981, p.2). Culture Kinship and language Their language is called Kigiriama, or Kigiryama, and is a sub-language of the Kimijikenda. The nine Mijikenda groups speak closely related languages, all types of Bantu language, which is the same group to which the more widely known Swahili belongs. The Giriama have numerous affinal terms which represents the importance of kinship in the Giriama community. “First, siblings, parallel cousins and cross cousins may all be referred to by the same term. Second, there is bifurcate merging in the immediately ascending generation, such that a father and father's brother are called by the same name, but not the mother's brother; and that a mother and mother's sister are called by the same name, but not the father's sister. Marriage may occu’r with all cousins except a patrilateral parallel cousin, and into all clans except the patri-clan”(Parkin, 1991, p. 236) The Giriama people have their own unique lifestyle and kinship in which they have their own unique languages, affinal terms and marriage tradition. The two traditional main languages that is spoken in Giriama are KiGirimia and KiSwahili which are both very similar linguistically. The Giriama use their language of kinship to how importance of family and relationship where the “terms of address between alternate generations are reciprocated by members of the same sex or are reciprocally equivalent between members of different sex…between adjacent generations, certain terms are reciprocal