Mariamu is Nding’uri and Karega’s mother and Ezekieli’s sometime employee. Munira, who was childhood friends with Nding’uri, recalls her as an impressive and religiously sincere person, though she did not attend church. After Nding’uri is born, Mariamu protests her husband’s economic exploitation of her: he demands that she do farm labor for their employers, do all the household work, and do all the work to care for Nding’uri—while taking all the money that she earns. When Mariamu demands better treatment, her husband beats her. She leaves him, travels to Ezekieli’s property, and asks to become a tenant farmer on his land. Ezekieli agrees, hoping he can exploit her sexually; when she successfully refuses him, however, he lets her keep working for him—by implication, because he’s afraid she’ll tell people he tried to commit adultery. This incident reveals the externally devout Ezekieli’s religious hypocrisy. Much later, Nding’uri persuades Mariamu to reconcile with his father. This reconciliation results in Karega’s birth but doesn’t last; Mariamu leaves her husband again. Much later, while in jail for questioning about the murder-by-arson that Munira committed, Karega learns Mariamu has died and feels intense despair that he was never able to improve her material conditions; he feels she represents all the Kenyan workers exploited first under colonialism and then under capitalism. Thus, Mariamu’s life represents both the exploitation of Kenyan agricultural workers under colonialism and capitalism and the exploitation of women by men.