Editing Louis Leakey (section)

==Background==
{{See also|Leakey family}}
{{blockquote|When I think back... of the [[serval]] cat and a [[baboon]] that I had as pets in my childhood days—and that eventually I had to house in large cages—it makes me sad. It makes me sadder still, however, and also very angry, when I think of the innumerable adult animals and birds deliberately caught and locked up for the so-called 'pleasure' and 'education' of thoughtless human beings.|author=Louis Leakey|source=''By the Evidence'', Chapter 4}}

Louis's parents, Harry (1868–1940) and Mary (May) Bazett Leakey (died 1948), were [[Church of England]] missionaries in [[British East Africa]] (now Kenya). Harry was the son of James Shirley Leakey (1824–1871), one of the eleven children of the portrait painter [[James Leakey]]. Harry Leakey was assigned to an established post of the [[Church Mission Society]] among the [[Kikuyu people|Kikuyu]] at [[Kabete]], in the highlands north of [[Nairobi]]. The station was at that time a hut and two tents. Louis's earliest home had an earthen floor, a leaky [[thatching|thatched roof]], rodents and insects, and no heating system except for charcoal [[brazier]]s. The facilities slowly improved over time. The mission, a center of activity, set up a clinic in one of the tents, and later a [[Female education#Africa|girls' school]]. Harry was working on a [[translation of the Bible]] into the [[Gikuyu language]]. He had a distinguished career in the CMS, becoming [[Canon (priest)|canon]] of the station.<ref>Louis reports in his ''Memoirs'', Chapter 6</ref>

Louis had a younger brother, Douglas, and two older sisters, Gladys and Julia. Both sisters married missionaries: Gladys married [[Leonard Beecher]], Anglican [[Bishop of Mombasa]] and then [[Anglican Church of Kenya|Archbishop of East Africa]] from 1960 to 1970; Julia married [[Lawrence Barham]], the second [[Province of the Anglican Church of Burundi|Bishop of Rwanda and Burundi]] from 1964 to 1966; their son [[Ken Barham]] was later the Bishop of [[Cyangugu]] in Rwanda.

The Leakey household came to contain Miss Oakes (a [[governess]]), Miss Higgenbotham (another missionary), and Mariamu (a Kikuyu nurse). Louis grew up, played, and learned to hunt with the native Kikuyus. He also learned to walk with the distinctive gait of the Kikuyu and speak their language fluently, as did his siblings. He was initiated into the Kikuyu ethnic group, an event of which he never spoke, as he was sworn to secrecy.<ref>According to Blake Edgar in [http://www.leakeyfoundation.org/newsandevents/n3.jsp Louis Leakey's Legacy: Celebrating the Centennial of His Extraordinary Life and Finds] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070207125829/http://www.leakeyfoundation.org/newsandevents/n3.jsp |date=7 February 2007 }} in AnthroQuest Online for Fall, 2003, Louis received the Kikuyu name Wakuruigi, "Son of the Sparrow Hawk." Harry also had a name, apparently not an initiation name, but rather descriptive: Giteru, "Big beard".</ref>

Louis requested and was given permission to build and move into a hut, [[Kikuyu people|Kikuyu]] style, at the end of the garden. It was home to his personal collection of natural objects, such as birds' eggs and skulls. All the children developed a keen interest in and appreciation of the pristine natural surroundings in which they found themselves. They raised baby animals, later turning them over to zoos. Louis read a [[gift book]], ''Days Before History'', by [[Henry Hall (Egyptologist)|H. R. Hall]] (1907), a juvenile fictional work illustrating the [[prehistory of Britain]]. He began to collect tools and was further encouraged in this activity by a role model, [[Arthur Loveridge]], the first curator (1914) of the Natural History Museum in Nairobi, the predecessor of the [[National Museums of Kenya|Coryndon Museum]]. This interest may have predisposed him toward a career in archaeology. His father was also a role model: Canon Leakey co-founded East Africa and Uganda Natural History Society.<ref>Canon Leakey also was a naturalist and must have been a significant model, as Louis wished originally to pattern his life after his father's, according to Louis' ''Memoirs'', Chapter 8.</ref>

Neither Harry nor May were of strong constitution. From 1904 to 1906 the entire family lived at May's mother's house in [[Reading, Berkshire]], in England, while Harry recovered from [[neurasthenia]], and again in 1911–1913, while May recovered from general frailty and exhaustion. During the latter stay, Harry bought a house in [[Boscombe]], [[Hampshire]].<ref>The facts for this section were gathered mainly from ''Ancestral Passions'', Chapter 1, "Kabete", and from the "Publisher's Prologue" of the Harcourt Brace Jovanovich edition of ''By the Evidence''.</ref>