CHAPTER VII

THE CURSE AND ITS MANIFESTATIONS

(A) THAHU AND ITS CONNECTION WITH CIRCUMCISION RITES, ETC.

Thahu, sometimes called nzahu, is the word used for a condition into which a person is believed to fall if he or she accidentally becomes the victim of certain circumstances or intentionally performs certain acts which carry with them a kind of ill luck or curse. A person who is thahu becomes emaciated and ill or breaks out into eruptions or boils, and if the thahu is not removed, will probably die. In many cases this undoubtedly happens by auto-suggestion, as it never occurs to the Kikuyu mind to be sceptical on a matter of this kind.

It is said that the thahu condition is caused by the ngoma, or spirits of departed ancestors, but the process does not seem to have been analysed any further.

We are now in a position to realise the attitude of the Kikuyu mind towards thahu, and it is considered that the term curse, in its mediaeval sense, expresses it. Everyone will remember in the Ingoldsby Legends the pitiable condition of the Jackdaw of Rheims after he had been cursed by the Cardinal for stealing his ring; now this would appeal to a Kikuyu, and he would at once say the jackdaw was thahu. In one of the cases of thahu, quoted hereafter, it is possible for a person to lay a curse maliciously on a whole village by breaking a cooking pot, and in another instance, a father can lay a curse on his son for disobedience. We thus have parallel instances from both higher and lower civilisation; in the first, the Cardinal curses the jackdaw with the help of the supernatural powers with which he is invested by virtue of his sacred position, and in the lower culture it is apparently held that any person can inflict a curse by invoking the supernatural powers of the ngoma, or spirits, of the dead ancestors. [7]

The position has, indeed, changed but little. It would appear probable that as the priests gained power, they arrogated to themselves the monopoly of laying a curse upon their flock; but the freedom with which people use the conventional formula of curses to this day is evidence, however, that the power to inflict a curse was formerly at the disposal of all. It is nevertheless important to realise that when curses were believed to be effective, and in the case of malicious ones, punishable by native law, people were more careful about the custom than Europeans are to-day, when all belief in the power of a curse has died away.

Some people use the term ceremonial uncleanness to express the meaning of thahu, but, as far as my inquiries go, the phrase inadequately explains the Kikuyu ideas on this question. Acts which cause a person to become thahu are also often found to be enumerated under the heading of “prohibitions” and “tabus.”

The similarity between thahu and tabu is somewhat striking and worth considering. Tabu appears usually to be applied to some act or object by a man who often acts in the dual capacity of ruler and magician. There is, as far as can be discovered, no record of a Kikuyu thahu having been imposed by any known personage, but these beliefs must have originated somewhere, and it may be that they were originally imposed one by one by great medicine men in former times, and have thus become incorporated in what may be termed the tribal religion.

The removal of the curse is effected by a process of lustration which, in the more serious cases, has to be done by the mundu mugo, or medicine man, and in others by the members of the native council, or kiama; the latter is an interesting case of the overlapping of judicial functions and those of a sacerdotal character.

The lustration ceremony is almost always accompanied by the slaughter of a sheep and anointment with the contents of the stomach, the white diatomaceous earth called ira being used in some cases. The purification is called tahika.

In a few cases smoke is used as a purifying agent and seems to be considered effective in some more trivial ones.

The reality of this aspect of Kikuyu life and thought may easily be under-estimated, but it is important that all who wish to gain a deep insight into native affairs should understand it and give the phenomenon its true value. To give the question a practical application, it may safely be said that no Kikuyu native who becomes thahu during the course of his employment by a white master, will rest until he has been freed of his curse or ill luck, and he will probably desert with wages due to him in order to get rid of it; he cannot afford to wait, the risk is too great.

There is another curious side to the question; a Kikuyu, when he is circumcised, undergoes this rite either according to the old Kikuyu custom or according to Masai custom; the physical operation and result are the same, but the ceremonial varies, and for some unfathomed reason, a man who is circumcised Masai fashion can do certain things or encounter certain circumstances with impunity which would, if he had been circumcised Kikuyu fashion, render him thahu. This is a very curious fact, and the Kikuyu themselves do not seem to be able to give any reason for it. The matter should, however, be made the subject of further research, as my information is derived from the southern branch of the tribe, and many customs which are dropping into disuse in that area, and thus losing their inner meaning, are found to be very much better known in Kenya Province or Mwaitumi, as they call it.

List of Thahu.—I will now proceed to give a list of thahu which I have collected with the assistance of the Kikuyu chief Kinanjui and his kiama, or council, of athuri, or elders; the question of the two classes of circumcision will be discussed later.

(1) If a small child dies and the mother carries the body away into the bush, the woman is thahu, and if the husband cohabits with her before she is purified, he becomes thahu and the woman is cleansed. The man carries the thahu away with him, and, what is worse, may transmit it to his other wives. If the man becomes thahu in this way it is much more serious for him than the woman, and a mundu mugo, or medicine man, has to be called in: the woman has to be purified by three elders, athuri ya kiama, and an elder woman, mwirui. For instance, if a man has two wives and the younger had become thahu, the senior wife would shave the head of the woman who was to be purified; a sheep is killed, and she is smeared with tatha, or the contents of the stomach.

This thahu only falls on those who have been circumcised according to Kikuyu fashion: if the man has been circumcised according to Masai custom he does not become thahu.

(2) If a woman who has assisted at a birth cohabits with a man before the end of the umbilical cord of the newly born child has shrivelled up and come away, and before she has bathed herself ceremonially, the infant, although not her own, will become thahu. To remove the curse from the child the principal elder of the village kills a sheep and smears the woman with tatha, the contents of the animal’s stomach, and thus cleanses her.

This applies to those circumcised either according to Kikuyu or Masai fashion.

(3) If a man touches or carries a corpse, he becomes thahu until he is cleansed. The lustration is performed by members of the local council of elders, athuri ya kiama, and the final purification by a mundu mugo, or medicine man. If he cohabits with a woman before he is cleansed she also becomes thahu.

(4) Stepping over a corpse inflicts a thahu of a very serious nature, and the person contracts a sickness called mangu (possibly leprosy). He is said to break out into an eruption, and the fingers come off and the nose rots away. To remove this thahu, both the elders, athuri ya kiama, and the mundu mugo are called in; the latter procures the bone of an elephant, and this is placed on the ground, the athuri forming a circle round it, and the patient then steps over the bone; the mundu mugo afterwards purifies the man in the usual way. [8]

This thahu applies to both sections of the tribe, viz., those circumcised Kikuyu fashion and those circumcised Masai fashion.

(5) During a marriage ceremony five goats have to be presented to the athuri ya kiama and are killed for a feast. After they are slaughtered the eyes of the carcases have to be removed, and if, during this process, an eye becomes cut or broken, the bride becomes thahu, and unless something is done will not bear children; the father of the girl has to present a sheep to the athuri, and the girl is purified by them—this not being a matter which necessitates a medicine man. This applies to both sections of the tribe.

(6) On the occasion of a birth, the young men of the village kill a sheep for a feast called mambura; if the man who slaughters it cuts his finger and his blood drips on to the meat, he is thahu until he is purified by the athuri ya kiama.

This again applies to both sections of the tribe.

(7) If a man, the head of the village, attends the circumcision of a child at the hut of one of his wives, he is thahu until the children who were circumcised in the hut are cured; a mundu mugo then comes and purifies him and the woman in whose hut the children were circumcised.

This applies only to the men circumcised Kikuyu fashion, for in that section it is the custom for the village head to sleep in the hut where the circumcision has taken place, and he becomes thahu, whereas it is the custom for a village head who was circumcised Masai fashion to sleep in another hut until the ceremonies are quite over, thus escaping the thahu.

(8) If one man kills another, and comes to sleep at a village and eats with the family in a certain hut, the people with whom he has eaten become thahu, and the skin on which he has slept is thahu and may infect anyone sleeping on it. This is a case for a mundu mugo, who is called in to purify the hut and its occupants.

If, however, the owner of the hut and his family have been circumcised Masai fashion they do not become thahu.

(9) If an important elder dies he is buried by his sons and they are thahu until purified by the athuri ya kiama. They are smeared with oil and their heads are shaved during the ceremony; this is not considered a very serious thahu. If they have been circumcised Masai fashion they can be purified forthwith, but if they belong to the other section it is necessary for them to isolate themselves until the new moon appears.

(10) When a child is born the father kills a sheep, of which a large part is given to the woman who has assisted at the confinement, and if, before he has pegged out the skin and divided the meat, he is summoned away from the village on urgent business (my informant gave an example, and said: “Suppose he was arrested and taken away as a prisoner”), the infant is thahu and the principal elder of the village has to kill a sheep, take a strip of skin from the forefoot of this animal, and fasten it as a bracelet on the wrist of the infant to remove the ill luck.

This applies to both sections of the tribe.

(11) If children are being circumcised at a village, and the owner of the hut where the ceremony has taken place goes away to sleep at another village before he is cleansed, and, say, on the way, meets a crowd of people, the children who were circumcised will all be thahu. This is a case for a mundu mugo.

This only applies to those circumcised Masai fashion as, by Kikuyu fashion, the man does not sleep at another village.

(12) If two men who were circumcised at the same ceremony fight and blood is spilt, they are both thahu until a mundu mugo comes and removes it. He kills the usual sheep and the athuri or elders put a strip of the skin of the sheep on the wrist of each of the two men. Persons who are circumcised at the same feast are called wakini. This holds good for both sections of the tribe.

(13) If one man circumcises his children according to Masai fashion and another according to Kikuyu fashion, and the former should eat meat killed by the latter, the former will be thahu and vice versâ.

(14) If a person belonging to the Mweithaga clan sleeps in the hut of a person belonging to another rika or clan, the people of that hut become thahu; this is a case for both medicine men and elders, and applies to both sections of the tribe.

(15) If a man throws some earth at his wife, both become thahu; this is a case for a medicine man, and both have to be purified. This only applies to those circumcised Kikuyu fashion.

(16) If food is eaten from a cracked pot the persons eating it become thahu and a mundu mugo has to be called in. This affects both sections of the tribe.

(17) The wives of smiths are usually decorated with armlets made of twisted strips of iron called mithiori. If a man enters the hut of a smith, and cohabits with a woman so decorated, he becomes thahu. A sheep has to be killed and a supply of honey beer provided; a strip of skin from the sheep is placed on the wrist of the man, the woman, and any children she may have; this bracelet is placed on the left wrist of females, and the right wrist of a male. The purification ceremony is performed by another smith.

This thahu affects both sections of the tribe.

(18) Persons eating food in a smithy become thahu; the smith himself can purify one from this curse.

It affects both sections.

(19) If a bead worn on a warrior’s neck or waist falls into food, the persons who partake of the food become thahu; if such a bead falls into the grain store and becomes inadvertently cooked with the food the result is the same. This only affects persons circumcised Kikuyu fashion.

(20) If a Kikuyu has had his crops protected by magical processes performed by a medicine man (to protect in this way is called ku-roga), and someone takes food from a garden so protected, he becomes thahu, and this form of thahu can only be removed by the medicine man who has roga-ed the plantation.

This applies to both sections of the tribe.

(21) If a man has connection with a woman from behind, they are both thahu. This is a very serious thahu and both the athuri ya kiama and a mundu mugo are necessary to remove it, neither the man nor the woman being allowed to eat any of the sacrificial sheep.

This applies to both sections.

(22) If a man beats his wife and draws blood, the woman is thahu, and the man cannot sleep in her hut until she is freed from it; the elders are called in and kill a sheep. The two persons concerned are not allowed to eat any of the meat, and the skin is reserved as a fee for a mundu mugo who is called in to perform the formal lustration.

This affects both sections of the tribe.

(23) If a woman is carrying a baby on her back, and it slips out of the leather garment and falls to the ground, it is thahu; the child must not be lifted from the place where it fell until a sheep has been killed on that spot, and this is a case for both the elders of kiama and a medicine man. Both sections of the tribe are affected by this.

(24) If an elder or a woman when coming out of the hut slips and falls down on the ground, he or she is thahu, and lies there until a few elders of kiama come and slaughter a sheep near by, and some blood and tatha (contents of the stomach of the sheep) are rubbed on the spot where the person fell. The elders then say, “So-and-so is dead, let us bury him,” and they plant a sprig of the bushes called mukuria and muthakwa on the site of the mishap. This applies to both sections.

(25) If a man marries a woman and she steals anything from a member of her father’s clan, she is thahu, and milk will flow from her breasts without any natural cause, and any child she bears before the thahu is removed will be thahu. This is a matter for the athuri, or elders of kiama; a sheep is placed on the woman’s shoulders, and its throat is pinched until it micturates on the woman’s body, the sheep then being killed, and the contents of the gall bladder, mixed with urine from its bladder, poured over the leather garment of the woman, and her navel touched with a little of the mixture. The milk that was unnaturally flowing from her breasts will then dry up, and by this sign they will know that the thahu is removed.

This applies to both sections of the tribe.

(26) If a man’s son commits adultery with one of his father’s wives, and the father is still alive, the father becomes thahu and not the culprit, the reason given being that the father takes the thahu because he begot the son. The erring woman does not return to her husband, she is not thahu, and can still bring food to her husband, but he does not cohabit with her, and her hut is broken down. The son who has transgressed in this way has to make peace with his father by a formal present of a big male goat, nthengi. This thahu can be removed by the athuri ya kiama; it is a very serious matter, and if the thahu is not quickly removed from the father, he will die.

It applies equally to both sections of the tribe.

(27) If a person touches menstrual blood, he or she is thahu; or if a man cohabits with a woman in this condition he is thahu. The person who is contaminated will first take some cow dung and then red ochreous earth (thiriga) and plaster it on the part of the body touched by the blood; ochre is said to be used because it is the same colour as the blood; the woman from whom the contamination came is also thahu. The mundu mugo has to be called in to purify the persons.

This applies to both sections.

(28) If one woman is circumcised Masai fashion and another Kikuyu fashion, and the child of the latter is suckled by the other woman, the child becomes thahu: this is a case for a mundu mugo.

This applies to those circumcised Kikuyu fashion.

(29) If a hyæna comes into a hut at night, kills a goat and the owner kills the hyæna in the hut, the hut will be abandoned, and the whole village has to be purified by the kiama.

This applies to both sections of the tribe.

(30) If a hyæna defæcates inside a village, the village and its inhabitants are thahu, and this is a case for the kiama to arrange; the usual sheep is killed and must be eaten by the people of the village. If a person belonging to another village eats any of the meat, a hyæna will come and defile the village where he lives.

This applies to both sections.

(31) If a woman is carrying a gourd on her back and it falls and breaks, she is thahu. This is a matter for the elders of kiama to arrange.

(32) If a goat should come up to where people are sitting, and try to suckle a woman’s breast, the woman is thahu, and the goat has to be taken away and slaughtered at the village of the woman’s father, the elders of kiama being called in to purify the woman.

This applies to both sections.

(33) If a woman is milking a cow and the calf climbs up on her shoulders while she is so occupied, the calf is not allowed to suckle the cow again and is forthwith slaughtered; this is a case for the elders. The people of the village must not eat any of the meat, half being taken by the woman to her father and the other half eaten by the elders.

This applies to both sections.

(34) When a woman has recently been confined and the discharges are still unfinished, it has sometimes happened that a cow has come along and licked the stool upon which she has been sitting. In such a case she must immediately tell her husband; if not, he will become thahu and die, and all the other people in the village will become thahu in a lesser degree and get ill. The cow has to be killed without delay by the elders and eaten by them; no person of the village must eat of the meat unless he has been circumcised Masai fashion. Three elders in Kikuyu are said to have died from this thahu within recent years.

It only applies to those who have been circumcised Kikuyu fashion.

(35) If a cow is out grazing and its tail becomes twisted round a tree, it is thahu, and must be slaughtered there and then; it is killed by the owner, and the elders receive the saddle and the young warriors the neck.

This only applies to cattle owned by persons circumcised Kikuyu fashion.

(36) There is a white bird called nyangi (the bird nyangi is in Swahili called furakombe); if one is seen to settle on a cow, and the cow is not killed, the owner of the cow will be thahu and die. The cow must be killed there and then and the meat divided up, the elders receiving the saddle, and the neighbouring warriors the neck, whilst no person belonging to the village must eat of the meat. The herd of cattle also need to be purified, and the owner of the village, assisted by the elders, must take a female sheep which has not borne a lamb, and a male goat; these are slaughtered, and the intestines and bones of the animals (termed ichua) are placed on a fire, which is lit to the windward of the cattle kraal, and the smoke passing through the kraal and among the cattle will purify the herd. Should the bird be killed among the cattle, the whole herd would die.

This applies to both sections.

(37) If a cow’s horn comes off in a person’s hand the animal is thahu and is slaughtered, and the meat is eaten by all. This applies to both sections.

(38) If a bull or bullock leaves the herd when out grazing and comes home alone, and stands outside the village digging at the refuse heap (kiaraini) with its horns, it is known to be thahu, and is forthwith killed by the owner. This applies to both sections.

(39) If a goat is giving birth to a kid, and the head appears first and the body is not born quickly, it is said to be thahu, and is slaughtered by the owner. No woman must touch the meat of such an animal or she would become thahu; men only can eat it. Moreover, if a goat which is in kid should die, no woman must touch it or eat the meat, the idea probably being that her fertility might become contaminated. This applies to both sections.

(40) If a woman bears twins the first time she has children, the twins are thahu, and an old woman of the village, generally the midwife, stuffs grass in their mouths until they are suffocated and throws them out into the bush. If, however, a woman first bears a single child and then has twins they are not thrown out.

If a cow or a goat bears twins the first time, the same practice is observed, and a necklace of cowries is placed round the neck of the mother. This practice is observed by both sections. Some kill both mother and young, and a medicine man is called, who leads a sheep round the village and then sacrifices it to remove the curse.

(41) If the side pole of a bedstead breaks, the person lying on it is thahu, and a sheep must be sacrificed; this is a matter for the kiama to arrange, and a bracelet called rukwaru, cut from the skin of the sheep, must be placed on the wrist of the person, or he or she is liable to die. This applies to both sections.

(42) A malicious person will sometimes, out of spite or in a fit of rage, take up a cooking pot, dash it down to the ground and break it, saying the words urokwo uwe, “Die like this.” This is a very serious matter and renders all the people of the village thahu; it is necessary for the people of the village to pay as much as seven sheep to remove the thahu. This is naturally considered a crime according to native law, and the offender is punished by the elders of kiama, who inflict a fine of seven goats. This applies to both sections.

(43) If a son seriously disobeys his father, he can be rendered thahu by his father rubbing ashes on his buttocks, and cursing him, saying, “May you be eaten by my anus.” The son will have to take a sheep and then a male goat and a jar of honey and crave his father’s forgiveness. The father slaughters the animal, and rubs his navel and his buttocks with the meat, and the curse is removed. This applies to both sections.

(44) If the head of a village has a quarrel with another man, wounds him with a simé or sword, and blood is spilt in the village, the village becomes thahu, unless the offender takes his adversary and leads him round the outskirts of the village, letting the blood drip on the ground as they go; the elders will then have to be called in, a sheep is killed, and they purify the village. This applies to both sections.

(45) If an idiot or maliciously-minded person picks up a skull, walks round a village with it and leaves it on the “thomi,” or “place of conference,” the village is thahu, and is in very serious danger. The elders are first called in, and they take a sheep and drag it round the confines of the village by the same route as that taken by the person with the skull; the animal is killed and pieces of the intestines are dragged round the village. The meat of the sheep is only eaten by very old men. Six other sheep then have to be killed by the elders, and finally the medicine man has to purify each person in the village.

(46) If a wild animal is killed among a flock or herd of animals out grazing the beasts are thahu; they can be purified by the owner and the kiama; a sheep is killed and the bones and intestines are placed on a fire lit to windward of the infected flock or herd, and the smoke cleanses them and removes the curse. Vide Tylor’s “Primitive Culture,” Vol. ii, pp. 430–434, “Fire serves for purification in cases too trifling to require sacrifice.” This applies to both sections.

(47) If domestic animals are attacked and stung by bees they are thahu; a sheep is killed and the bones and intestines are placed on a fire lit to windward of the herd and the smoke removes the curse. This applies to both sections.

(48) If a son curses his father seriously he becomes thahu; he has to bring a sheep, which is eaten by his father and mother, the fat is melted and all three are smeared with it; the son then has to peg out the skin of the sheep in front of his mother’s hut. This applies to both sections.

(49) If a person strikes anyone who is herding cattle, etc., and draws blood, the flock or herd is thahu; the offender must pay a sheep, which is killed by the elders, and a strip of skin (rukwaru) is placed on the wrist of the offender; no young person is allowed near during the ceremony. This applies to both sections.

(50) If the droppings of a kite or crow fall on a person he is thahu; he must shave his head and bathe at a river, and the elders kill a sheep and fasten a strip of the skin on his wrist. The skin of the sheep must not be pegged out to dry in the village where the person lives. This applies to both sections.

(51) If a woman sleeps with her leather garment inside out it is unlucky, but she is not thahu, the procedure being for her to spit on the garment and turn it the right way. This applies to both sections, but is considered much more unlucky for a woman circumcised Masai fashion.

(52) When a man dies, the eldest son gives one bull or a big male goat (according to his means) to the athuri ya kiama for a feast, and the elders then teach him his duties (kirira). The next step is to give the elders a male sheep (ku-hukuria), which must not be eaten by the children, the object of this being to cleanse the village of the deceased. Now if a son has not made these gifts nor gone through the necessary ceremonies marking his succession, he cannot participate in the sacrificial feast which has to take place at the sacred fig tree after the death of an elder (called ku-hoya Engai). The principal wife of the deceased can attend the sacrifice, but not the other wives and their children. And should they do so they will become thahu and it is a case for a medicine man to arrange. The women and children from the neighbouring villages can go.

If a sacrifice is made at a sacred fig tree to invoke rain only, athuri ya kiama can attend and eat it. No woman must go near. These rules apply to both sections.

(53) If children are being circumcised at a village according to Kikuyu fashion and the head of the village goes on a journey before eight days have elapsed or, according to Masai fashion, before four days have passed, he and those of his children who have been operated on become thahu; this is a case for the medicine man to arrange.

(54) If a child has been circumcised and, on the first occasion after the ceremony on which he leaves his village, the goats and sheep come back from grazing and enter the village before he returns, he is thahu. He cannot return to his village until it is removed and must sleep at a neighbouring village where some of the other boys, who went through the ceremony with him, reside. To remove the thahu, his father has to kill a sheep and place a strip of skin (rukwaru) from the animal on his wrist.

(55) If a father picks up one of his children and places it on his back or shoulders, the father becomes thahu and the child will die, the result being the same whatever the sex of the child; if he carries the child in front of him there is no evil result. This is a case for a medicine man to arrange, and it applies to both sections of the tribe.

(56) If a person should be bitten by a hyæna or a dog he or she is thahu and a medicine man has to be called in; he kills a sheep and places a bracelet, or rukwaru, of the skin on the wrist of the patient. This applies to both sections.

(57) If a dog dies in a village it is a very serious matter; the head of the village and his people are thahu, and the elders are called in. The village head provides a sheep which is slaughtered, and the stomach contents (tatha) are sprinkled round the village, which is then ceremonially swept by the elders; the medicine man is then called in to purify all the people of what is called the mugiro of the dog. (Note.—The mugiro means the pollution produced by the blood of the dog having fallen on the ground of the village or the death of the dog in the village.) This only applies to the Kikuyu section of the tribe.

(58) The children and grandchildren of brothers and sisters cannot intermarry. Breach of this rule is considered to be a very grave sin, and all children born of such marriages surely die; the thahu on them cannot be purged by any ceremonial. The parents are not affected. It sometimes happens, however, that a young man unwittingly marries a cousin; for instance, if a part of the family moves away to another locality a man might become acquainted with a girl and marry her before he discovered the relationship. In such a case the thahu is removable; the elders take a sheep and place it on the woman’s shoulders; it is then killed, the intestines are taken out, and the elders solemnly sever them with a sharp splinter of wood from the mukeo bush, and announce that they are cutting the clan “kutinyarurira,” which means that they are severing the bond of blood relationship existing between the pair. A medicine man then comes and purifies the couple. This only applies to the Kikuyu section of the tribe.

(59) If a parent goes on a journey and, during his absence, one of his or her sons cohabits with one of his father’s wives, the parents are thahu, and upon his return will be seized with illness. This is a case for the medicine man, who has to be called in to perform a lustration ceremony to purify them; the offending son is not affected. Sprigs of the mahoroa, muchatha, and mitei bushes are bound up together and dipped in water, and the water is sprinkled over the couple, a little being also sprinkled at the gate of the village. This only applies to those circumcised Kikuyu fashion. It is curious to note that practically the same custom is observed by the A-Kamba.

(60) If a Kikuyu native kills a man belonging to another tribe he is not thahu; if he kills a man of his own tribe, but of a different rika, or clan, to his own, he is not thahu; if, however, he kills a man belonging to his own rika, or clan, he is thahu, and it is a very serious matter. It can be arranged by the elders in the following manner:

Two trunks of the plantain or banana tree (called miramba in Kikuyu) are placed on the ground parallel to each other, and an elder sits on each; one of them is then lifted up by another elder, and the offender has to seat himself on the tree trunk exactly in the same place; the other elder is then removed and the elder brother of the deceased or brother next in age to him is put in his place.

The mothers of the offender and deceased then bring to the place food made of every kind of field produce grown by the tribe, as well as meat; the usual sheep is killed by the elders and a little of the tatha, or stomach contents, is sprinkled over the food which was provided by the mothers of the two parties.

The two elders who first sat on the plantain trunks then solemnly eat a little of this food, and also administer some to the offender and the brother of the deceased. Two gourds containing gruel made of meal are then taken, and the elders put a little of the tatha in each, and one gourd is sent to the village of the offender and one to that of the deceased. The remaining food is divided among the assembly.

The following day the elders proceed to the local sacred fig tree (mugumu), and kill a sheep. They deposit some of the fat, the chest bone, the intestines and the more important bones at the foot of the tree, and eat the rest of the carcase. They say that the ngoma, or spirit of the deceased, will visit the tree that night in the shape of a wild cat and eat the meat, and that this offering will prevent the ngoma of the deceased from coming back to his village and troubling the occupants.

A medicine man then has to come and purify the murderer and the brother of the deceased.

This ceremony is not considered legal, and cannot be performed till the blood money has been paid.

The above case is a good example of the two stages of the removal of a more serious thahu; in the first place, the spirits of the deceased ancestors, including that of the murdered man, have to be appeased, and the personal defilement due to the spilling of blood, which falls on both the murderer and the family of the murdered man, has then to be removed by a separate ceremony performed by the medicine man. It is interesting to note that only the medicine man can remove this latter.

The above thahu applies to both sections of the tribe. In giving these details, my informants explained that according to Kikuyu native law, the blood money for a man was a hundred sheep and goats, and nine sheep and goats in addition for the elders. If, however, a man could not raise a hundred goats it was the custom for him to give three daughters in payment, plus the nine goats for the elders.

The Kikuyu were formerly only allowed to eat the following wild animals and birds before being circumcised: partridges (ngware), pigeon (ndutwa), and hyrax (mi-kami). Many will not eat wild game throughout their lives, and people follow the custom they have been brought up to observe; those that eat it probably had Asi or Dorobo ancestors. A person who eats wild game does not become thahu. This same view is held by both sections. The repugnance to eating this kind of food probably had its origin in totemism, but all traces of this belief seem to be lost in S. Kikuyu.

(61) If a tree falls on a hut it is considered extremely unlucky; the hut, however, will not be abandoned, but it is necessary for the head of the village to kill a ram which is led round the village before being killed. If this were not done, the owner of the village, or at any rate the woman who lived in the hut, would become the victim of a thahu or curse. The owner of the village, however, may not enter the hut until the sacrifice has been made to appease the ngoma or ancestral spirits who inflict the thahu. This applies to both sections of the tribe, viz., those circumcised Kikuyu fashion and those Masai fashion.

(62) If a jackal (mbwei) comes into a village and calls at night when the inhabitants are asleep, the people say that a spirit is calling for meat, and it is considered very unlucky. Next morning the owner of the village will take a male goat (nthenge), lead it round the village, and kill it at about the spot where the jackal called out. Pieces are cut from the loin, lungs, heart, and each of the limbs, and piled up into two little heaps as offerings to the ngoma, who are believed to have called out through the medium of the jackal. The sex of the ngoma is not known, and therefore to be on the safe side two little heaps are laid out, one for any male spirits and one for any female spirits. No bone must be broken in any meat offered to the spirits.

Next morning the elders go to the place where the two offerings of meat were deposited and pour out a libation of beer on each. They then address the ngoma as follows: “O ye spirits, take this meat and beer and give us goats and cattle and children, and do not bring thahu to this village.” The people of both circumcision guilds follow this procedure.

(63) If a certain snake, called nyamuyathi by the Kikuyu, enters a hut, it is necessary to pour some milk or fat on the floor for the reptile to drink; it may drink and leave, or it may not. If it does, well and good; if not, the owner of the village has to kill a sheep, cook some of its fat, and pour it out in the hut, saying at the same time: “We offer you some fat to drink, we beg of you to leave us.” It is believed that a ngoma, or spirit, has come in the guise of a snake, and on no account must such a snake be killed. After the sacrifice of the sheep has been made the snake will always go, but it disappears mysteriously and no one sees it leave. If the snake remained in the hut, the wife who owned the hut, and her children, would be thahu.

(64) If a stranger comes to a village and dies in a hut there, the hut is completely abandoned if the owner belongs to the Kikuyu guild; a large hole is made in the side of the hut by taking out several of the wall slabs or planks (mihirigo); the corpse is left inside and the hyænas come and carry it off. The hut is then left to fall into ruin, and no articles, such as cooking pots, beer, jars, etc., are removed from it. The men who break the hole in the wall are even considered unclean, as much as if they had handled the corpse, and after performing the duty they go straight off into the bush and stay there until they have bathed and been anointed with tatha (the stomach contents of a sheep); finally a very old woman comes and shaves their heads; they are then ceremonially clean and can return to their families. A medicine man (mundu mugo) has, however, to come and purify the whole village in the usual way.

If the owner of the village belongs to the Masai guild the consequences are not so serious. The family leave the hut temporarily until the corpse has been carried off by the hyænas; they then kill a goat or sheep near the door of the hut, take a little of the fat from the stomach of the animal, and place a small portion on the cooking fire of each hut. This removes the thahu due to the death of the stranger and all is well.

(65) If a new hut is built in the village and the wife enters it and finds herself menstruating on the day she lights the first fire in it, the hut has to be broken down and demolished the very next day. The woman must on no account sleep a second night in it; a thahu is on both the woman and the hut. A medicine man has to be called in to purify ceremonially the woman and her children, a new hut is built and the medicine man ceremonially sweeps it out with a broom made of the twigs of the mukenya, mahoroa, and michatha bushes; he then collects the sweepings and throws them outside the village. This custom applies to both sections of the tribe.

This custom also has another phase which is as follows: If on the day a hut is built, the wife, who is the owner of the hut, is away from the village and finds herself menstruating, she cannot even return to the village, but has to seek shelter with neighbours for three days. On the fourth day she returns, bringing with her a gourd of water. When she reaches the thomi, or meeting-place outside the village, she pours some of the water into a half gourd and washes herself. She can then enter both village and hut without further ceremony. This applies to both sections of the tribe.

(66) When a new hut is built, the first fire to be lit in it must be brought from a fire out in a shamba, or field, not from another hut. If fire cannot be obtained from a shamba it is first obtained from another village; with this a fire is lit in a shamba and burning sticks are taken from that fire. The Kikuyu state that they are afraid to get fire direct from another village in case they bring some unknown thahu along with it or with the firewood; they consider it a great risk, particularly for the children, who might get thin and ill in consequence.

Two or three days after the first fire has been lit a male sheep has to be slaughtered by the owner of the village. The meat is cooked in the hut, and the blood is poured out on the village thomi, then beer is brewed and a libation of it is poured out inside the hut near the door and on the thomi or village green. The above applies to those circumcised Kikuyu fashion. Those circumcised Masai fashion make the first fire in a new hut by friction with a firestick, and the wood for the first fire must come from two of the trees sacred to this branch, viz., mutamaiyu and mutarakwa (juniper).

(67) Anyone can impose a thahu upon the owner of a hut by plucking out a handful of thatch from over the door and throwing it on the ground. The thahu apparently affects the wife who lives in the hut, and she is apt to be attacked by a wasting disease. To remove the evil effects, a number of elders and a mundu mugo, or medicine man, are called in; they kill a ram or young ewe, which has not yet borne, near the door of the hut, and sprinkle the tatha inside the hut and at the door. They then take a rough brush made of twigs of the marario and mahoroa bushes and sweep up the tatha. This proceeding purifies the hut. They also sprinkle some of the tatha on the thatch over the door and put some muthakwa and mukenia sprigs in the place where the piece of thatch was taken.

Only the elders and the medicine man eat the meat of the sacrifice; none of the inhabitants of the village must touch it, and even the brothers of the owner of the hut may not eat any. If the hut is not thus purified, it must be forthwith destroyed.

Should the thatch be pulled out unintentionally by a drunken man, he will only have to pay a goat for the purification ceremony. If, on the other hand, it is done with evil intent, the kiama, or council of elders, will fine the offender five goats. The writer is indebted to Mr Beech for bringing this example to his notice.

If a man goes to sleep at a strange village, and if the owner belongs to the same rika as himself, he is told to sleep in the hut of one of the wives of the owner. If this woman has lost a child and has not performed the usual purification ceremonies after a death, the man will return home with a thahu and will pass it on to the wife in whose hut he sleeps on his return home.

It is necessary for the hut to be purified as in the previous case, and then the man and his wife have also to be purified.

Again, if a wife goes and sleeps abroad and cohabits with a man who has assisted in the burial of a corpse or touched a corpse and not yet been purified, she will, on returning home, bring a thahu to her husband, and the same ceremony of lustration has to be undergone.

(68) The last of the Kikuyu thahu which will be quoted is one of some importance, as it may be, in primitive culture, the germ of one of the beliefs which affects the life of civilised peoples: this is the ill luck which is attached to the seventh day.

A herdsman will not herd his flocks for more than six days, and on the seventh must be relieved by another man.

If a man has been on a journey and absent for six days he must not return home on the seventh day, and must observe continence on the seventh day; rather than return to his village on that day he will go and sleep at the house of a neighbour a short distance away. If this law is broken, serious illness is certain to supervene and a medicine man (mundu mugo) has to be called in to remove the curse. Both sections of the tribe are subject to it, and both male and female are affected. Moreover, the live stock of the offender will become sick.

This belief makes it easy for the missionaries to explain to the Kikuyu the meaning of the Christian observance of the Sabbath.

An important point in connection with thahu in Kikuyu which previously escaped notice is that an owner of a village, if he belongs to the Kikuyu circumcision guild, cannot enter or sleep in a hut which has been ceremonially purified until two days have elapsed, or for two months if he belongs to the Masai guild. This prohibition has a very practical effect, for in cases where the whole village has to be purified to rid it of some serious thahu the owner of the village would naturally be homeless for either two days or two months, as the case may be. To obviate this difficulty the purification ceremony is carried out in two instalments: one half of the village is done first, and a little later the medicine man returns and performs the lustration ceremony on the other half; the people are not thus greatly inconvenienced.

A variant of the word thahu in Kikuyu, which is often used by the old men, is nzahu.

It appears upon inquiry that not every elder in Kikuyu has the power of removing thahu, but only such as have lost a wife who is a mother.

If a wife dies and leaves children, the husband calls in two athuri ya ukuu (these are the very senior elders), a muthuri ya kiama (elder of council), and an old woman past the age of child bearing.

They kill a lamb, mwati, or a ram, and the elders then take the tatha (stomach contents), pour them into a half gourd, njeli, dip a bundle of leaves in the tatha and sprinkle the hut. This ceremony is believed to remove from the father and his children the thahu left by the death. The half gourd is then placed at the bed head of the father. A medicine man finally comes and purifies the whole family. If his generation or age is junior to that of the elders who come to perform the above ceremony he cannot participate in it, but has to sit apart.

After this the father is considered to be eligible to take part in ceremonial connected with the removal of thahu, but only if he is a qualified muthuri ya kiama ya imburi nne or mburi ithano; that is to say, if he has reached the grade to which the entrance fee is four goats or five goats.

Partial Immunity of Elders from Thahu.—The elders of the highest grade, ukuru, are as a rule proof against the incidence of thahu. They probably acquire a certain sanctity from their communion with the deity when they take part in the performance of sacrifices at the sacred trees and can thus be considered as a primitive priesthood. If, however, they assist in the burial of a corpse and cohabit with their wives within two months, they will be stricken with illness. If they participate in the native oath ringa thengi, they must be celibate for four months, and if they assist at the kithathi or githathi oath ceremony, they must remain so for five months, or nothing can save them. In all the above cases they must, like ordinary people, be purified by a medicine man before they can resume their marital relations.

Thabu in Ukamba.—In Ukamba thahu is called thabu or makwa, and the popular attitude towards it is very similar to that existing in Kikuyu, but it does not appear to be such an important factor in the lives of the people, and for some reason or other does not seem to have reached such a high development. It is looked upon with awe, and people generally dislike to discuss it. The bulk of the elders can therefore only give one or two examples of it. They declare that the only people who can give much information are the atumia ya makwa (elders of makwa) and atumia ya ukuu (elders of ukuu), and these important people undoubtedly endeavour to envelop the beliefs in mystery.

The incidence of makwa or thabu does not appear to be nearly so frequent in Ukamba as it is in Kikuyu. The Kamba, in fact, sneer at the Kikuyu, and say they are full of makwa. Moreover, owing to the reticence of the Kamba on the subject, it is not easy to collect examples. Mr C. Dundas, who has assisted in this inquiry, had to pay a fee of a bullock for himself and a goat for his interpreter before he could get any information on the subject. These fees admitted him to the grade of mutumia ya ukuu. All inquiries, however, had to be conducted in a low tone, and no one was allowed to listen. The following are all that have been discovered up to date, but there is little doubt that others exist:

(1) On the death of a man the village is unclean and must be purified by the elders, and during the period of purification strict continence must be observed by all those resident in the village. If a man fails to observe this rule he will become afflicted with makwa; also the woman, providing she belongs to the village where the death has taken place. Moreover, if a daughter of the deceased who is living away from the village visits there within eleven days of the death of her father, she will become afflicted.

The curse is removed in the same way in either of the above cases. A brother of the deceased must first cohabit with his wife. He then brings a goat and the afflicted person brings some beer. One of the elders then collects twigs of the movu, mulale, and muteme bushes; these are pounded up with water, and the mixture is called ngnondu. Some of the ngnondu is poured down the goat’s throat, the idea probably being to purify the animal ceremonially. The patient then walks three times round the goat, and the animal is lifted up by the elders. Its throat is cut and the blood spurts over the patient’s head and body. A piece of stick is then placed under his left arm and another between the toes of his right foot; two elders take hold of each of these sticks and pull them away saying, “We purify you.” The belief is possibly that by some magical process the defilement is passed into the sticks. Subsequently the brother of the deceased again cohabits with the same wife, and the patient is then cured.

(2) A man may not lie on his mother’s bed, or even take any articles from it, without becoming makwa. Upon the death of his father he inherits, and is then entitled to use, his father’s bed, which was, of course, also occupied by his mother, and it is therefore necessary that he should be protected from any evil which may come from this. So the elders make a mixture called ngnondu, and smear the soles of his feet with it; they also sprinkle the framework of the bed. They say that if this were not done the son would become makwa if he even put his foot on the bed. If a son becomes makwa through transgressing this law before his father’s death, he has to be purified as in the previous case. It is suspected that this prohibition was devised as a safeguard against incest, but if the theory is correct the natives seem to have forgotten the reason. A man, moreover, may not sit on his brother-in-law’s bed without incurring thabu.

Reference is invited to the author’s work on the “Ethnology of the A-Kamba” (Camb. Press), p. 65, discussing the danger to a girl if a stranger touches her menstrual blood; this is a clear case of makwa, which falls on the girl in consequence.

Some of the prohibitions mentioned on p. 102 op. cit. are also cases of makwa, and on p. 97 op. cit. there is an account of a man who was suffering from thabu or makwa. At the time, unfortunately, the importance of the phenomena had not been fully recognised.

(3) If a man dies and leaves young wives, the sons usually take them over; but, of course, a son must not marry his mother. A son cannot, however, succeed to one of his father’s wives until the elders have performed certain ceremonies. If he cohabits with her before these are carried out he will become makwa.

To remove the curse in this case the ceremonial is as follows: a paternal uncle of the offender collects the elders and provides beer for them; the woman concerned brings a goat. The elders make some of the ngnondu mixture, which is handed to the patient, who pretends to pay it to the elders. The elders then bring a branch of a tree called muuti and tell him to pay it to his uncle. He does so by throwing it at his uncle, saying, “I pay you before the elders.” This looks as if the spirit of the deceased father were offended, and ceremonial payment had to be made to the brother of the deceased, who for the time being represents him.

A piece of wood about fifteen inches long, cut from a mukingezia tree, is then brought. This is first inserted into the vaginal passage of the woman, and the man’s penis is then touched with it twice or thrice. One of the elders afterwards carries the stick away and throws it across a river saying, “I throw this evil away.” In the evening the uncle cohabits with the woman. The makwa is thus believed to be removed, but the man can never have anything to do with that woman again. He can, however, marry another of his father’s wives after the elders have performed the necessary rites.

(4) After the death of a father none of the sons may take honey from the father’s hives until the paternal uncle has first done so. Any who break this law will become makwa. It can, however, be removed by the uncle, who brings a sheep, and he, the elders, and the mother of the patient lead the sheep three times round the patient; at the conclusion of the third turn the sheep is lifted up and its throat is cut, and the blood is allowed to spurt over the patient. The animal’s throat is cut by one of the elders, whose forearm is held by the uncle and the mother. After this ceremony the patient is believed to be cured, and he can take honey. It may be that this was devised to prevent a son rushing off into the woods after his father’s death and annexing any honey he found, irrespective of whether such and such a hive would fall to his share when the elders decided as to the division of the estate.

(5) If a woman loses a young child by death it is necessary for her to have her breasts ceremonially purified by a qualified elder, or it is believed that any future children she may bear will die of makwa.

(6) If a man cohabits with a married woman in the woods while the cattle are out grazing, it brings makwa upon the cattle and they will die. The woman, however, is generally afraid of evil falling on the precious cattle, and confesses. The cattle are then taken out of their kraal, medicine is placed on the ground at the gate, and they are then driven back over the medicine, and this lifts the curse. The woman has also to be ceremonially purified by an elder.

(7) If a woman who has borne children is forced by a man a curse is said to fall on the children and they will die. The evil can, however, be averted if she is purified by an elder; the man has to pay a goat and the expenses of the purification ceremony.

(8) If a hyæna defæcates in a village during the night a makwa falls on the village, and the elders have to kill a goat and purify (tapisha) the village.

(9) Some medicine men have the power to place a makwa upon one of their wives who is a particular favourite. This is done by medicine, but the details are kept secret. If a man seduces the woman in question it is said that death will ensue unless he can by payment induce the medicine man to lift the curse.

(10) If a person goes to his mother’s native village and eats food there, and if by any chance a death has occurred in that village and the funeral ceremonies are not completed, he will be stricken with makwa. Even if a wife goes to pay a visit to her father’s village under the above circumstances the result is the same. This form of makwa can only be removed by a medicine man.

The little known Thaka or Tharaka people in the Tana Valley south-east of Kenia also believe in makwa, and use the same word for it. A few examples have been collected by Mr C. Dundas, and are given below:

(1) If a village is ceremonially unclean for some reason or other, and a man cohabits therein with a person of the opposite sex before it is purified, they are both stricken with makwa.

(2) If a man belonging to a village has been absent on the occasion of a death and at the necessary subsequent purification of the village, he may not enter until a sheep has been killed and the contents smeared on the threshold of his mother’s hut. If this lustration ceremony is omitted he is stricken with makwa.

(3) After the death of the head of a family the sons may take the younger widows to wife, but not until the brother of the deceased has ceremonially cohabited with the principal wife of the deceased. If this rite is not observed before a son marries one of his father’s widows, he will become makwa.

Little is yet known of the procedure which has to be adopted to remove the makwa, but it is said that only medicine men can do so. An elder, seen recently, who was covered with small sores, and some of whose toes had dropped off, was stated to be suffering from makwa, due to infringement of the rule mentioned in example (1) above.

A new road was recently opened in Kikuyu country, and where it crossed the Ruiru River a bridge was built. At one end of the bridge an arch, made of bent sticks, was erected, and on this a small wicker-work arrangement was suspended. Over the bent sticks a strip of the skin of a sheep was entwined. This was called “rigi,” and was a miniature of the wicker door of a hut. The Ruiru River at this place is the boundary between two sections of the country, and the object of the model door was to prevent evil influences, or thahu, entering the neighbouring area by the bridge. The strip of skin was taken from a sheep which had been sacrificed there.

There is a curious belief in Kikuyu with regard to the burning of a hut. If a hut is burned down, the owner must not lodge the goats from that hut in the house of a friend, the idea being that the hut caught fire as the result of some kind of thahu, and that the goats are probably infected with the thahu and may thus bring sickness to other people’s animals. There was, for instance, a case where a hut was destroyed by fire, along with several goats, but the people dare not eat the carcases, although the meat was apparently quite wholesome.

When a burnt hut is rebuilt, a goat is slaughtered to prevent the new hut from being destroyed by fire. The meat of the goat is eaten by the elders, and the skin is given to an elder who has had a hut burnt. But although he may use the skin he must not sell it.

Extinction of Fire in a Hut.—Though not definitely connected with the thahu beliefs, the ill luck which is associated with the extinction of fire in a hut is rather interesting to note.

If a man has several huts it is considered extremely unlucky if the fire goes out in all of them in a single night. He must at once summon the elders, who kill a male sheep and sprinkle some of the stomach contents or tatha on each fireplace. If his nearest neighbours live some little way off, he relights the fire by means of a fire stick, mwaki ku-thegetha, but if they live near by he begs some fire from them. When the sheep is killed they also fry the fat in a cooking pot and sprinkle some of it in the village and pray to Engai (God)—“We give thee fat to drink, and beg thee not to extinguish the fire again.”

When fire goes out in the hut of a medicine man it is not necessary for him to kill a sheep like ordinary people, but he feels the ill luck all the same. He dare not travel next day, and if anyone comes to him for medicine or to be purified, he will not perform the ceremony until a whole day has elapsed.

The elders who were interrogated about this were quite clear that it was God who put out the fire and not the ngoma, or spirits.

Effects of Breaking a Tabu.—A curious case of the results of an infringement of tabu recently came to the notice of an officer in Western Ukamba. He was inspecting the hospital, and found there a Kamba porter stricken with illness; his face was much swollen and covered by a kind of congested rash, and his testicles were also swollen. On inquiry, he stated that his affection came on suddenly after eating some hartebeest meat, and that he belonged to the Aitangwa clan, in which this was a forbidden meat. The officer immediately sought out an intelligent Mu-Kamba, who knew nothing about the incident, and asked about the Aitangwa and their tabu, or makwa, and without hesitation he was told that hartebeest meat was forbidden, and described exactly the symptoms from which the porter was suffering as being the result of breaking the prohibition. It was said that the man would have to sacrifice a goat and go through a purification ceremony to get rid of the affliction. The final result was not heard.

These phenomena are very curious, and psychologists would no doubt attribute them to self-hypnotic suggestion. It must, however, be remembered that a man who breaks the clan tabu is probably, before breaking it, very sceptical as to the evil effects, and, being sceptical, would presumably be proof against the hypnotic auto-suggestion.

(B) PURIFICATION AND BLESSING

Ku-tahikia in Kikuyu.—Reference has been made to purification by the medicine man, which generally concludes the ceremonies connected with the removal of thahu. This ceremony is the same in all cases in which it is considered necessary; it may vary a little according to the practice of a particular medicine man, but that is all.

The writer was recently present at one of these ceremonies, and the procedure was as follows: The medicine man first received a sheep; he then made a small incision between the hoofs of the right foreleg and rubbed a little medicine into the wound. The medicine consisted of a powder made from the mararia bush and mahunyuru, which is the epidermis and hair of a sheep. Probably the idea underlying this was a consecration of the animal for the purpose of the ceremony. The medicine man then brought a number of sprigs of various plants:

Mahoroa, Murumbai, Uruti-Emilia? Mukandu, Muchatha-Emilia, sp., Matei or Mitei, Ihurura, a creeping, vine-like plant.

He separated these into two bundles, and bound each at the base with the creeper ihurura; they resembled two hand brushes of green leaves.

The mother of the patient or person who was to be purified then fetched about a pint of water from the stream, carrying it in a couple of banana leaves laid over each other. A small depression was scooped in the ground, and the water, still in the banana leaves, was deposited therein. The medicine man and the patient squatted opposite each other. The former then put a variety of powders in the water. These were enumerated as follows:

(1) Powder made from the stomach contents of the tree hyrax. (2) Ruthuku made from the muhokora root. (3) Umu, a reddish powder made from the root of a thorny plant. (4) A powder made from the irura (papyrus) and the mahoroa plant.

He then produced the dried right black forefoot of a sheep, dipped it in the water, stirred up the contents, and placed the wetted foot in the mouth of the patient, who licked it vigorously and then expectorated the liquid on the ground. This was repeated some twenty or thirty times, the medicine man incessantly recounting all kinds of dangers and evils in a chanting voice with a general refrain, “May you be delivered from all these.” He then took one of the bundles of plants and dipped the lower end in the water. The patient licked it and expectorated, as above described, the medicine man chanting the whole time.

The same procedure was adopted with the second bundle of leaves.

The patient then stood up; the medicine man took one of the brushes, dipped it in the water, and sprinkled the patient’s head and wiped the front of his body with the wetted bundle of leaves. The patient now turned round and the back of his body was similarly treated.

The patient then knelt down and washed his face with the water and washed each foot and leg. This done, he wiped his face, feet, and legs, first with one bundle and then with the other. The patient then put his finger into the water and pierced the banana leaf basin, and the water soaked away into the earth. Thereupon the medicine man gathered up the banana leaves and his bundle of leaves and deposited them on the village manure heap, kiaraini.

There was still a final stage of the proceeding, viz., the anointing with white clay, ira. The patient still stood in front of the medicine man, who took from a small gourd some of the white earth, and smeared it down the line of the nose, on the upper lip, under the chin, on the right and left big toe, and on the palms of both hands. A little of the medicines called irura and muhokora were then taken and a little placed in the palm of each hand of the patient, who crossed his hands and, holding them in this position, alternately licked each palm. The medicine man then licked a little of the above medicine, and the ceremony was finished.

The purification ceremony cannot be performed without payment; it is otherwise of no avail.

Ceremonial Blessing by a Medicine Man (Kikuyu).—This is believed to be efficacious, upon certain occasions, against evil and as a purification. The medicine man gives the supplicant a powder made from an aromatic root called muhokora. It is of a greyish brown colour; a little is poured into his hand and he eats it. The medicine man also eats some, with the object, perhaps, of showing the patient that nothing bad has been mixed with it.

The medicine man then takes a long narrow gourd with tiny holes on one side of it and shakes out, as from a pepper castor, a powder made of the roots of the muhokora and mchanja muka plants, and at the same time uttering a prayer. The patient receives the powder on his hands and rubs it on his head and down the middle of his forehead. The medicine man now takes a draught of beer and ceremonially spits a little on to each of his breasts, first, however, spitting a little on the ground as a libation to the ngoma, or ancestral spirits.

The general idea of the purification ceremony is of a dual character; its first object is to cast out the contamination of an evil influence and, this being done, to re-establish normal relations between the worshipper and his deity. It is believed that among African natives the idea of the evil influence is not very concrete, but among other peoples the evil influence assumes the shape of a demon, the nature of which may be identified by a magician and expelled by him by the use of appropriate formulæ. The one is a higher development of the other. In Math. xvii. 14, and Mark ix. 14, for instance, we find the founder of the Christian religion playing the part of the magician and casting out an evil spirit. The only parallel to this class of procedure among the African natives under investigation is the curious Engai possession of the Kamba and the ritual undertaken to cure persons possessed: the odd point about those ceremonies, however, is that although the afflicted person for whom the dances are convened may be cured, others will be seized during the proceedings, the affliction apparently becoming infectious.

Kithangaona cha muchi—The Purification Sacrifice for a Village (Kamba of Kitui).—If sickness becomes prevalent in a village, the headman will consult a medicine man, who may declare that the spirit (imu) of a person who died long ago is bothering the people and needs appeasing, and he will therefore order a fowl to be taken round the village ceremonially and killed. This is supposed to be very efficacious in restoring the good luck of the village, and is done as follows: the village head will walk round outside the village with some ashes in his right hand and a fowl in the left; on reaching a point opposite the gate of the village the fowl will be released and allowed to fly inside. It is then caught again and its throat is cut and the knife is afterwards buried in the cattle kraal. The children of the village eat the fowl. The village head then prays to the deity (Engai) to remove the sickness and keep it from the village, and afterwards prays to the imu, or spirit, of the deceased person who is supposed to have brought the sickness. It is stated that they first pray to Engai because the imu is believed to have gone to Engai.

The aiimu which afflict villages are said to be usually those of deceased medicine men who, when alive, were supposed to communicate with Engai in their dreams. They declare that they have seen someone glowing like a fire, giving such and such a message.

There is another kithangaona cha muchi, which also deals with sickness in a village, but differs from the previous example in which a fowl is used. As with European physicians, the practice of medicine men varies for individual patients.

The magician, having decided that the sickness is due to the imu of a deceased person, will order the women of the village to grind some mawele or wimbi flour and cook it and make porridge.

The porridge is brought to the hut of the afflicted person and some butter is added; the people present dip their wooden spoons in the porridge and each one eats a little and then throws some on to the floor as an offering to the imu; the senior wife of the village head commences and the others follow suit.

The village head then brews some beer, drinks a little, and pours some out to the troublesome imu. Having done this he kills a he-goat, cuts a strip of meat from the breast, cooks it, and deposits it at the door of the hut. It is probably eaten by the village dogs or fowls, but this does not matter.

The people then pray to the spirit and say, “We have given you food, beer, and meat, we beseech you to allow the sick one to recover.”

Kithangaona cha mburi—The Purification Sacrifice of the Goat.—On some occasions the medicine man will advise that the ceremony of kithangaona cha mburi be performed. This is done as follows: The evening before the ceremony, the head of the village puts a stone in the hut fire and leaves it there all night; next morning he calls a small boy and girl, and the former, accompanied by the headman, leads a male goat round the outside of the village, followed by the girl. The goat must be all one colour and not spotted. When the party reaches the gate of the village the headman takes a half gourd of water and places it on the goat’s head between the horns. The red hot stone is brought out from the glowing embers in the hut, dropped into the bowl of water, causing the water to boil and give off steam. A hole is now dug at the door of the hut of the village head, who holds the stone over the hole and prays as follows: “Engai muimu mivo nathika dikoni wao mivo nathika hivia nathika wao pamwe nabia hii,” which, freely translated, means: “Oh God, I do not wish to see the sickness enter my village, so now I bury this stone and bury the sickness with it.” The goat is not killed, but is allowed to go free. This is an unusual proceeding. It is a curious example of a combination of magic and primitive religion.

Kithangaona cha munda—Prayers for Crops (Kitui).—When a villager sees that his crops are suffering from drought, the ravages of insect pests, and so forth, he will go to a river bed and cut the branch of a tree called kindio which grows there. He will then take the egg of a fowl, dig a hole in the ground, among the crops, and place the egg in it, planting the branch of the kindio tree in the hole. He prays to the deity (Engai) beseeching him to make his crops grow like the kindio, a tree which never withers. The egg is said to be used because of its nourishing properties, and it is also believed that no bad influence can penetrate its shell. This is a very pretty example of homœopathic magic.

The Dedication of the Bull—Kithangaona cha nzau—Kitui A-Kamba.—It sometimes happens that when a man consults a magician about a contemplated marriage, or some other matter, the magician informs him that in his village a cow is in calf and that this cow will bear a bull calf which will be of a certain colour, red or black or spotted. He tells the owner that the calf must not be killed or sold in the ordinary way, as it will be the property of the ancestral spirits (nzau ya aiimu), or will be dedicated to them. If, however, it is necessary at any time to kill this beast, some beer must be brewed, and the meat must be divided among the owner’s wives. No portion with a bone in it must be given to a stranger, but all the bones should be collected and buried in the cattle kraal. The meat of the beast must be cooked and offered to the aiimu, and some of the beer poured out to them. The bones of the carcase may be broken, if so desired.

A beast thus dedicated to the aiimu will never die of disease. If, for any special reason, the owner wishes to sell or kill such a bull, a substitute must be found for it, and an important ceremony has to be observed. The original animal and the substitute are tied and thrown on their sides; the two animals are then placed touching each other. Some hair is cut from the forehead, the chest, and the tail of the original beast and placed on the substitute, the animals being then released. The aiimu are addressed, and it is explained to them that owing to pressing reasons the original beast has to be killed or sold, as the case may be, but that a suitable substitute has been provided. Some beer is brewed, and a libation of it is poured out in the hut of the village head.

Old Testament Parallels.—It is considered that the principle of thahu or thabu existed among the Israelites, and the following references to Mosaic law may be reasonably quoted:

Leviticus xix. 8: “Therefore everyone that eateth it shall bear his iniquity because he hath profaned the hallowed thing of the Lord and that soul shall be cut off from among his people.”

This refers to the eating of a sacrifice of peace offerings on the third day; it may be eaten the day of the sacrifice and the following day, but if eaten at all on the third day, inflicts a thabu on the culprit.

Leviticus xix. 22: “And the priest shall make an atonement for him with the ram of his trespass offering ... and the sin which he hath done shall be forgiven him.”

This can be taken as a case of a man who has committed a crime against tribal law, and takes a ram to the priest or one of the elders of the tribe, who performs the ceremony of tahikia to cleanse him from his sin.

The elaborate ceremonial laid down in Leviticus xiv. dealing with the case of purification from the plague of leprosy might be the procedure adopted by a Kikuyu medicine man to-day: the use of special plants, the sacrifice of a ewe lamb of the first year. The latter is identical with the mwati of Kikuyu practice.

It is laid down in verse 19 that: “The priest shall offer the sin offering and make atonement for him that is to be cleansed.” This certainly looks as if the plague were the result of evil-doing on the part of the patient, and of the nature of a thahu, and is quite in accordance with present-day beliefs in Kikuyu and Ukamba.

The comminatory chapters xxviii. in Deuteronomy are of considerable interest as a parallel to the cases quoted as existing to-day in Africa, e.g., xxviii. 45: “And all these curses shall come upon thee and shall pursue thee and overtake thee till thou be destroyed.”

General Remarks on Thahu and Thabu.—It will be well to review the results of this inquiry. It should be noted that in a number of cases, about one-third of those enumerated, the thahu is brought upon the offender or brought upon a third party, by the intentional act of the offender; in other cases the person, and sometimes the live stock, are the victims of circumstances over which there is no control.

The investigations throw a vivid light upon the complicated nature of the life history of a Mu-Kikuyu or Mu-Kamba, and it is evident that a native of one of these tribes cannot go through life without becoming thahu or thabu some time or other.

Mr C. Dundas, writing on this subject, says with regard to the Kikuyu people: “The fear of thahu is always present, a man may be subject to it without knowing the cause. When anyone goes on a journey he cannot tell whether he may not have contracted thahu in strange houses and villages, and therefore when he returns he will kill a goat for purification before he enters his village. This was done on one occasion by a number of elders who had been on a journey with me, but as they were representatives of the western part of the district, the goat was killed on crossing the Kamiti River, which river they regarded as the boundary of their country.”

Unmarried men and girls are not subject to thahu. On one occasion a woman in hospital was said to be suffering from thahu caused by having touched the genitals of a strange man; the symptoms of thahu were in reality only a bed sore, but a medicine man was called in to cure her. A case, in which a man was sued for a goat for the purification of a woman whom he had raped, and who, in consequence, could not suckle her child until she was purified, was tried before a kiama. The idea seemed to be that the child would become thahu.

The thahu is, however, in nearly all cases removable by the elders and medicine men for payment, and it may therefore be urged that the belief has not much value as a moral restraint. This view cannot, however, be seriously maintained for the following reasons: Take the case of a person who commits an act which he knows will bring thahu; it must be clearly understood that he never questions the validity of the principle; he goes about with the burden of the misdeed on his conscience, and this worries him so much that he gradually gets thin and ill, and puts it down to the thahu. It therefore ends by his confessing to the elders and begging them to free him from the curse. It is in essence nothing more or less than the confession and absolution of the Christian Church. Then again we have to consider the publicity of kraal life, where very little goes on which is not known to the neighbours; polygamy also increases this, a man confides in one wife, she tells another wife and so it goes through the village; if one person commits an act which inflicts thahu on himself or a neighbour, it will gradually leak out by some means or other, and public opinion will insist on measures being taken to remove it. No living person would ever dream of evading the wrath of the ngoma, or ancestral spirits. Occasions may, of course, arise when the commission of a prohibited act may involve a third party, and the person who committed it may preserve silence on the point, but the elders will in most cases be in possession of complete information as to the movements of every person in the neighbourhood, and, moreover, the demeanour of the conscience-stricken culprit will invite suspicion, so in practice it is but rarely that the offender is not detected.

In some of the examples of thahu which are cited above, cases will be noted in which the hut is affected and has to be forthwith demolished if the curse is not removed; this feature appears to be worthy of note, and it may in some measure account for the low type of domestic architecture among these tribes. Obviously there is but little incentive to build large permanent structures if, owing to the incidence of a thahu, the owner may have to demolish them at any moment. The author’s attention was first called to this point by a learned French missionary who has studied the Kikuyu for many years.

It must not be assumed that every native is conversant with all the acts of omission or commission by which thahu or thabu may be incurred and there are doubtless variations in different areas, i.e., the thahu of Western Kenya are not identical in number and character with those of Kyambu district. All the tribesmen, however, know a certain number, and if anything untoward occurs to a man he will consider it advisable to consult an elder; the elder will cross-examine him and ask if he has done so-and-so, or omitted to do certain things. Eventually the applicant will admit having done something which results in a thahu; the way is then clear, and appropriate treatment must be sought in the proper quarter. Ridiculous as most of these taboos appear, they probably have a general value in regulating conduct in communities where legal restraint is in an undeveloped state.

(C) THE DYING CURSE

This is a very interesting belief, which occurs in both Kikuyu and Ukamba. In Kikuyu it is called kirume, and in Ukamba kiume. The belief is also said to be found, under the name of ukuongo, among the Ja-Luo Kavirondo.

It is really a thahu, thabu, or makwa which can be suspended by a dying man over his descendants. The same idea, somewhat inverted, exists among the Swahili, who call it rathi, or the dying blessing. If a man does not receive his father’s blessing, he is believed to go through life attended by much misfortune.

The general idea is that a dying person can put a curse upon property belonging to him, or can lay a curse upon another person, but only upon a person belonging to his own family; thus, for example, the head of a village, when dying, can lay a curse on a certain plot of land owned by him and will that it shall not pass out of the family, and if a descendant sells it, his speedy death is said to follow. A case recently came to the author’s knowledge where an elder was offered a very tempting sum for a particular piece of land, and equivalent land elsewhere, but refused it because the property had come down to him with a kirume on it. This is a very interesting revelation, because when one comes to consider it, in all probability it is the genesis of a last will or testament. Furthermore, it is the rude beginning of our principle of “entail.” It shows, moreover, that these people have almost reached the stage of individual tenure in land, or at any rate, of tenure by the family, the head of the village being the trustee for the family, and it is his duty to see that the gethaka rights are preserved intact. The gethaka is the portion of a ridge owned by a particular family, title being obtained by an ancestor by purchase from the original occupiers, the Dorobo hunting tribes.

If the head of the family feels that he is nearing his end he assembles his sons, and to the eldest he will probably say, “The goats belonging to such a hut shall be yours”; he will then call another son and say, “The goats of such and such a hut shall be yours, and if any of you break these wishes he shall surely die.” He will then mention a certain shamba (cultivated field) and say, “Such and such a shamba, shall not be sold, and if this wish is broken the one who sells it shall die.” This operates as an entail on the property which will be passed on from generation to generation; such is the strength of the belief. Upon inquiry, examples may be found all over the country.

Another case quoted was that of a man who had a ne’er-do-well son who was in the habit of pilfering the neighbouring villages; the custom is for those who have suffered to collect and seize the equivalent of their losses from his father. If this continues, the father, in the end, becomes so annoyed with his son’s misdeeds that he will put a kirume on him when on his death-bed. There is quite a mediaeval flavour about this action.

Sometimes, too, a man, when he is very old, entrusts a son with charge of his live stock, and the son may abuse the trust and let the flocks and herds melt away. Cases have been known where an old patriarch on his death-bed has put a kirume on his son to the effect that he shall neither grow rich nor have wives, but to the end of his life shall be condemned to perpetual poverty.

Again, a daughter may be a trouble to her father; she is, say, married to a husband who has paid the required dowry to her father; she runs away, repeatedly misbehaves herself, and so forth, and the father will then be subject to continual worry, owing to the husband’s demands for the return of the dowry. The father may eventually become so weary of all this worry that he will put a kirume on her and condemn her to perpetual barrenness.

Another case quoted was that of two brothers, one rich and one poor; the poor man may be envious of his brother and hate him in consequence. One day they go to drink beer, and, excited by the liquor, the poorer one brutally attacks his brother and grievously injures him. When the injured man recovers consciousness he will call his brother and say, “You have always been jealous of my wealth, and now I shall probably die from treatment received at your hands, but when I am dead if you attempt to seize any of my property you shall only be able to look at it, for if you touch a single head of stock you will die, and if your son comes to take any of my beasts he will also die.”

If a dying man calls out to a man of his own clan, muhirika, or morika, and makes a request such as, “Give me water,” and the person refuses, the dying man can impose a kirume upon the one who refuses.

A man is, generally speaking, only able to lay a kirume upon a person belonging to his own muhirika, or clan, which really means that a kirume will only affect one with a common blood tie.

There are, however, two exceptions to this:

If a man of one clan marries a woman of another clan (as is the rule) he can, if necessity arises, place a kirume upon the family of his wife if they live in the village of his father-in-law, because they have, as the expression runs, “Eaten of his property,” referring to the live stock he has paid over to his father-in-law for his wife.

The converse can also happen, for if a man has married a woman and has not paid his father-in-law the full amount agreed upon, the father-in-law when he dies can impose a kirume upon his son-in-law, and such kirume may also extend to his daughter, the idea probably being that the daughter has not sufficiently worried her husband to pay the balance due.

The power to impose a kirume is apparently not altogether confined to elders, for it is said that if an incorrigible child is driven away from home, becomes starved and dies in consequence, it can, before it dies, curse its parents and say, “You have treated me like this, and therefore you shall not have any more children.”

It is said that if a person hears that someone of his own clan is threatening to impose a kirume on him, he can take steps to prevent its infliction. The procedure was described as follows: If a person hears that, say, a brother intended to place a kirume on him, he at once takes a male goat or sheep to his village and kills it there; he offers some of the fat, some milk and beer to the dying man, who cannot refuse to forgive the suppliant, and who ceremonially spits into his hands and rubs a little saliva on his forehead, navel, and feet. The threatened person then departs in peace, free from any danger of a kirume from that person. This applies to both guilds.

One curious case of kirume which was described deserves notice. It is probably very rare, but it possibly carries evidence of the ancient origin of the belief and dates back to matriarchal times.

Suppose a dying mwanake, or member of the warrior age, lays a kirume upon his maternal grandfather, what course would he pursue to rid himself of the dangerous infliction? If he was unable to get the one who imposed it to spit on him as above described, he would have to seek a grandson by another daughter, take or send to him a male goat, some beer, the milk of a cow and seed of the various kinds of grain grown in the country, and beg him to come to his village. The grandson would then come accompanied by the elders; he would taste the meat, beer, milk, etc., and ceremonially spit them out on the grandfather, and this would relieve the old man of all danger from the kirume imposed by his other grandson. There is a word kigao, which is intimately connected with kirume, and is often confused with it, but inquiry seems to show that kigao means the neglect of a dying father’s wish with regard to the disposal of property, and the result of kigao, is, therefore, kirume, cause and effect being often very closely allied in the mind of a native.

The fear of kirume seems to be much greater in the section of the tribe circumcised Kikuyu fashion, for a prominent elder of the Masai guild stated that when those circumcised Masai fashion succeed to their father’s property they are invested with the brass bracelet worn by elders on their right wrist, and upon their mother’s death they wear the iron bracelet worn by her. These are called kigao, and once an elder has been invested with them he is quite safe from the effect of any kirume from his parents. The younger sons receive pieces of the ear ornaments, ichui, which are made into finger rings and fulfil the same purposes as the bracelets. This probably accounts for the greater popularity of the Masai guild among the Kikuyu people. At the same time the elder admitted that it would be bad to squander the flocks and herds left by his father, and that if they became depleted he would probably sell a portion of the landed property to make the flocks and herds up to their original strength.

If a man hears that a near relative is very ill he makes a point of going to see him, and takes the precaution of getting him to spit ceremonially on his hand and rub his visitor on the navel.

If a man goes to see his sick father or mother he takes a piece of mutton fat, and the sick parent ceremonially spits on it and the visitor rubs the piece of fat covered with saliva on his navel.

A married woman can impose a kirume, but not on an unmarried woman. The following is an example of a case in which a married woman may invoke this curse:

If a married woman has for a long time been systematically ill-treated by a brutal husband she can, when dying, put a kirume on her father for having forced her to marry such a bad man, and also upon her husband for his brutality.

The kirume is looked upon as the severest form of thahu or nzahu known; in most cases of thahu the subject rarely dies, because it is slow in its action and the patient has an opportunity of making reparation and seeking relief from the prescribed medicine man or elders, but in the case of a kirume the curse is very swift in its action, the patient rapidly sickens, breaks out into ulcers and often dies before he can arrange to take measures to arrest its onslaught; his live stock will also die mysteriously.

It is believed that the effective power of the kirume is derived from the spirit (ngoma) of the deceased person by whom it is imposed, assisted by the ngoma of the ancestors of the family.

It is said that there is no poison without its antidote, and the same applies to the kirume, but the antidote must be applied in good time and the only persons who can effect a cure are certain persons called athuri ya ukuu. The athuri ya ukuu compose a grade of elders above that of athuri ya mburi nne (elders of four goats—referring to the fee they pay for initiation to the grade). They are always old men and rich, and have to pay to their fellow elders of the grade a bullock and a male sheep or goat as initiation fees.

While the athuri ya mburi nne form the ordinary kiama, or council of elders, the athuri ya ukuu constitute a native court of appeal, but they do not admit appeals except in very important cases, when it is within their competence to revise a judgment and, if they consider fit, reduce the amount of compensation. It is also the duty of the athuri ya ukuu to instruct the heir in the customs of the tribe when he succeeds to the property after his father’s death.

The athuri ya ukuu do not treat ordinary cases of thahu but have to be called in for cases of kirume.

The ceremonial connected with the removal of a kirume is as follows; it is called ku-tahikia kirume in Kikuyu, which means “to purify from the kirume.”

The athuri ya ukuu are summoned to the patient’s village, and the day before the ceremony the elders catch a mole-like rodent called huku (Tachyoryctes sp.), put it alive in a cooking pot with some sweet potatoes, and cork up the mouth of the pot. The huku must be caught near the patient’s village. Next morning the athuri ya ukuu arrive with a medicine man belonging to another clan and a male sheep is killed; the elders then take the huku out of the pot and make passes all over the patient’s body with the live animal and now take the huku and samples of various kinds of native food, beads, etc., and proceed to the place where the corpse of the person who imposed the kirume has been buried or thrown out. Another sheep is taken with this party and also a small cooking pot; upon reaching the spot referred to the second sheep is killed and some of its fat is cooked in the pot. They then dig a hole and pour the fat in it, also milk, honey, beer, etc.; they smear the huku with the tatha, or stomach contents of the sheep, and the medicine man ties a tiny piece of meat to the right and left foreleg of the animal with a string made of mugeri (hibiscus) fibre, then fastening it up in a rough net made of the roots of the ruriera plant, and cuts the face off the sacrificial sheep, leaving the eyes intact, and places them all in the hole saying, “Go back to your burrow and take with you the spirit of the person who left this curse.” The hole is then filled in. The medicine man eats the remainder of the meat and afterwards returns to the village and purifies it.

The huku is said to personify the person who imposed the kirume, and the eyes of the sheep are to watch the huku and see that it does not return to the village. The huku is chosen because it lives below ground, and the ngoma of deceased persons are believed to live below ground.

After this ceremony the affected one is believed to recover; some say, however, that it only alleviates the effect of a kirume, but does not remove it completely. The elders stated that this would not affect a kirume placed on a piece of land forbidding its sale, and what may be called the kirume of entail could not be lifted.

The lustration from a kirume by the huku ceremony only applies to the Kikuyu guild.

Altogether this is a very pretty example of what Sir J. G. Frazer terms “homœopathic magic.”

If a young woman has been abused or vilified by the young men (anake) of her particular rika or generation, it is a serious matter for her, but nothing is done about it until the girl is about to be married. The father, however, then takes a ram and makes a feast for the anake of the same rika or circumcision generation as his daughter, and they assemble and ceremonially spit on the girl. She can then be safely married and bear children. In fact, as a precaution, this is generally done even if there is no record of a quarrel between the girl and the young men of her rika. A medicine man is called in, a ewe is slaughtered, and he ceremonially purifies the girl before her marriage.

Ukamba.—As was mentioned before, the doctrine of kirume or the dying curse is found among the Kamba people and is there called kiume.

Elders, atumia, and young married men, anthele, can impose a kiume among the A-Kamba but not among the warrior class, anake.

A man is able to place a kiume upon the people of a village to the effect that they shall not refuse food or good treatment to a particular person, the friend of the dying man; this friend may even belong to another tribe.

A person cannot impose a kiume on anyone outside his immediate family. A married woman can place a kiume on her father’s village if she has reason to do so.

An eldest son can place a kiume on a particular thing in the village from which his mother came, a common case of this being when a man places a kiume on the people of his maternal grandfather’s village, contingent on the disposal of a beast which was paid by his father to his mother’s people as part of her marriage price. The reason of this is that an eldest son has a claim to a heifer, the progeny of the marriage price paid by his father to his maternal grandfather for his mother, and he can, when dying, will this beast to any particular person, and if anyone prevents this bequest being carried out he will die; the kiume generally falls on the head of the village. The formula used is: “If you do not carry out this wish you will not be able to eat meat, to drink water, to drink milk to eat maize, to eat millet, and so on—and you will surely die.”

As in Kikuyu, a dying elder in Ukamba can place a kiume on a cultivated field, forbidding its sale out of the family.

If a Mu-Kamba breaks a dying wish and incurs a kiume, he can generally be freed from the consequences if he goes to an elder of his father’s village or to a near relative of his father and takes a bullock; the beast is killed and the elders spit water and milk on his face—this saves him from the worse effects of the kiume, viz., death. The ceremony is called kuathimwa.

There is little doubt that much more remains to be learnt about the ritual of kiume in Ukamba, but these things are more difficult to work out in that district and the details have to be dragged out bit by bit.