CHAPTER I

THE GUILD OF SMITHS IN KIKUYU AND UKAMBA

The information relating to Kikuyu smiths was mainly collected from Kimani wa Nyaga, of the Gachiko clan, who is one of the senior smiths in Southern Kikuyu.

A smith in Kikuyu is called muturi, plural aturi.

The smiths of the Kikuyu tribe are said to have all come originally from a common centre of distribution at Ithanga, on the south-western side of Mount Kenya.

This scattering of the smiths throughout the tribe is stated to have occurred many generations ago, and the name Ithanga to be that of their common ancestor, but now the term Ithanga has become a synonym for a sub-clan of the A-Gachiko, and not all the members of this sub-clan are smiths.

It may be that the ancestor Ithanga was a migrant from another tribe and the first person to bring into the tribe the knowledge of working in iron. There appears to be, however, no legend as to who invented the act of smelting or working in iron; it therefore looks as if the craft were imported. It was certainly not learnt from the Dorobo or Asi aboriginals, for the Kikuyu declare that when their forefathers came into the country, the Asi had no smiths, and to this day they have none. It is believed that the ancestors of the Dorobo were the people who made the stone implements now being so widely found.

The Masai, however, appear to have had amongst them for a long period a clan of serfs called El-Konono, who are their smiths.

In former times, the ancestors of the Kikuyu dug out nodules of ironstone at Ithanga, and also collected iron sand washed down by the rain from the hill. This is probably the place described by Routledge, p. 80 et seq., of his book. The ironstone was smelted with charcoal made from the mutumaiyu tree (Olea chrysophylla) and forged with charcoal from the mutarakwa tree (Juniperus procera).

The tools and apparatus used by smiths are as follows:

Stone Anvil—Ihiga ya uturi (even to this day these are brought from Ithanga, where hard metamorphic rocks occur). Hammer—Kiriha. Pincers—Muhato. Bellows—Miura. Wooden nozzles of bellows—Ngeruru (made of murumbu wood). Clay tuyére—Ngerrua. Charcoal—Makara. Smith’s fire—Mwaki wa kiganda. Smith’s hut (smithy)—Kiganda. Pot used to contain water for quenching—Rugio ya uturi.

In former times one section smelted the iron and another forged it; imported iron wire is now so cheap that most of the forgings are made from it.

If a man wishes to enter the guild, he has to be initiated with some ceremony. He must bring a ram (ndorume) which is slaughtered just outside the smithy; the novice is then walked round the anvil. The heart and lungs of the slaughtered animal are held in the smith’s tongs and roasted in his fire, which is fanned by the bellows; the novice eats them and the smith sits on the anvil and anoints the forehead of the novice with a spot of white earth (ira). The carcase of the sacrifice is then split from neck to tail, the right half being eaten by the smiths and the left half by the villagers present.

The smiths and the villagers then go to the village of the novice to drink beer, and next morning the smith comes and forges an iron bracelet, which he places on the right wrist of the would-be smith, and, if the smith is married, one on the left wrist of his principal wife. If he has more than one wife, one of his first tasks is to forge bracelets for the others. The head of a smith’s village wears a twisted iron bracelet on his right wrist, the other smiths a plain iron band.

Birth does not confer membership of the guild; the son of a smith has to go through the same initiation ceremonies before becoming a smith.

All smiths are believed to possess magical powers which are alleged to come from the iron they use and are carried on through the spirits of their ancestors (ngoma). These powers are used in many ways; a smith can inflict curses which are of the nature of thahu, and they can bless the weapons they forge.

When a smith has forged a spear or sword he rubs it with a piece of kianduri wood (Swahili msuaki, Bot. Salvadora persica) and addresses the weapon thus: “If the owner of this meets with an enemy, may you go straight and kill your adversary; but if you are launched at one who has no evil in his heart, may you miss him and pass on either side without entering into his body.” This incantation is believed to be a great charm.

After this ceremony the smith’s assistant polishes the weapon with a quartzose stone called ngomongo; the assistant is paid for his work but is not usually a smith. He is often merely the bellows boy, who is called a muruguti.

Some customers bring their own iron and charcoal and bargain for the manufacture of a sword or spear; others buy a weapon which has been made at odd moments and laid by for sale.

A smith will not make the sheath of a sword; he makes the wooden hilt, but the owner himself covers it with raw hide and also makes the sheath.

One of the important functions of the smiths is to make certain articles used in connection with the circumcision rites of the tribe. These are as follows:

Ruenji—A razor which is especially made for the circumcision rite. Mukuha—A needle for piercing the ears of small boys. When a boy is circumcised the elders ceremonially pass this through the hole in the novice’s ear. Ngunju—A small iron ornament placed in the ears of boys and girls at the circumcision ceremony. Kahiu kaithinja—A knife especially forged to kill the sacrificial ram at the circumcision ceremony.

The head of the village where the rites are to take place orders these articles from a leading smith before the ceremony. When the smith delivers them he is given some honey beer, and he ceremonially spits a little of it on each of the things to free them from any suspicion of containing bad magic.

When a smith marries, another smith is called in to forge an iron bracelet, which is placed on the bride’s left wrist. The husband then kills a ram, and the fat and the tatha (stomach contents) of the animal are boiled together in a pot, and the bracelet is dropped into the mixture. This is supposed to free the bride from any bad magic which some evilly disposed ancestral spirit might bring upon her by means of the bracelet.

The Kikuyu smiths state that they have no special language or dialect peculiar to their guild. When they die, they are buried or thrown out in the bush, according to their grade, in the same way as other members of the tribe, and no symbol of their trade is buried with them.

Some smiths belong to the Masai circumcision guild, others to the Kikuyu guild.

With regard to the magic powers of smiths referred to above:

A smith can place a spell on a patch of forest to prevent anyone from destroying it. He takes an iron necklet or bracelet which belonged to a deceased person, cuts it into small pieces, and walks round the piece of forest which is to be protected. He then deposits the pieces at the foot of a tree within the area, and woe betide anyone who infringes the prohibition! If at any time the spell is to be lifted, the smith proceeds to the area, sacrifices a ewe, removes the pieces of bracelet, and smears the spot with tatha, or stomach contents, of the sacrificial animal.

If sugar cane is stolen from a garden, or goats are stolen out of a village by night, the owner often goes to a smith and seeks his aid, taking with him the iron necklet or bracelet of a deceased person. If the smith agrees to intervene, he will heat this in his smithy fire and then sever it with a chisel, saying, “May the thief be cut as I cut this iron.” Or he may take a sword or an axe-head which he is making, heat it in his fire and then quench it in water, saying, “May the body of the thief cool as this iron does,” i.e., “May he die.”

Both of these curses are said to be equally effective, and it is believed that the thief will gradually become thin and fade away with a terrible cough. When he becomes ill, however, he will usually confess his crime and be brought to the smith or come to him to beg that the curse may be lifted. He must bring a ram (ndorume) with him, and the smith will then order him to sit down outside the smithy and will march round him with the ram. The ram is killed, and the heart and lungs are extracted; these parts are then roasted in the smith’s fire and the patient eats them, and the curse is lifted. The complete recovery, however, is said to take about six weeks. A medicine man has no power over a smith’s magic.

In former times smiths were sometimes supposed to bewitch people against whom they had a grievance. A smith would secretly take the necklet or bracelet of a deceased person, cut it into pieces, and bury a piece at the gate of the village he wished to bewitch; the people passing in and out all day would step on the spot where the piece of iron was buried and thus incur the evil influence. Another piece would probably be buried at the watering place. By these means the whole village became afflicted, and unless the magic was removed the people would die. The infliction of the magic, in fact, would probably not be realised until several people had died. The evil magic has to be removed by a smith and a medicine man; a ram and a young ewe, which has not yet borne, mwati, are provided, the ram is killed, and the usual purification ceremony gone through, the ewe being set aside and taken by the mundu mugo. After the evil magic has been removed, the head of the afflicted village receives from the smith a twisted iron bracelet (muthiori).

Smiths place their old clay tuyéres on sticks in cultivated fields to protect the crops from thieves; there is no ceremony connected with this, but if at any time these must be removed, the smith removes them, carefully placing a little tatha from the stomach of a sacrificial sheep in the hole in which the stick was erected. This removes the curse and also the possibility of the magic damaging, at some future time, a person for whom it was not intended.

When a smith forges a new hammer for use in his forge, the medicine men of the district come and collect the iron scale from the forging to mix with their medicines, more particularly the medicines they make to protect a village from thieves or wild beasts. The medicine man (mundu mugo) marches round the village with the medicine and then buries it at the gate. It is called kihoho by the Kikuyu.

If anything is stolen from a smith’s forge he calls together all the smiths of the country-side. This assembly is called njama ya aturi. Each one in turn is asked if he stole the article, and whether the culprit confesses or not, they generally fix on one whom they strongly suspect and insist on his taking the oath of the goat (ku-ringa thenge). If the culprit confesses he is forgiven and warned, but if he refuses, he is cursed by the bracelet of a dead person. Should he be guilty, the spirit of that person will bewitch him to the peril of his life. He cannot get the curse lifted until the njama ya aturi reassembles and lifts it.

The ordinary Kikuyu native is far too afraid of the magic of the smiths to steal anything from one of them, so that when a smith is the victim of a theft it is easy to guess that the crime has been committed by another smith.

In the old days, the Anjiru clan, before starting on a foray against the Masai, went to a smith and got from him a small piece of iron called kiheto, for which the representatives of the clan would pay a pot of honey beer and one of sugar cane beer. The smith took a little of the beer and spat it out on the kiheto. The Anjiru then took away the kiheto, made medicine with it, and buried it on the path at the entrance to the enemy’s country. This was believed to stop the Masai cattle from being driven off a long way.

Smiths were formerly called upon to settle cases. If, for instance, a man was owed a debt, he would induce some smiths to go to the village of the debtor and order him to pay. And as the smiths were held in fear because of this magic the order was generally complied with.

The Eithaga clan has never counted any smiths amongst its members. The magic of the smiths was always feared by them. When this clan made spells to withhold the rain it is said that they were careful not to let the fields of a smith suffer.

If a medicine man visits the village of a smith he does not sleep in one of his huts, but lodges in the goat hut, thengira; a smith does the same if he visits the village of a medicine man. If a Mweithaga passes a smithy when it is raining he cannot enter to take shelter.

A woman cannot enter a smithy unless she is a smith’s wife, and she can then come to bring her husband’s food.

Smiths Among the Kamba of Kitui.—The original smiths all belonged to one clan, viz., the Atui, which is a section of the Anzunzu clan, but members of other branches have now learnt the art and been admitted to the brotherhood. In Machakos district some of the smiths belong to the Eombi clan.

If a man wishes to become a smith he brews some beer and takes it along with a goat to a local smith. They drink the beer together; the smith takes a sip and then ceremonially squirts it over the hand of the novice, saying, “May your hands become skilful at the work which I can do.” They then kill the goat and mix some of its blood with some of the beer, and the smith pours it over the anvil and addresses it as follows: “This man is now the same as I am, and I shall give him a new anvil, and may this new anvil be his friend.”

The anvil is of stone, and when it is worn out the smith searches for another suitable piece of some tough rock, generally granite or gneiss, and instals it in the forge. Before using it, however, he brews some beer and pours it over the anvil, saying, “You are now an anvil, and you must be as good a one as your predecessor.”

The cult of the smith does not appear to be as highly developed in Ukamba as in Kikuyu, for his powers are more limited; he wears no mark of his trade, and he does not dedicate the weapons he forges, as is done by the Kikuyu smiths.

If, however, a man steals a smith’s stone anvil or any tool from his smithy, the smith can curse him by saying: “So-and-so has stolen my anvil, and I curse him, and if he eats this season’s food he will die,” and it is firmly believed that the thief will die before the harvest is reaped.

When a man goes to a smith to have an iron rod forged for branding cattle, the smith will place it in the purchaser’s hand when it is finished and say: “May the cattle branded with this iron be lucky, may they escape disease, and may they be fruitful.” This tends to show that the branding of cattle is believed to have a magical value and is not solely intended as an identification mark for the beasts belonging to each clan.

Iron has always played a great part in ancient magic, and continues to do so in many parts of the world. This is probably due to the fact that the art of extracting the metal appeared so marvellous to early man that it was attributed originally to magic. This idea was very likely kept alive by the early iron smelters and smiths. In early times, as at the present day, in certain parts of Africa the same persons smelted and forged, and these men probably invested the process of manufacture with an atmosphere of mystery and combined into a guild pledged to keep the art a secret from the uninitiated.

In connection with this subject, it is interesting to note that some scientists lean to the opinion that the manufacture of iron originated in Africa. Professor Gregory comments on this problem in “Geology of To-day,” pp. 321–322. Referring to the easier smelting of iron than of bronze he says: “Grains of iron oxide are very widely distributed, and in arid areas attract attention by their heaviness and metallic aspect.... The preparation of iron by the negroes in Africa is a far simpler process than the manufacture of bronze. Bronze tools, however, are found in Europe earlier than those of iron, but their earlier presence may be explained by the readiness with which iron tools would perish by rust.... This explanation is, however, not satisfactory, for if iron had been present and removed, the rust would have remained as a stain or as a cement. Moreover, it is clear that in Western Europe the bronze age immediately succeeded the stone age, for the early bronze implements are copies of stone tools. The conflict of metallurgical and archæological argument probably admits of a geographical explanation.

“Grains of iron ore in sands and gravels are conspicuous in hot, arid climates such as tropical Africa, and it is probable that iron working was invented there before the bronze age in Europe. The inhabitants of the moister climates of the Mediterranean and Europe had no such easily found supply of iron.

“Some conspicuous ores yielded tin and copper, and an ingenious smith who had learnt iron working in tropical Africa may have combined them, and obtained bronze.”

This is one view. Professor Sir W. Ridgeway, on the other hand, is, I believe, firmly convinced that the secret of the working of iron in the Western world originated in Central Europe, probably in the Hallstadt region, and there we must leave this problem.