Bantu Beliefs and Magic / With particular reference to the Kikuyu and Kamba tribes of Kenya Colony; together with some reflections on East Africa after the war

by C. W. Hobley

(7) Yaitha.—A tree snake which is very fond of taking up its residence in large birds’ nests. It darts down on the passer-by from a tree, strikes the head, and then retires again to the tree. In 1907, one of them lived in a tree on the road to Mumoni, not far [[201]]from Gai, and killed two people in a short time. The District Commissioner was asked to kill it, but two Kamba went out together and one of them killed it as it tried to strike the other. This is probably a Dendraspis. The doctor takes the skin of the patient’s upper palm, just below the knuckle of the finger and thumb, and cuts three small gashes in the skin. He does this just above the upper wrist bone and upper elbow joint on the outside. The tongue is also slightly gashed in places till blood is drawn.

The writer only saw these particular places cut, as there was not sufficient time, but anyone undergoing the full treatment would be cut on the top of the foot, just above the toes, on the upper thigh, the buttock, and the shoulder, the process being repeated on the other side of the body.

The practitioner then pours into the palm of his left hand a little of each powder—seven kinds in this case. With the first finger of the right hand he puts the mixed powder on to each of the three gashes, then spits on the places and rubs the powder into the gashes with the second finger of his right hand. The remaining portion in the palm of the left hand is licked three times off the palm by the patient’s gashed tongue. The doctor then carefully wipes his hands, and, the operation being over, the powder is allowed to dry into the gashes.

To show the writer the efficacy of his medicine he took out the Syomelule snake and put it on to the finger of the patient, the mouth being closed over the first finger just below the nail, where it hung for several seconds. Then he took it off and returned it to its receptacle. One fang—the upper one—had drawn blood in the finger. He then took a knife and scraped the place of the bite on the upper and lower side of the finger. He said this was to scrape off the fangs of the snake. No blood was drawn on the under side of the finger. The patient said that the snake, when hanging [[202]]to his finger, did not hurt him, but that he merely felt as if his finger was being tightly pinched. Both the doctors and the writer’s boy who were present declared that instant death was the usual result of a bite by such a snake.

The result of the treatment is that a person can seize hold of any snake and, by making a circle round its head three times with the first finger of the right hand, render it innocuous. If a person sees a snake enter a clump of grass, he walks three times round the clump, and at the place where the snake has entered puts his hand in till he catches it by the tail. He pulls it out, and the snake strikes back. He allows it to strike his hand three times, and then seizes it by the head or neck and lets go the tail. He then makes three circular passes round its head with the first finger of the right hand and the snake can no longer hurt anyone unless a person forcibly puts his fingers into its mouth. It can be carried about or worn with impunity.

If a person who is immune spits and strikes a snake with the spittle, the snake becomes sick and dies at once. The patient was at the writer’s house for quite an hour after the operation. He still had the other side of the body to be operated upon. He showed no signs of swelling or illness.

The usual price for divulging the identity of the plants and the method of concoction to a fellow tribesman is a cow and a bull. For this reason the doctor brought the twigs tied up in a piece of cloth, so that their nature was not apparent to a passer-by.

This inoculation may be a system of immunisation or it may be that the snakes produced for the operation had had their poisonous fangs extracted. Its efficacy is, however, implicitly believed in by the Kamba people of these parts, and no one who has been inoculated is known to have died from the bite.

It must be noted that a certain amount of formality is observed, there being a favourite number for the magic “passes” and for the gashes made for inoculation. [[203]]

Another observer writing from Kikuyu states that while standing at a particular place with some elders a snake was seen in the long grass. One man commenced to feel about in the grass for the snake, and when another man struck at it, he picked it up alive. He seemed to have absolutely no fear of snakes, and explained that he had medicine for their bites—not to prevent bites, but to neutralise the poison. Later, he was further cross-examined and denied that he had this medicine.