The candidate presents a razor (ruenji), some castor oil, butter (ngoromo), and a ewe lamb (mwati) to the elders of the clan he wishes to join, and the elders of that clan provide a bullock. The bullock is slaughtered and the skin is dried, this being for the parties to sit on during the ceremony. The candidate and the senior elder of the clan he wishes to enter then sit on the bullock’s hide, and the elder’s senior wife comes and shaves both their heads. When this is completed, they anoint each other’s head with the castor oil and the butter. Each man collects and takes away the hair cut off and carefully hides it so that no evilly [[251]]disposed person shall pick it up and make medicine with it.
Henceforward the man is considered as adopted in the new clan, and his children belong to that clan. If he is a young man and wants a wife, the senior elder of his new clan will buy him one, and if he is killed in a tribal fight the elder claims the blood money.
If, after this ceremony, the elder was to commit adultery with the wife of the adopted man he would surely die.
If a daughter of the adopted man is married, the elder gets five goats from the bridal price received for the girl; these goats are called ugendi and possibly have reference to cases in which the elder has paid the bridal price for the wife of the adopted man.
A Kikuyu native does not, however, change his circumcision guild by entering a new clan.
Njama ya Kikende.—The ceremony of adoption is closely connected to a ceremony performed between great friends; this is a form of ceremonial brotherhood, but the man who makes the alliance does not change his clan, and if he is killed the blood money would go to his own clan. In this case the elder kills a ram or he-goat (thengi), which is skinned, and a piece of the skin of the chest is cut off, whilst another elder cuts out a bracelet of the skin and places it on the elder’s right wrist and on the wrist of the man who wishes to join in brotherhood with him.
The man who desires the brotherhood then presents a gourd of beer to the elder; the beer must be of two kinds, viz., sugar-cane and honey-beer mixed. The elder who cuts the bracelet also receives a gourd of beer from the man.
On Bee-Keeping.—The A-Kamba are great bee-keepers. When Europeans first visited the country they found the industry fully established; as at the present day, logs of wood were hollowed out and hung in trees for bees to hive in. They periodically collected the honey, brewed mead, and then threw [[252]]away the comb. The Government Officers have since taught them to boil down the wax into cakes which can be sold, and a large quantity is annually exported.
In Kitui when a man makes his first beehive he does not hang it in a tree himself, but gets his uncle to do so; he believes that if he omitted to do this the bees would not settle in it.
The owner of the beehive cannot cohabit with his wife until he sees that a swarm of bees has settled in the hive and is building there. Two nights after he is satisfied that this is the case, he may resume his marital relations.