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

If on his first visit of inspection he finds the hive occupied, he brews beer and pours some on the ground as a libation to the aiimu, or ancestral spirits.

In a season when there is a dearth of honey the owners of the hives go to the woods in which they have put their hives and sacrifice a goat; the meat is eaten, and the blood, mixed with beer, is poured on the ground as a propitiatory libation to the aiimu to secure a good honey crop. Among the Ulu A-Kamba the ceremonial varies and is apparently more elaborate.

When a man has hollowed out the log of wood which forms the beehive he takes a shaving or chip of the wood which is called ikavu, and gives it to his mother, who then cooks beans, pigeon peas and maize in a pot and places the chip, ikavu, in the fire under the pot to assist in cooking the food. If he has lost his mother the ikavu is given to his wife, who cooks the ceremonial meal.

When the food is boiled the villagers are summoned to eat it. The beehive is then hung in a tree, and when it is full the owner collects the honey and brings it to his village. Before the honey can be mixed with water to make beer or mead the owner of the hive must present his mother with some of the raw honey.

When the first brew of the mead is ready the father of the owner of the hive buys it for a goat, which may not be killed. On the second night after the purchase, [[253]]the parents of the owner of the hive must cohabit; this in speaking to each other they refer to as kuzya mbui, and if talking to another person, the term kulunga mbui is used.

They believe that the consumption of the beer and the succeeding ceremony ensures that the hive will always yield a good supply of honey, and that there will always be plenty of people to buy succeeding brews of mead made from the honey. The whole proceeding may therefore be considered as a magical fertility ceremony.

If a man has lost his own parents, he sells the first brew of mead to his uncle, presumably as head of the family.

Among the Dorobo hunting tribe of the Kikuyu escarpment when a man makes a new beehive, beer is made and the old men and women drink it before it is hung in a tree. They then ceremonially spit on the hive and next morning place it in a tree; the inside of a hive is also smeared with beeswax to attract the bees.

The first crop of honey out of a new hive is only eaten by the children of the village, or perhaps by very old women. The reason of this is said to be that if a young woman were to eat any and then misconduct herself with a man, the honey crop would be spoilt and the bees would not enter any of the hives hung up on that day.

It is a well-known fact the natives always mark their beehives before suspending them from the trees, and the marks are generally of two kinds, one being that of the clan and the other that of the owner. Mr A. C. Hollis states that on the Southern Aberdare Range in the bamboo forest between Karanja’s and Enjabini he saw two musaiti trees (camphor wood, Ocotea usambarensis) from which the Kikuyu make their honey barrels or beehives. Although still standing, they were both marked with the same designs one sees on beehives.