Unlike the people of Kavirondo, they have no fear of treading on a man’s shadow.
There are no particular customs connected with suicide, although suicide is certainly not unknown among them. When people hang or stab or drown themselves they are supposed to have been possessed by a malevolent spirit.
The general attitude of the people towards the ancestral spirits has been described in the introductory chapter, and many concrete examples will be found in the accounts of the various ceremonies given later. The influence of these spirit beliefs among the Kamba people has been very clearly set forth by the Hon. C. Dundas in his paper on Kitui, R.A.I.J., Vol. xliii, 1913, page 534 et seq.
A quotation from an Assyrian tablet some three thousand years old, which R. C. Thompson refers to in his “Semitic Magic,” shows how slowly man changes:
“The Gods which seize (upon man)
Have come forth from the grave.
The evil wind gusts
Have come forth from the grave
To demand the payment of rites and pouring of libations.
They have come forth from the grave,