The elders then eat the meat. After the feast, [[47]]they take the tatha or stomach contents of the sacrificial ram and sprinkle it over the ripe crops, and also sprinkle some over the mukumbi or big wicker bottles in the grain huts and over the big gourds in which grain is stored. It is believed that if the elders failed to do this, the people would suffer greatly from diarrhœa. The last two rites are evidently rudimentary forms of the ancient Semitic ritual of the offering of the firstfruits, or cereal oblation. The sprinkling of the crops and of the grain receptacles with tatha indicate either a conservation of the crop for human consumption, or a purification of it from all influences which might be harmful to the consumers. The latter is probably more in accordance with their line of thought.
On the particular day when sacrifices for rain are offered, no one may touch the earth with iron; not even a spear or sword may be rested on the ground, as the sacrifice would then be useless.
The Kamba have a somewhat similar belief, and think that to till the soil with iron drives away the rain.
Among the Kikuyu, however, the ground on such days must not be struck by anything, and an elder may not even strike his mithege staff into the ground in the usual way.
Sacrifices for good crops are also made at the mugumu trees by medicine men. On the same day, a mwanake (a young man of warrior age) patrols the whole district (ridge) with a torch, which he finally throws on the ground. No one may then come from another ridge or leave the ridge to go to another.
Sanctuary.—The ancient idea of a sanctuary at a holy place is known to the Kikuyu. If a murderer, or a person who has committed a serious crime, runs to a sacred place and touches the tree, he is safe from vengeance. The criminal cannot, of course, stay indefinitely at the tree or he would starve, but the elders come and take him away, and his life is safe. He cannot, however, re-enter a village, and his clans-men [[48]]have to go to the tree and sacrifice a ram, which they are supposed to offer in exchange for him. He is smeared with the tatha, and a line of white earth, ira, is drawn from his forehead to the tip of his nose by a senior elder, of ukuru. After which he is tahikia, or ceremonially purified, and can return to his family. All the meat of the sacrifice is eaten by the elders, and none is left at the tree. Some of the tatha, however, is sprinkled at the foot with the object of purifying the spot where the criminal stood. In a case of this sort the criminal does not pay blood money himself, but his blood relatives have to pay for him. If in war an enemy were pursued and took sanctuary at a sacred place, he could not be attacked whilst he was there, but would probably be seized and killed at some distance from the sacred place.
If, again, a man should kill a tribesman, he can run to the house of his victim’s father and, by confessing his crime, obtain sanctuary there. The father will then kill a ram and place a strip of skin on the right wrist of the homicide, who must have his hand shaved and be ceremonially purified by a medicine man—tahikia, as it is termed. He will henceforth become as the son of the deceased’s father.
Private Sacrifice to the Deity.—The head of a village usually has a private sacred tree at which he sacrifices to the deity for good fortune or for assistance in times of trouble.
The ceremony described by Routledge—“A Prehistoric People,” pages 232–734—is a private sacrifice to the deity.
As we have said before, women are not allowed to attend a sacrifice to the deity at one of the regular sacred trees. But at a private sacrifice for good fortune, carried out at a sacred tree belonging to a particular village, the village elders attend with their wives and children, their cattle, sheep and goats.