The sacrificial ram is killed, and the whole family, as well as flocks and herds, are smeared with fat. [[49]]The party then returns home, uttering the usual African cry of joy, sometimes called “ululuing” which the Kikuyu term ngemi.

The women and children are not actually allowed to come near the tree, but must remain some little distance away. The people belonging to the Masai circumcision guild use muzigio, mutumaiyu (Olea chrysophylla), or mugumu trees for their private sacrifices. They would probably begin with a mutumaiyu or muzigio tree, and if the luck was not good they would change to a mugumu. Those belonging to the Kikuyu guild use either mugumu or muthakwa trees.

In a private sacrifice, the skin of the sacrificial ram is taken back to the village and presented to the head wife of the elder, but this is never done at a public communal sacrifice.

The night before the sacrifice, the elders of the village sleep in their own huts, but must observe celibacy. The night after, they sleep in the goat hut or thengira.

For two days before and after a sacrifice, no stranger is allowed to sleep in a village; nothing is sent out of the village to sell, and nothing is allowed to be carried away. If a stranger comes, he can be fed, but he must eat the food there and not take it away. At both a public and private sacrifice the eyes of a ram must be very carefully removed from the carcase, for it is considered an extremely bad omen if an eye should burst during extraction, and a fresh sacrificial ram then has to be provided.

Two days after a private sacrifice, ceremonial beer drinking takes place at the village, the men drinking together in the goat hut, or thengira, and the women in the hut of the principal wife; this is called a kithangaona ya muchi. During the ceremony they pray to the deity: “Twa thuitha Engai utue endo chiothi chiana na mburi na ngombe”—“We pray thee, O God, that you will give us all things, children, goats, and cattle.” [[50]]

On the morning of the day following a private sacrifice the wives go to the sacred tree and deposit offerings of grain, bananas, and other things.

Sacrifice to Ancestral Spirits.—In addition to the sacrifice at the sacred trees to the deity Engai, the Kikuyu sacrifice to the ngoma, or ancestral spirits. These rites, however, never take place at the sacred trees, but in a village, close to the village shrine.

The animal sacrificed is a ram. It is killed in the same way as those sacrificed to the deity, the carcase being laid upon branches from certain sacred trees, viz: