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

Six senior elders and six old women are selected, and all proceed to the tree; they can wear their loin cloths, but their blankets are taken off and left some distance away. The men go first and taste a little of the milk, gruel, and beer, which they spit out at the foot of the tree, and then give way to the old women who go through the same ceremony. The men again return to the tree and pour the balance of the milk and so forth at its foot. Each elder now puts some of the snuff in the palm of his hands, takes a little, and deposits the remainder. The women again come up and pour the foodstuffs at the foot of the sacred tree, the butter being smeared on it.

When the offerings are deposited, the officiating elders—one can almost call them priests—pray as follows: “Mulungu chao ya nekeu twenda nbua na aka machisi na ngombe kisia na mbui kisia engai tupiengea muimu andu ma kakwe”—“Mulungu, this is food. We desire rain and wives and cattle and goats to bear, and we pray God that our people may not die of sickness.”

The sacrifice of the goat comes next, but before this is done, they take the roots of two trees called mriti and muthumba, grind them together, mix them with water, and make the animal drink the mixture with a view to sanctifying it. This done, they lead the goat [[55]]up to the tree, stand it on its hind legs before the tree, or, as they say, “show” it; its throat is then pierced and the blood allowed to flow over the offerings previously enumerated. The carcase is skinned and an incision made from the throat to the stomach. The upper portion of the skull with the horns is cut off and buried at the foot of the tree. The leg bones, however, must not be broken, but carefully disarticulated at the knee-joints and elbows. Small pieces of meat are cut from every part of the carcase and from every internal organ and deposited at the foot of the tree. The meat is then divided, the left shoulder and part of the back is given to the officiating old women, whilst the elders take the rest. (Cf. [Exodus xii. 46]: “The bones of the meat of the passover feast must not be broken.”)

Each party, male and female, lights a separate fire and eats, the selected officiating elders eating with their fellows. The fire must be made of the wood of a mumo tree, not that of the sacred tree, but of another of the same species. The six men and six women each impale a fragment of the meat on a skewer of mumo wood, roast and eat it. This is a ceremonial meal, and when it is over the remainder of the meat is divided up, and any kind of firewood can be used for cooking it.

The actual sacrifice of the goat is called kutonya ng͠nondu, to pierce the sacrifice. The mere word sacrifice, however, hardly expresses it, for the word ng͠nondu really implies purification, or perhaps expiation, the underlying idea being that the goat is an expiatory gift offered with the object of relieving the country from the effects of the deity’s displeasure and of the consequent drought.

No work is done on the day following the sacrifice, and no cultivation is undertaken, neither any house building. A man may stroll over and see a friend close by, but he is not allowed to go on a real journey.

The night before the sacrifice the elders must [[56]]observe celibacy, as well as on the six following days, the day on which the sacred meat was eaten counting as the first.

No elder can participate in this ceremony if he has the stain of death on him; that is to say, if his wife or child has died, and the purification ceremonies connected with the event have not been completed; or again if he, or one of his men, has killed someone and the ceremonies for removing the bloodstain are not over. Any fighting or quarrelling or fighting among the people would also be likely to destroy the efficacy of the ceremony.

If a man breaks a stick from the sacred tree the elders at once fine him, and a bull or goat is sacrificed. The wound in the tree is anointed with butter, and milk is poured at its foot. Lights are sometimes seen at night in mathembo, but people very rarely go out to them while it is dark; those who have tried it declare that stones were thrown at them from the tree, and that these stones strike fire when they hit the ground. If a person be thus attacked, it is a sure sign that he is fitted for a medicine man.

Another account of the procedure was obtained from elders in a different part of the Ukamba country, and as this varies a little and contains a few additional details, it is considered advisable to describe it.