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

Those circumcised according to Kikuyu fashion hold the feast called Mambura the day before the operation; the writer recently witnessed one of these gatherings, and so is able to describe it with some accuracy. It was held at a village between the Mathari and Thigiri streams, and was on the twelfth day of the moon, so there does not appear to be any particular significance as to date. Several thousand people of both sexes had collected to dance and take part in the festivities; the warriors were dressed in their war paint and had their bodies smeared with red or grey paint, and in some cases were picked out with star-like patterns. The women were all in their best, and freely smeared with red ochre and oil; a large collection of elders was there, and the chief was present, as he explained, in order to keep order and prevent the young warriors from quarrelling. Over the gate of the village two long pieces of sugar cane were fastened, and all who entered the village were supposed to pass underneath. The entrance of the village was also guarded by a bag of medicines belonging to a mundu mugo; these were supposed to prevent [[81]]anyone coming into the village to bewitch the candidates. In the morning the elders of kiama slaughtered a big male goat, nthengi, by strangulation, and each male candidate for circumcision had a strip of the skin fastened round his right wrist, the same strip being also carried over the back of his hand and his second finger passed through a slit in it. The male candidates were nude with the exception of a string of beads or so, and a necklace made of a creeper called ngurwa; the girls were nude as far as clothes went, but were enveloped in strings of beads from their necks to below their waists. Much dancing took place till a little after two p.m., when there was a ceremonial meal. The candidates came into the village in Indian file, the girls leading the way. They were received in front of the hut, where they were to reside temporarily after the operation, by a few elders who had for some time been preparing a number of strips of a vegetable creeper, and smearing them with a black oily mixture. Each girl first came up and had a piece of the creeper fastened round her left ankle. The creeper is called ruruera, and each piece is smeared with medicine made from the umu and wang͠nondu plants mixed with castor oil. One of the elders then took a handful of porridge made of wimbi and mtama meal (eleusine grain and sorghum), and placed some on a bundle of twigs of the mararia bush and offered it to each candidate; the candidate bit a little piece and then spat it out on the ground, the balance was then placed in her hand and she ate it. The porridge was placed on a flat stone used for grinding corn. The boys then came along one by one, and the ceremony was repeated in the same manner, but the strip of creeper was fastened on the right ankle of each boy. It was stated that the object of this portion of the ceremony was to lessen the pain suffered by the candidates during the actual operation.

In another part of the village a man was completing five stools of white wood, roughly hewn out of the solid, which were intended as special seats for the [[82]]elders and old women who had to perform the ceremony.

Immediately after the ceremonial meal was finished a great rush occurred, and the candidates, followed by the crowd, galloped off to a mugumu, fig tree, about three hundred yards away; as they approached it, the boys threw clubs and sticks up into the tree, and then commenced to climb into the branches, hacking savagely the whole time at the leaves and twigs; each youth had a light club with the head sharpened to a blunt cutting edge, and by dint of vigorous hacking gradually broke off small branches which fell down among the crowd below, and were immediately seized by the people, some of whom at once began to strip off the bark.

The bark was supposed to be used to bind round the heads of the candidates. The people then danced round the tree, and this ended the proceedings. The leaves of the fig tree are collected and strewn in the hut where the candidates sleep after the operation. They are said to be for the purpose of catching the blood, and possibly to prevent the hut being defiled by the blood soaking into the earthen floor. They would never throw sticks into, or gather leaves from, a sacred mugumu tree.

The actual operation was not seen, as it took place at dawn the following morning; it is performed in the open near the village. The bulk of the prepuce is not cut off at all, but forms an excrescence below the glans, a small piece of skin only being cut off; it is thrown away, and not buried.

At the similar operation in Ukamba the prepuce is left on the leaves on which the youth is seated during the operation and thrown away with them.

The neophyte is placed on a bed of leaves for the operation, as it is very bad for the blood to fall on the earth. If anyone touches the blood it is considered unlucky and he must cohabit with his wife, and the mother of the child with her husband, and no harm will ensue. [[83]]

Mambura Festivities Preceding Circumcision According to Masai Fashion.—The festival which precedes circumcision according to the Masai fashion was also witnessed. It was originally to have been held at full moon, but bad weather caused its postponement till the twenty-fifth day of the moon, which seemed to be equally propitious.

In the morning a sheep was killed and eaten by the elders, and at about noon the candidates had assembled. The people of the village and the candidates passed their time in dancing until the preparations were completed. The male candidates were smeared from head to foot with ashes, and were nude with the exception of a belt of iron chain (munyoro), a bead necklet (kinyata), an iron dancing bell (kigamba) on the right leg near the knee; some wore a ring of the ngurwa vine round their necks. The girls were decorated from neck to waist with a load of beads as in the Kikuyu form of the ceremony.

The first proceeding was the decoration of each of the male candidates with a bracelet made of climbing euphorbiaceous plant called mwimba iguru.