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

On the following day the heads of all the inhabitants of the village are shaved and they are anointed with the fat of the sheep. During the ceremony the people present wear their skin garments inside out, and these are anointed with the cooked latex of the mugumu fig tree; after their bodies have been anointed with the fat they can once more turn their skin robes right side outwards, and the women resume their ornaments.

The property of the deceased is then divided up by the elders; the principle followed is that each son takes the property which had its dwelling-place in his mother’s hut, the goats and sheep, for instance, and which lodge, so many in the hut of each wife. With regard to which cattle, each son gets those which have been milked by his mother. Strict continency must be observed by all in the village until these proceedings are finished, and at their close the inhabitants and all [[101]]the property of the deceased are ceremonially purified by a medicine man.

Among the Kikuyu a woman’s skin cloak is laid outside on the ground when she dies and no one will touch it; a Dorobo husband, however, wears his wife’s cloak after her death; hence one may at times see a man wearing a woman’s cloak. The fear of corpses is intense with the Kikuyu, but it appears to be much less so with the Dorobo. They will, for instance, live in the house of the deceased, and do not seem to mind handling the corpse, a man’s sons, in fact, anointing his corpse after death.

Burial (Ukamba of Kitui).—Among these people the head of a village is buried if his wife, wives, or any sons are alive. If they are all dead the body is thrown out.

A man of importance and of high social grade is nearly always buried and is interred at the side of his cattle kraal.

The head wife of an elder is buried.

Beer and blood are periodically poured out by the side of a grave of a deceased medicine man, but not by that of other elders. It is essential that this libation should be made just before sunrise, and as this is in accordance with the practice in several other places, the custom is probably a very old one.

In the case of deceased elders, a libation of beer and blood is poured out inside the hut of the deceased when liquor is brewed or when a goat is killed.

If a childless wife, who is the first wife, dies, she is buried inside the village. In the case of a second or third wife, the body is thrown out, but curiously enough it must not be taken through the gate; a special opening is made in the village fence for the purpose, the opening being afterwards closed up again. Presumably this is to prevent her spirit from finding its way back into the village.

There is a curious custom among the Kamba of Ulu, in the event of a member of the family being away [[102]]when a death occurs in a village. An elder measures the corpse, cuts a stick of the same length and places it alongside the house of the deceased; this procedure is believed to protect the absent one from evil. Upon his return, a goat is killed and he is smeared with the contents of the stomach, muyo in Ki-Kamba, the tatha of Kikuyu, and some is deposited at the door of the hut, and he must tread in it before entering the hut; this ceremonially purifies him. The stick is then taken up by a mutumia ya makwa, one of the elders who understands the ritual connected with the removal of thabu or makwa, and is thrown out into the bush where the corpse of the deceased was deposited.