The huku is said to personify the person who imposed the kirume, and the eyes of the sheep are to watch the huku and see that it does not return to the village. The huku is chosen because it lives below [[152]]ground, and the ngoma of deceased persons are believed to live below ground.
After this ceremony the affected one is believed to recover; some say, however, that it only alleviates the effect of a kirume, but does not remove it completely. The elders stated that this would not affect a kirume placed on a piece of land forbidding its sale, and what may be called the kirume of entail could not be lifted.
The lustration from a kirume by the huku ceremony only applies to the Kikuyu guild.
Altogether this is a very pretty example of what Sir J. G. Frazer terms “homœopathic magic.”
If a young woman has been abused or vilified by the young men (anake) of her particular rika or generation, it is a serious matter for her, but nothing is done about it until the girl is about to be married. The father, however, then takes a ram and makes a feast for the anake of the same rika or circumcision generation as his daughter, and they assemble and ceremonially spit on the girl. She can then be safely married and bear children. In fact, as a precaution, this is generally done even if there is no record of a quarrel between the girl and the young men of her rika. A medicine man is called in, a ewe is slaughtered, and he ceremonially purifies the girl before her marriage.
Ukamba.—As was mentioned before, the doctrine of kirume or the dying curse is found among the Kamba people and is there called kiume.
Elders, atumia, and young married men, anthele, can impose a kiume among the A-Kamba but not among the warrior class, anake.
A man is able to place a kiume upon the people of a village to the effect that they shall not refuse food or good treatment to a particular person, the friend of the dying man; this friend may even belong to another tribe.
A person cannot impose a kiume on anyone outside his immediate family. A married woman can place a kiume on her father’s village if she has reason to do so. [[153]]
An eldest son can place a kiume on a particular thing in the village from which his mother came, a common case of this being when a man places a kiume on the people of his maternal grandfather’s village, contingent on the disposal of a beast which was paid by his father to his mother’s people as part of her marriage price. The reason of this is that an eldest son has a claim to a heifer, the progeny of the marriage price paid by his father to his maternal grandfather for his mother, and he can, when dying, will this beast to any particular person, and if anyone prevents this bequest being carried out he will die; the kiume generally falls on the head of the village. The formula used is: “If you do not carry out this wish you will not be able to eat meat, to drink water, to drink milk to eat maize, to eat millet, and so on—and you will surely die.”