“Some conspicuous ores yielded tin and copper, and an ingenious smith who had learnt iron working in tropical Africa may have combined them, and obtained bronze.”
This is one view. Professor Sir W. Ridgeway, on the other hand, is, I believe, firmly convinced that the secret of the working of iron in the Western world originated in Central Europe, probably in the Hallstadt region, and there we must leave this problem. [[177]]
CHAPTER II
THE EVIL EYE
This belief, so widespread in Europe, Morocco, and many other parts of the world has never received much attention from observers in this part of Africa, and it was only recently realised that it received much recognition in Kikuyu. It is called kita or kithamengo.
The word kita means saliva as well as evil eye. The Swahili synonym is kijicho.
A few people here and there throughout the country are believed to possess this gift, women as well as men, irrespective of the guild to which they belong. The possessor is born with it.
It gradually dawns upon the people that So-and-so possesses the power, owing to the fact that if that person audibly admires a beast belonging to a neighbour the animal shortly after that becomes sick. If this occurs several times the various owners compare notes and it becomes generally known that So-and-so is kithamengo.
It would therefore seem that the idea is not based on an evil glance but upon an envious thought.