The stronghold of the Eithaga is Karuri’s country on the east slopes of the Nandarua Mountain, but it is said that they originally came from Karira’s to the north of the Saba Saba River. The present head of the clan is one Kiriri near Karuri’s, and in South Kikuyu the most prominent Mweithaga is Mkone wa Ndawa, and it is said that the chief Kiriri has hair growing on the point of his tongue. The clan is nearly entirely endogamous, that is to say, a Mweithaga generally marries a Mweithaga, and no man of another clan will marry a [[180]]Mweithaga woman, but a Mweithaga man may occasionally find a mate from another clan. The members of the Eithaga clan practically all belong to the Kikuyu circumcision guild. They are, however, divided into two divisions, A-Mbura and A-Kiuru, the first meaning the “rain-makers” and the second the “wizards.”
The former profess to be able to make rain, but their powers in this connection are not considered very extensive, and the majority will only admit that if rain is about, a Mu-Mbura may cause it to fall if it is the proper season for rain. If rain comes on in a camp where one has any Eithaga porters they will turn out, wave branches and blow vigorously in the direction from which the rain is coming, and, what is more, firmly believe that they are having some effect on the elements.
In connection with these rain-making powers, it is curious to note that no Mweithaga may drink or cook with rain-water that has been collected in a cooking pot; if he does so he will surely die. Further, no Mweithaga may carry embers of fire in a fragment of crock from a cooking pot. He must either carry the fire in some green leaves in his hand or get a firebrand.
We now come to the wizard branch of the clan. Only the males have magical powers. It is said that a Mweithaga will take an ox or Kudu horn and blow it, and so doing will bewitch an enemy, saying, “I blow this horn and your heart will become like the wind I blow through this horn,” meaning, it will disappear and be lost. The person will then be bewitched, will cough up phlegm, and eventually die unless he takes offerings to the Mweithaga and beseeches him to remove the spell. The proper thing is to take a ram and some sugar cane, and if this is done the wizard is unable to refuse, and will keep the sheep, cook some of the fat and put it in his mouth with some of the juice from the sugar cane. He will then squirt a little into the mouth of the bewitched person, and will also put some into a [[181]]gourd for the patient to take back to his village and give to his children. After this ceremony the patient recovers, and, what is better, it is said that no Mweithaga can again bewitch him in this way.
A Mweithaga, if he wishes to bewitch a village, will go into the bush and find francolin eggs, and will put these, together with the leaves of the mkurwe (Albizzia) bush, on a fire and will say, “As these eggs burst and as these leaves shrivel up so shall this village be destroyed,” and it is believed that evil will forthwith fall on the people of that village, but only upon the people, for the Eithaga do not harm live stock. Some will put the francolin eggs with water in a cooking pot on a fire and then break the pot and the eggs with one of the hearth stones. The Eithaga rarely use herbs or material substances in their magic, their spells being done by invocation. No medicine man can remove a spell imposed by a Mweithaga; it can only be removed by the one who imposed it or by another Mweithaga. If, however, a mysterious sickness falls on a village a mundu mugo, or medicine man, is called in, and he can diagnose it and tell whether it is due to the magic of Eithaga. A Mweithaga cannot bewitch another Mweithaga, nor can he bewitch a person belonging to another tribe such as Masai or Kamba.
Sometimes, however, they are of use, for they are believed to have the power of bewitching unknown thieves, and so it occasionally happens that a person who has had, say, some goats or some sugar cane stolen, will call in a Mweithaga and ask him to throw a spell on the thief. He will come to the village and take a piece of mud containing the spoor of one of the stolen animals or one of the stems from which the sugar cane has been cut, as the case may be, and he will say “A rokwa nguo,” “I bewitch the thief.” The thief, who is probably not far away, will hear people talking of this, and being convinced of the effects of the magic will hasten to return the stolen property to its owner.
The Mweithaga is then called again, and the owner [[182]]of the goats takes one and kills it, the Mweithaga cuts out the stomach with part of the œsophagus, wets his finger with saliva and touches the end of the œsophagus with his wetted finger, and then inflates the stomach by blowing and makes passes with it over the body of the thief, thus removing the spell. He finally fastens a rukwaru, or strip of the goat skin, on the thief’s wrist and the thief has to pay a sheep to the Mweithaga as a fee. If the theft is that of such a thing as sugar cane the thief has to find the sacrificial goat and then be purified as above described.
No Mweithaga may eat wild game, and in no case can he even wear the skin of a wild beast; the only exceptions to this law are that they can eat locusts and can make honey bags out of the skin of the ngunu, a small reddish antelope, probably a duiker.
For all their magical powers the Eithaga, like other people, are subject to the incidence of thahu, and are also subject to the power of the evil eye.
There is a kind of constitutional antipathy between the Eithaga and the smiths of the tribe, and it is said that there are no Eithaga smiths. A Mweithaga may not sleep in a smith’s house or vice versâ; if this did occur it is believed that illness or even death would supervene. The evil spell can, however, be removed by the owner of the house; that is to say, if a smith sleeps in the house of a Mweithaga, the Mweithaga could remove the evil, and vice versâ.