The twigs 1 and 2 are then placed to the woman’s lips, and she bites some of them and spits out the pieces three times. Part of this is taken and thrown on a main road for passers-by to tread on. The rest is taken by the husband, who walks in front of the woman, dropping it for her to tread on as far as the village. Water in a nzele, or half gourd, is then drawn by the husband, and all the men and women of the village rinse their hands in it. A goat, given by the husband, is made to drink the water in the nzele; it is then killed, and the chest is taken and eaten by husband and wife. The husband does not cohabit with his wife till the second night after the ceremony.
Among the Kikuyu if a married woman does not prove fertile a medicine man takes her to a mukeo, mukenyia, or muthakwa tree, and there suffocates a mwati (a young ewe which has not yet borne a kid); the elders of the husband’s clan take the small intestine of the mwati and twine it around the woman [[198]]and the tree, the intestine being then cut through with a sharp splinter of wood. The ceremony concludes with the anointing of the woman on the forehead with castor oil, and some fat from the carcase of the mwati is melted and poured out at the foot of the tree.
It was impossible to discover the exact significance of this ceremony; it may be a form of so-called tree marriage, a ceremony by which presumably the fertility of the tree can be given to the woman.
Inoculation Against Snake Bites.—Although these observations are classified under the heading of magic, it is not at all clear whether the procedure adopted is based on the knowledge of prophylactic or antiseptic drugs. The subject is worthy of professional investigation by a trained pathologist.
The author is indebted to Mr G. H. Osborne for the description of the process of inoculation for snake bites which took place in his presence at Machakos in Ukamba.
The practitioner was a young man of some twenty-five years of age, Waita wa Mathendu by name; the patient a boy of about sixteen, called Kaboyi wa Kimoino—both natives of the Iveti Hills. At the writer’s request the native doctor brought specimens of the medicinal plants. They consisted of:
(1) A branch of a shrub called musobi (Kikamba). This has a leaf measuring about two inches in length, bright green on the top and a lighter shade below; the edges are serrated but not sharp, and the whole leaf has a velvety feel to the touch. It bears a fruit which is red when ripe and which is eaten by the A-Kamba. It is also used as medicine for colds in the head.
(2) Two branches of a shrub called mthingii. The leaves appear to grow on a single stem, and are composed of some six petals on either side of the leaf stem. The leaf, full grown, measures about one and a half inches by three quarters. In the case of the first, a piece of the stem as it stands in the ground is lightly [[199]]scraped three times with a knife. In the case of the second, grains of mtama grain are thrown three times to strike the bush.
Both are then completely dug up by the roots, and the two roots, the stems and leaves, are put on the fire without water and dried completely. These are the vegetable ingredients of the medicine.
The animal ingredients are: