This is a very interesting belief, which occurs in both Kikuyu and Ukamba. In Kikuyu it is called kirume, and in Ukamba kiume. The belief is also said to be found, under the name of ukuongo, among the Ja-Luo Kavirondo.

It is really a thahu, thabu, or makwa which can be suspended by a dying man over his descendants. The same idea, somewhat inverted, exists among the Swahili, who call it rathi, or the dying blessing. If a man does not receive his father’s blessing, he is believed to go through life attended by much misfortune.

The general idea is that a dying person can put a curse upon property belonging to him, or can lay a curse upon another person, but only upon a person belonging to his own family; thus, for example, the head of a village, when dying, can lay a curse on a certain plot of land owned by him and will that it shall not pass out of the family, and if a descendant sells it, his speedy death is said to follow. A case recently came to the author’s knowledge where an elder was offered a very tempting sum for a particular piece of land, and equivalent land elsewhere, but refused it because the property had come down to him with a kirume on it. This is a very interesting revelation, because when one comes to consider it, in all probability it is the genesis of a last will or testament. Furthermore, it is the rude beginning of our principle of “entail.” It shows, moreover, that these people have almost reached the stage of individual tenure in land, or at any rate, of tenure by the family, the head of the village being the trustee for the family, and it is his duty to see [146]that the gethaka rights are preserved intact. The gethaka is the portion of a ridge owned by a particular family, title being obtained by an ancestor by purchase from the original occupiers, the Dorobo hunting tribes.

If the head of the family feels that he is nearing his end he assembles his sons, and to the eldest he will probably say, “The goats belonging to such a hut shall be yours”; he will then call another son and say, “The goats of such and such a hut shall be yours, and if any of you break these wishes he shall surely die.” He will then mention a certain shamba (cultivated field) and say, “Such and such a shamba, shall not be sold, and if this wish is broken the one who sells it shall die.” This operates as an entail on the property which will be passed on from generation to generation; such is the strength of the belief. Upon inquiry, examples may be found all over the country.

Another case quoted was that of a man who had a ne’er-do-well son who was in the habit of pilfering the neighbouring villages; the custom is for those who have suffered to collect and seize the equivalent of their losses from his father. If this continues, the father, in the end, becomes so annoyed with his son’s misdeeds that he will put a kirume on him when on his death-bed. There is quite a mediaeval flavour about this action.

Sometimes, too, a man, when he is very old, entrusts a son with charge of his live stock, and the son may abuse the trust and let the flocks and herds melt away. Cases have been known where an old patriarch on his death-bed has put a kirume on his son to the effect that he shall neither grow rich nor have wives, but to the end of his life shall be condemned to perpetual poverty.

Again, a daughter may be a trouble to her father; she is, say, married to a husband who has paid the required dowry to her father; she runs away, repeatedly misbehaves herself, and so forth, and the father will then be subject to continual worry, owing to [147]the husband’s demands for the return of the dowry. The father may eventually become so weary of all this worry that he will put a kirume on her and condemn her to perpetual barrenness.

Another case quoted was that of two brothers, one rich and one poor; the poor man may be envious of his brother and hate him in consequence. One day they go to drink beer, and, excited by the liquor, the poorer one brutally attacks his brother and grievously injures him. When the injured man recovers consciousness he will call his brother and say, “You have always been jealous of my wealth, and now I shall probably die from treatment received at your hands, but when I am dead if you attempt to seize any of my property you shall only be able to look at it, for if you touch a single head of stock you will die, and if your son comes to take any of my beasts he will also die.”

If a dying man calls out to a man of his own clan, muhirika, or morika, and makes a request such as, “Give me water,” and the person refuses, the dying man can impose a kirume upon the one who refuses.

A man is, generally speaking, only able to lay a kirume upon a person belonging to his own muhirika, or clan, which really means that a kirume will only affect one with a common blood tie.

There are, however, two exceptions to this:

If a man of one clan marries a woman of another clan (as is the rule) he can, if necessity arises, place a kirume upon the family of his wife if they live in the village of his father-in-law, because they have, as the expression runs, “Eaten of his property,” referring to the live stock he has paid over to his father-in-law for his wife.

The converse can also happen, for if a man has married a woman and has not paid his father-in-law the full amount agreed upon, the father-in-law when he dies can impose a kirume upon his son-in-law, and such kirume may also extend to his daughter, the idea [148]probably being that the daughter has not sufficiently worried her husband to pay the balance due.

The power to impose a kirume is apparently not altogether confined to elders, for it is said that if an incorrigible child is driven away from home, becomes starved and dies in consequence, it can, before it dies, curse its parents and say, “You have treated me like this, and therefore you shall not have any more children.”

It is said that if a person hears that someone of his own clan is threatening to impose a kirume on him, he can take steps to prevent its infliction. The procedure was described as follows: If a person hears that, say, a brother intended to place a kirume on him, he at once takes a male goat or sheep to his village and kills it there; he offers some of the fat, some milk and beer to the dying man, who cannot refuse to forgive the suppliant, and who ceremonially spits into his hands and rubs a little saliva on his forehead, navel, and feet. The threatened person then departs in peace, free from any danger of a kirume from that person. This applies to both guilds.

One curious case of kirume which was described deserves notice. It is probably very rare, but it possibly carries evidence of the ancient origin of the belief and dates back to matriarchal times.

Suppose a dying mwanake, or member of the warrior age, lays a kirume upon his maternal grandfather, what course would he pursue to rid himself of the dangerous infliction? If he was unable to get the one who imposed it to spit on him as above described, he would have to seek a grandson by another daughter, take or send to him a male goat, some beer, the milk of a cow and seed of the various kinds of grain grown in the country, and beg him to come to his village. The grandson would then come accompanied by the elders; he would taste the meat, beer, milk, etc., and ceremonially spit them out on the grandfather, and this would relieve the old man of all danger from the [149]kirume imposed by his other grandson. There is a word kigao, which is intimately connected with kirume, and is often confused with it, but inquiry seems to show that kigao means the neglect of a dying father’s wish with regard to the disposal of property, and the result of kigao, is, therefore, kirume, cause and effect being often very closely allied in the mind of a native.

The fear of kirume seems to be much greater in the section of the tribe circumcised Kikuyu fashion, for a prominent elder of the Masai guild stated that when those circumcised Masai fashion succeed to their father’s property they are invested with the brass bracelet worn by elders on their right wrist, and upon their mother’s death they wear the iron bracelet worn by her. These are called kigao, and once an elder has been invested with them he is quite safe from the effect of any kirume from his parents. The younger sons receive pieces of the ear ornaments, ichui, which are made into finger rings and fulfil the same purposes as the bracelets. This probably accounts for the greater popularity of the Masai guild among the Kikuyu people. At the same time the elder admitted that it would be bad to squander the flocks and herds left by his father, and that if they became depleted he would probably sell a portion of the landed property to make the flocks and herds up to their original strength.

If a man hears that a near relative is very ill he makes a point of going to see him, and takes the precaution of getting him to spit ceremonially on his hand and rub his visitor on the navel.

If a man goes to see his sick father or mother he takes a piece of mutton fat, and the sick parent ceremonially spits on it and the visitor rubs the piece of fat covered with saliva on his navel.

A married woman can impose a kirume, but not on an unmarried woman. The following is an example of a case in which a married woman may invoke this curse: [150]

If a married woman has for a long time been systematically ill-treated by a brutal husband she can, when dying, put a kirume on her father for having forced her to marry such a bad man, and also upon her husband for his brutality.

The kirume is looked upon as the severest form of thahu or nzahu known; in most cases of thahu the subject rarely dies, because it is slow in its action and the patient has an opportunity of making reparation and seeking relief from the prescribed medicine man or elders, but in the case of a kirume the curse is very swift in its action, the patient rapidly sickens, breaks out into ulcers and often dies before he can arrange to take measures to arrest its onslaught; his live stock will also die mysteriously.

It is believed that the effective power of the kirume is derived from the spirit (ngoma) of the deceased person by whom it is imposed, assisted by the ngoma of the ancestors of the family.

It is said that there is no poison without its antidote, and the same applies to the kirume, but the antidote must be applied in good time and the only persons who can effect a cure are certain persons called athuri ya ukuu. The athuri ya ukuu compose a grade of elders above that of athuri ya mburi nne (elders of four goats—referring to the fee they pay for initiation to the grade). They are always old men and rich, and have to pay to their fellow elders of the grade a bullock and a male sheep or goat as initiation fees.

While the athuri ya mburi nne form the ordinary kiama, or council of elders, the athuri ya ukuu constitute a native court of appeal, but they do not admit appeals except in very important cases, when it is within their competence to revise a judgment and, if they consider fit, reduce the amount of compensation. It is also the duty of the athuri ya ukuu to instruct the heir in the customs of the tribe when he succeeds to the property after his father’s death.

The athuri ya ukuu do not treat ordinary [151]cases of thahu but have to be called in for cases of kirume.

The ceremonial connected with the removal of a kirume is as follows; it is called ku-tahikia kirume in Kikuyu, which means “to purify from the kirume.”

The athuri ya ukuu are summoned to the patient’s village, and the day before the ceremony the elders catch a mole-like rodent called huku (Tachyoryctes sp.), put it alive in a cooking pot with some sweet potatoes, and cork up the mouth of the pot. The huku must be caught near the patient’s village. Next morning the athuri ya ukuu arrive with a medicine man belonging to another clan and a male sheep is killed; the elders then take the huku out of the pot and make passes all over the patient’s body with the live animal and now take the huku and samples of various kinds of native food, beads, etc., and proceed to the place where the corpse of the person who imposed the kirume has been buried or thrown out. Another sheep is taken with this party and also a small cooking pot; upon reaching the spot referred to the second sheep is killed and some of its fat is cooked in the pot. They then dig a hole and pour the fat in it, also milk, honey, beer, etc.; they smear the huku with the tatha, or stomach contents of the sheep, and the medicine man ties a tiny piece of meat to the right and left foreleg of the animal with a string made of mugeri (hibiscus) fibre, then fastening it up in a rough net made of the roots of the ruriera plant, and cuts the face off the sacrificial sheep, leaving the eyes intact, and places them all in the hole saying, “Go back to your burrow and take with you the spirit of the person who left this curse.” The hole is then filled in. The medicine man eats the remainder of the meat and afterwards returns to the village and purifies it.

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.”

As in Kikuyu, a dying elder in Ukamba can place a kiume on a cultivated field, forbidding its sale out of the family.

If a Mu-Kamba breaks a dying wish and incurs a kiume, he can generally be freed from the consequences if he goes to an elder of his father’s village or to a near relative of his father and takes a bullock; the beast is killed and the elders spit water and milk on his face—this saves him from the worse effects of the kiume, viz., death. The ceremony is called kuathimwa.

There is little doubt that much more remains to be learnt about the ritual of kiume in Ukamba, but these things are more difficult to work out in that district and the details have to be dragged out bit by bit. [154]