Adoption into a New Clan (Kikuyu).—This is a proceeding which sometimes takes place in Kikuyu, but which rarely comes to the notice of European observers. It is called njama ya ruoro kucharua, which means “the assembly or council of the knife to change,” and, expanded, means “the ceremonial gathering of the knife at which a man changes his clan.” The word ruoro means the knife used for branding cattle.

The candidate first makes an arrangement about the matter with the senior elder of the clan he wishes to enter; a day is fixed for the ceremony and the elder summons the other elders of his clan and the candidate brings his brothers. A number of elders belonging to other clans are also invited as witnesses.

The candidate presents a razor (ruenji), some castor oil, butter (ngoromo), and a ewe lamb (mwati) to the elders of the clan he wishes to join, and the elders of that clan provide a bullock. The bullock is slaughtered and the skin is dried, this being for the parties to sit on during the ceremony. The candidate and the senior elder of the clan he wishes to enter then sit on the bullock’s hide, and the elder’s senior wife comes and shaves both their heads. When this is completed, they anoint each other’s head with the castor oil and the butter. Each man collects and takes away the hair cut off and carefully hides it so that no evilly [251]disposed person shall pick it up and make medicine with it.

Henceforward the man is considered as adopted in the new clan, and his children belong to that clan. If he is a young man and wants a wife, the senior elder of his new clan will buy him one, and if he is killed in a tribal fight the elder claims the blood money.

If, after this ceremony, the elder was to commit adultery with the wife of the adopted man he would surely die.

If a daughter of the adopted man is married, the elder gets five goats from the bridal price received for the girl; these goats are called ugendi and possibly have reference to cases in which the elder has paid the bridal price for the wife of the adopted man.

A Kikuyu native does not, however, change his circumcision guild by entering a new clan.

Njama ya Kikende.—The ceremony of adoption is closely connected to a ceremony performed between great friends; this is a form of ceremonial brotherhood, but the man who makes the alliance does not change his clan, and if he is killed the blood money would go to his own clan. In this case the elder kills a ram or he-goat (thengi), which is skinned, and a piece of the skin of the chest is cut off, whilst another elder cuts out a bracelet of the skin and places it on the elder’s right wrist and on the wrist of the man who wishes to join in brotherhood with him.

The man who desires the brotherhood then presents a gourd of beer to the elder; the beer must be of two kinds, viz., sugar-cane and honey-beer mixed. The elder who cuts the bracelet also receives a gourd of beer from the man.

On Bee-Keeping.—The A-Kamba are great bee-keepers. When Europeans first visited the country they found the industry fully established; as at the present day, logs of wood were hollowed out and hung in trees for bees to hive in. They periodically collected the honey, brewed mead, and then threw [252]away the comb. The Government Officers have since taught them to boil down the wax into cakes which can be sold, and a large quantity is annually exported.

In Kitui when a man makes his first beehive he does not hang it in a tree himself, but gets his uncle to do so; he believes that if he omitted to do this the bees would not settle in it.

The owner of the beehive cannot cohabit with his wife until he sees that a swarm of bees has settled in the hive and is building there. Two nights after he is satisfied that this is the case, he may resume his marital relations.

If on his first visit of inspection he finds the hive occupied, he brews beer and pours some on the ground as a libation to the aiimu, or ancestral spirits.

In a season when there is a dearth of honey the owners of the hives go to the woods in which they have put their hives and sacrifice a goat; the meat is eaten, and the blood, mixed with beer, is poured on the ground as a propitiatory libation to the aiimu to secure a good honey crop. Among the Ulu A-Kamba the ceremonial varies and is apparently more elaborate.

When a man has hollowed out the log of wood which forms the beehive he takes a shaving or chip of the wood which is called ikavu, and gives it to his mother, who then cooks beans, pigeon peas and maize in a pot and places the chip, ikavu, in the fire under the pot to assist in cooking the food. If he has lost his mother the ikavu is given to his wife, who cooks the ceremonial meal.

When the food is boiled the villagers are summoned to eat it. The beehive is then hung in a tree, and when it is full the owner collects the honey and brings it to his village. Before the honey can be mixed with water to make beer or mead the owner of the hive must present his mother with some of the raw honey.

When the first brew of the mead is ready the father of the owner of the hive buys it for a goat, which may not be killed. On the second night after the purchase, [253]the parents of the owner of the hive must cohabit; this in speaking to each other they refer to as kuzya mbui, and if talking to another person, the term kulunga mbui is used.

They believe that the consumption of the beer and the succeeding ceremony ensures that the hive will always yield a good supply of honey, and that there will always be plenty of people to buy succeeding brews of mead made from the honey. The whole proceeding may therefore be considered as a magical fertility ceremony.

If a man has lost his own parents, he sells the first brew of mead to his uncle, presumably as head of the family.

Among the Dorobo hunting tribe of the Kikuyu escarpment when a man makes a new beehive, beer is made and the old men and women drink it before it is hung in a tree. They then ceremonially spit on the hive and next morning place it in a tree; the inside of a hive is also smeared with beeswax to attract the bees.

The first crop of honey out of a new hive is only eaten by the children of the village, or perhaps by very old women. The reason of this is said to be that if a young woman were to eat any and then misconduct herself with a man, the honey crop would be spoilt and the bees would not enter any of the hives hung up on that day.

It is a well-known fact the natives always mark their beehives before suspending them from the trees, and the marks are generally of two kinds, one being that of the clan and the other that of the owner. Mr A. C. Hollis states that on the Southern Aberdare Range in the bamboo forest between Karanja’s and Enjabini he saw two musaiti trees (camphor wood, Ocotea usambarensis) from which the Kikuyu make their honey barrels or beehives. Although still standing, they were both marked with the same designs one sees on beehives.

The trees, it would appear, are earmarked by certain [254]persons for the manufacture of beehives while still standing. Sketches of these marks are given below. At first sight it seems curious to put the clan mark on beehives, but the object is to warn a would-be thief that if he robs a hive he will have to reckon with the whole of the clan to which the owner belongs. Further, if a would-be thief found a hive belonging to his own clan he would be very unlikely to rob it, as he could always obtain honey or honey-beer from his blood kin.

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Infectious Mania among the Kamba People.—In “Ethnology of A-Kamba,” p. 10, reference was made to a peculiar kind of infectious possession or mania which appears periodically in Ukamba country, and in 1906 many young people in Machakos district were seized with it at the sight of a European hat. In a few months, however, it passed away, but in 1911 a similar epidemic recurred. This took a different form, and was called Engai ya mweretu, or the spirit of the girl. The spirit of a girl who was said to have died mysteriously was supposed to enter into people in various parts of the district—generally old women—and speak. The whole district rapidly became disturbed; the spirit, through its oracles, demanded that bullocks should be slaughtered; the order was implicitly obeyed, for anyone who refused was supposed to be doomed. As a result, several thousand bullocks were slaughtered and consumed in a week or two. Great dances, at which the meat was eaten, were held. Very soon the oracles became seditious, and plans were being made for the abolition of European government and attack on the Government station. The whole thing was kept secret at first, but eventually it all came out and a company of troops had to be sent to the district to calm the excited people; the elders, who felt sore at the loss of so many cattle, rallied to the support of law and order and the country gradually regained a normal state.

The phenomenon is also known in Kitui, but is said to have been introduced from the Machakos district. Mr C. Dundas has investigated it in the former district and states that when people wish to misrepresent the nature of any dances held in this connection they refer to them as kilumi. Now kilumi is an old Kamba dance which is periodically performed at ithembo all over the country with the object of warding off epidemics, but the Engai dances are carried on at villages to cure an individual possessed by the form of mania known as Engai. Fez caps and [256]other unusual ornaments and clothing worn at Engai dances are not worn at kilumi dances. The word Engai appears to be loosely used in this connection, but this is possibly due to the fact that the individual organising the dance is supposed to be a person possessing occult powers, a person, in short, who knows the inner mysteries or who would not otherwise possess the “medicine” which is supposed to come from Engai.

As far as is known, this Engai possession appears to be almost entirely confined to women. A woman becomes mysteriously possessed; the medicine man cannot account for it. A woman who understands the affection is therefore called in and orders the appropriate dance to be performed. The performers become worked up and wildly excited, and many of them become affected and the disease spreads, although the afflicted person for whom the dance was convened may be cured. When the people are worked up to a pitch of frenzy, the leader of the dance then demands a bullock, beer, and a goat from the head elder, and these are consumed by the performers.

Women who organise these dances have been seen and interviewed by the writer and they generally appear to be stupid and half-witted, and one would not suspect that they were capable of influencing the people as they undoubtedly do. When they have worked themselves up into a kind of hypnotic state they may possibly be different. One great idea at these dances is that everyone must shake hands with the woman, and for this privilege she is given sixpence or more. The people believe that if this be omitted, they will be permanently afflicted with a spirit; they do not apparently mind temporary possession, but fear its becoming a permanency. The payments appear to be peculiar to Kitui.

The elders do not approve of these dances, but are generally too frightened to intervene. The reason of their disapproval is not far to seek; every woman who becomes possessed is told to demand something from [257]her husband or the mania will not leave her. The women generally ask for fez caps and clothes which are worn at subsequent dances; one elder told Mr Dundas that his wife had demanded the tails of ten white cows. They dress in white and red clothes, consisting of deep bands worn round the waists, and have fez caps on their heads and cows’ tails suspended from their arms. The women who conduct the ceremony are termed Siekitundumu; the meaning of kitundumu is thunder. One of the chants sung on such an occasion was translated as: “We have come from a comet and one day we will return there to stay with Siekitundumu.” When a woman shakes hands with the leader she is seized with a kind of convulsion and says, “I am Siekitundumu.” The speeches of the women appear to be devoid of meaning; they will attempt to use English words in particular, calling out “Yesu,” and So-and-so is said to be the children of “Yesu,” or one will be asked who she is and she will mention the name of some European or other. “Yesu”—Mr Dundas thinks—may be either a corruption of the English “Yes” or it may be a contraction of “Jesus” as pronounced by the German missionaries, or it may be a corrupt pronunciation of the Swahili word “kisu,” which means a knife, and which the A-Kamba are inclined to pronounce “kyesu.”

It is also said that those who participate in the dance must keep their eyes fixed on the ground; they are otherwise supposed to be liable to fly up to the heavens.

The woman called the Siekitundumu has a chondo (string bag) full of medicines carried in small gourds. No one may look at these magical properties without paying. The medicines are said to be made by a kind of ghoul who has only one hand and one leg and who lives above. These mysteries work the credulous and susceptible women into a state of frenzy, when they cease to be responsible for their actions. One chief, [258]with some pathos, stated that women who have been to one of these dances often go back home and beat their husbands.

The principal Siekitundumu in Kitui is said to be one Monge wa Muli. She and her husband assembled all the people at the village of the chief Muli and told them to collect food and other gifts. The elders had to pay a bull and a black goat. On a certain day the bull was killed and its blood poured into a large hole in the ground and mixed with meal, milk, and grain. Monge then announced that she would transfer the Engai to a particular village. She selected certain able-bodied women, who ran into the bush with a fowl, shouting that they were sending “Engai” to Muli’s village, the fowl being left in the bush. A few days later a woman in Muli’s village was, of course, seized with the Engai mania and the dance had to be performed there. Thus the affection is spread throughout the district. After a time, either the Government or the combined elders take steps to stop it by drastic measures and it dies down for a while, possibly for a year or two, but at any time it is liable to recur and it is then necessary for the administration to keep a sharp look out for its appearance.

The whole phenomenon rather reminds one of the ancient accounts of demoniacal possession. According to Goodrich Freer a peculiar kind of possession, called bonda, is said to attack women in Abyssinia. Here again all their demands for dress, food, and trifles of any sort must be strictly attended to. They sometimes mimic a hyæna.