Читать книгу Bantu Beliefs and Magic - Charles William Hobley - Страница 8

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When the Kikuyu people found a new village, the elder of the family collects three stones, two being brought from the bed of a river to the north of the village, the direction from which the tribe migrated, and one from a river to the south of the village. The river in the north is generally the Thika, and the river in the south is generally the Mbagathi. The stones must not be collected from a river from which the villagers take water for their domestic use, and it must also be a river with a perennial flow.

These stones usually weigh from thirty to forty pounds, and are used as a village shrine. Having obtained the stones, the people take a black ram, sew up its left eye, and bury it in the middle of the village. This is done with the idea that if anyone comes to bring bad magic to the people of the village, he will, like the ram, lose the sight of one eye. The three stones are then planted round the spot where the ram is buried. Four people carry out this ceremony: the head of the village, another elder of the same clan, and the two senior wives of the village head. They break branches from the mutumaiyu, mukenya, and muthakwa trees and plant them round the spot. If they take root, it is considered a very good omen; if the branches die, however, they are replaced periodically by fresh ones.

Whenever a sacrifice is made in the village, in connection with any ceremony, the ram is killed near this spot and blood and fat are poured into the ground between the stones. Meat for the spirits is always put out in two heaps, one for the male and one for the female spirits. It is believed that if the stones are obtained from strong flowing rivers, they will help to protect the village from nocturnal thieves. Moreover, the stones from the rivers to the north of the village will stop the entrance of bad ngoma or spirits coming from that direction, and similarly, the stones from the south will form a protection against the evil spirits from that direction.

The stones are not supposed to possess a spirit, but if a stone is stolen it is looked upon as a terrible crime. The thief is said to have, by its possession, the power to inflict a serious curse upon the village, whenever it was stolen. When the stone is missed, the head of the village collects the kiama, or council of elders, and presents them with a fee of a ram and a bullock, which are killed. They tell the owner to wait three days, and if by then the stone is not returned, they bring him the kithathi on which to curse the thief. In all probability, the stone is secretly returned by night; if not, the owner curses the thief on the kithathi, and some time afterwards it will be found that two or three people have died mysteriously in a certain village and the stone is brought back. The owner of the stone will then kill a sheep, and place strips of the skin, rukwaru, upon the right wrist of all the men, and upon the left ankle of all the women in the thief’s village. After this, they all go to a river and are purified on the bank of it by a mundu mugo, or medicine man. They then bathe in the river and are marked on their foreheads by a vertical mark made with ira, or white earth, and return home. The owner of the stones now presents a ram or male goat to the elders of kiama, to show that the trouble is over. It is said that no theft of this kind has occurred in recent years.

The sacred stones are called Kithangona ya muchi, which may be interpreted as “village shrine” or altar. The Swahili equivalent is Mathbah ya Kafara ya miji; mathbah is evidently the same as the Arabic masseba. It is believed to be associated particularly with the ngoma, or ancestral spirits, and has no connection with the deity. They may perhaps believe that the stones form a resting-place for the beneficent ngoma of their ancestors, or that they indicate a spot where the villagers can render service to the spirits. The former interpretation is the more likely; why, otherwise, should there be such trouble when one is stolen? These stones must never be used as seats.

The same idea occurs in Bantu Kavirondo, where these stones are to be found in each village. Mumia pointed out such a shrine, decked round with white feathers, where a fowl was periodically killed and the blood poured between the stones. The stones were said to have come from the north of the Nzoia River, from a place whence the Wanga clan were supposed to have migrated.

Some years ago, one of these stones was stolen by a complainant who alleged that he could not get a hearing in a case regarding the debt of a cow. The whole country-side was upset at the loss; the suit was immediately heard and disposed of, and eventually the stone was returned. The incident clearly showed what importance was attached to these apparently insignificant objects.

If a Kikuyu village is moved, the stones are moved to the new village, a fresh ram being buried in the new spot. Before the stones are removed, the head of the village and his senior wife pour out honey-beer and sugar-cane beer on the space between the stones, which can then be removed with impunity. When a brew of honey-beer is made a little of the honey is poured out between the stones, and when the beer is fermented, a libation is also poured there.

The writer recently witnessed the celebration of the morning prayer at a village shrine. The principal wife brought sugar-cane beer and poured some into a cow horn and some into a small U shaped gourd. The elder, who was head of the village, then poured the beer, first from the horn on to the trees growing between the stones, and then from the gourd. He now uttered a prayer with great solemnity, and called upon the spirits to grant good fortune to the village and also to the visitor. He prayed for wealth in live stock, abundance of children, safety in journeying, and so forth. As the prayer proceeded another elder responded solemnly. The beer from the horn was a libation to the male spirits; that from the gourd to the female spirits. The horn had a knob carved on the end, the origin of which might be phallic.