Chapter VII: The Curse and Its Manifestations (3)

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.