Nine Faces Of Kenya

by Elspeth Huxley

  This is said to be the way fire came to man; before that people ate their food raw.

  When the man reached his friends he returned the spear and said to the owner, “You have caused me a great deal of trouble to recover your spear, and if you want some of this fire which you see going away into smoke, you will have to climb up the smoke and get it back for me.” The owner of the spear tried and tried to climb the smoke but could not do it, and the elders then came and intervened and said, “We will make the following arrangement: fire shall be for the use of all, and because you have brought it you shall be our chief.”

  Bantu Beliefs and Magic C. W. Hobley.

  Several East African peoples share a legend about the origin of elephants. This version was related to Llewelyn Powys by a Kikuyu acquaintance.

  “Long ago,” he began, “in the days when the mountains spat fire, elephants were men. And these men were very rich. They had ngombi, kondo, mbuzi, kuku (cattle, sheep, goats, and chickens) in numbers like the grass on the plains. They were, indeed, so wealthy that they had no need of work. They simply looked about all day, covering themselves with oil and red earth and making love together in the noonday heat. They had so much milk that they did not know what to do with it. Then one day one of them washed in milk, and when the others saw him they did the same thing, so that in time it became a practice with them every morning and every evening to toss this white water over their polished bodies. Well, it came to pass on a certain evening that Muúngu (God) came through the forest to see if all was in order with the animals he had created – with the rhinoceroses, with the hyenas and with the lions, and with all the others. And all was in order. On his way back he suddenly caught the sound of man’s laughter and turned aside to see if they also were well. Now it chanced that it was the time of their evening washing, and when God saw the good milk splash over their bodies he fell into a great passion. ‘I created cows to give them the white water of life and they now throw it away or do worse with it.’ And he called the men to him as he stood there in the shadow of the forest. And the men, when they heard God’s voice louder than the roaring of a lion when its belly is full, trembled and came creeping to him on hands and knees like so many baboons. And God cried with a loud voice: ‘In so much as you have proved yourselves to be unworthy to receive my gifts and have been guilty of this great waste, you shall become Nyama (wild animals), a new kind of Nyama, bearing on your heads milk-white teeth, so that you shall be constantly reminded of your guilt.’ So God transformed them all into elephants, and they moved off into the forest, huge grey forms with gleaming tusks set in their bowed heads for ever and ever.”

  Black Laughter Llewelyn Powys.

  The greatest of the Maasai medicine-men was Mbatian, after whom the summit of Mount Kenya is named. He died in about 1890, at the time when an outbreak of rinderpest swept through East Africa.

  When on the point of death, he called the elders of Matapato, the sub-district in which he lived, and said to them: “Do not move from your country for I am about to die, and I will send you cattle from heaven. If you move, you will die of smallpox, your cattle will all perish, you will have to fight with a powerful enemy, and you will be beaten. I wish my successor to be the son to whom I give the medicine-man’s insignia. Obey him.”

  The elders said: “Very well,” and left.

  When they had gone, Mbatian called his eldest son Sendeyo, and said to him: “Come to-morrow morning for I wish to give you the medicine-man’s insignia.”

  Sendeyo replied: “Very well,” and went to lie down.

  While this was taking place, Lenana, who had hidden himself in the calf-shed, overheard the conversation. He arose early in the morning and went to his father’s hut. On his arrival he said: “Father I have come.”

  Now Mbatian was very aged and he had only one eye. He therefore did not see which of his sons was before him and gave to Lenana the insignia of the medicine-man (the iron club and the medicine horn, the gourd, the stones, and the bag), at the same time saying: “Thou shalt be great amongst thy brothers and amongst all the people.”

  Lenana took the medicine-man’s insignia and went away.

  Sendeyo then went to his father, but was told that his brother had already been there and been given the medicine-man’s insignia. When he heard this, he was very angry and said: “I will not be subject to my brother; I will fight with him till I kill him.”

  Mbatian died and was buried near Donyo Erok.

  When he was dead, some of the people proclaimed Lenana principal medicine-man, “For,” they said, “Mbatian told us that he would give the insignia of his office to whichever of his sons he wished should succeed him.” They therefore remained with Lenana.

  But others said: “We will not acknowledge this man for he is a cheat,” and they threw in their lot with Sendeyo.

  Now disease broke out amongst Sendeyo’s people, many of whom died, their cattle all perished, and they were defeated by the Germans; whilst those people who remained with Lenana did not fall ill, and they obtained cattle, as Mbatian had predicted.

  The two rivals waged war for many years, and eventually Sendeyo was beaten. He came in 1902 to beg his brother to allow him to live with him, and peace was concluded between the two parties.

  The Masai: Their Language and Folklore A. C. Hollis.

  A story from colonial times.

  THE LITTLE DUKA

  There is a place in the Maranga district, a little green lawn of thick, close-growing grass on the edge of a miniature plateau above the river, where two roads cross. The roads are only native roads of red earth, and they, too, are grass-grown in patches. There is a hanging wood along the hillside beside the valley. The trees have tall white trunks that tower the height of two huts and a half, then burst into a froth of dark evergreen. It is a pleasant spot, with its torrent of cold water falling through thickets of tree-fern, and there once a Government surveyor camped, equipped with very large pieces of paper and strange iron implements on sticks. He stuck in the pegs for two dukas [small shops], which he said would come, and then he went away, and there was nothing but the white pegs sticking half a foot out of his red heelmarks in the trampled mud and the grey, wet ashes of two fires to show that he had been there, or make any alteration in the rich greens and flashing silver, the white tree-stems like slim ghosts against the grove’s dark foliage, the brawling note of the river, the silence of the woods, an occasional spiral of blue woodsmoke, the chatter of a group of barefooted natives drifting along, a few birds stirring among the croziers of the bracken, the sound of a far axe or of a drumming hyrax.

  But his magic must have stayed, for the next morning in the blue haze there was something there: to some people a denser patch of morning mist, to some very clear, and they said it was a shop. Sometimes the shop would move away to the hill across the valley, and sometimes to the far horizon, and sometimes it would vanish altogether, till the scorners would begin to say that the white man had taken all his magic with him, and that the belief he had left any was an imagination and a pretence. And then, again, it would be there in full daylight, dazzling white in its new corrugated iron, and full of red and yellow and blue and glittering objects on the open side where the goods were displayed. Women as well as men could see it, and some of the elders as well as any. The children persuaded those who saw it most clearly to come and describe to them all the things they just could nearly distinguish but weren’t quite sure about. But the old men told the children not to touch anything there nor to approach it nearer than ten paces, and, when the children asked them why, they answered that it was not good to do so. So the children went back and played that they could not see the shop, though some of them sat down before it first for a good quiet stare….

  There was this difficulty about the little shop, that two people did not always see the same things in it at the same time. Can goods come from Nairobi and fill a shop in a moment? Yet Chegi wa Kimutwa saw it full of red blankets at the same time as, to Mbaria wa Kinyanj
ui, it was a shimmering curtain of blue and white beads. The missionary’s little daughter saw only doll’s parasols, caps, and underclothing, and a motor car for Frank, and she got into trouble even for that – the child was growing so imaginative. That was the little shop’s mistake, showing itself to the missionaries, who are a nice people, friendly and kind, and speak ki-Kikuyu, and know all about the people, and give medicine for nothing, but are very talkative and ought not to be shown everything. To show everything to a missionary only offends him, and is bad for the tribe. The missionary wrote to the Boma about this new belief, to the District Commissioner, who read the Golden Bough daily and was a keen collector of Kikuyu myths.

  When the District Commissioner came, the old men were doubtful. They knew some claimed to see the vanishing shop, they reported, but perhaps it was not true. One or two of them said they themselves had thought they had seen the shop on such-and-such a day, but no doubt they were mistaken. They could not say at what time they had seen the little duka. Yes, sometimes perhaps it was in the evening. Yes, they did drink beer at night occasionally. They needed alcohol in the evening because it kept them warm of nights; they weren’t hardy like the Athungu.

  In spite of the charming position of his camp, the District Commissioner had not had a restful safari, and came rather irritated to the conference. He had had to speak to his servants and interpreter for leaving the camp at night and going off to dance and sing – “Make an infernal row, at any rate” – on the level ground of the surveyed site. This they flatly denied, but fell silent when he said that he had seen the lamp they had with them. Then, too, the trails of Scotch mist which hung about the camp half the day, though it muffled all sounds into strange undertones, must make the place unhealthily damp. So he was not sorry to give his decision. He said that he had spent the best part of two days of his leave at the camp solely to find out about the vanishing shop, and he had heard and seen nothing, simply because there was nothing there. They knew how keen he was on collecting their ancient stories, and they had told him some very good ones about former days – ones which he knew were all true. (A stir of relief passed down their shrivelled limbs as he said that). But this one about a modern duka, an ugly, dirty, tin trader’s station, was ridiculous. They must be aware that in any fog you can see queer shapes like the one they had pointed out to him last night, which they knew was not really there, for whenever they walked towards it it receded. Let him hear no more of it.

  Since then no European has ever seen the shop. As a matter of fact, hardly any have had the chance. The missionary grew fanciful, and was transferred by his bishop from the district. No surveyor has been there since, and a European trader who arrived one day, and wrote from the camp, enthusiastically applying for the leasehold of a plot, cancelled his application the next morning on his way back to Nairobi. And the Kikuyu? Well, could the Kikuyu go on seeing it after the District Commissioner forbade? His Assistant District Commissioner has had to speak to them before about their silly superstitions. So the vanishing shop is never seen by anyone? Come! Come! Don’t be childish! If there’s any doubt, ask the Kikuyu. They are a simple race. If you can get them to understand what you mean, they will tell you they do not. They would never hide anything from a Muthungu.

  Kenya Sketches J. G. Le Breton.

  Swahili Poetry

  The poetic tradition of the Swahili people spans four centuries and embraces many forms. Most poems were intended to be sung. They were written down by copyists, generally from memory, in Arabic script, therefore different copies of the same poem often vary. Poetic technique was formal, subtle and allusive – therefore often hard for Europeans to construe. Here is an example. At a dance preceding the installation of a jembe (magistrate) the people might sing:

  What is hidden, let it be hidden.

  Take a cloth to catch a shrimp.

  A man and his mother-in-law.

  The people are giving advice to the judge. First: keep secrets well. Second: exercise patience and perseverance as the shrimp fisher must. Third: use caution and diplomacy, as when dealing with a mother-in-law. The most serious verse form was the epic, the utendi, plural tendi. These were generally long, schematic, and permeated with the doctrines and traditions of Islam. One such is the Utendi of Mwana Kupona, wife of the Sheikh of Siu in the Lamu archipelago, composed some two years before her death in or about 1860. In this utendi she instructs her daughter in correct behaviour towards God and his Prophet, her parents, persons of rank and towards her husband above all.

  Let your husband be content (with you), all the days that you live together – do not worry him with requests, let it be he who recognizes you.

  And as you go on do you (still) thenceforward seek to please him; and that is how you will find the way.

  And in the day of resurrection, the decision is with your husband; he will ask (of God) what he wants, and what he wishes will be done.

  If he wishes you to go to Paradise, you will forthwith be brought thither: if he says you are to go to the fire, there is no escape, you will be placed there.

  Live with him befittingly, do not provoke him to anger: if he speaks (angrily), do not answer him, endeavour to be silent.

  Keep faith with him always; that which he wishes do not withhold; let not you and him quarrel: the quarreller gets hurt.

  If he goes first, take leave of him; when he returns, salute him: then prepare a place for him (to sit down) together with you.

  If he lies down, do not disturb him; come near him that you may massage him, and (as to) fresh air, let him not want a person to fan him.

  If he sleeps do not awaken him: neither speak in a loud voice; sit there and do not rise, that he may not have to look for you when he wakes.

  When he wakes, delay not in preparing his meal, and look after his body, rubbing him and bathing him.

  Shave him, both backwards and forwards, and trim his beard for him; pour water over him and fumigate him morning and evening.

  Look after him just like a child who knows not how to speak – look well after everything that goes out and comes in!

  Make him comfortable that he may be at ease, do not refuse (to obey) his commands; if he treats you badly God will rebuke him for it.

  My child do not be slovenly, do as you think best; but sweeping and washing out the bathroom, do not neglect it even once;

  Nor washing and scenting yourself, and plaiting your hair, not stringing jessamine blossoms and putting them on the coverlet.

  And do you adorn yourself with garments like a bride – put anklets on your legs and bracelets on your arms.

  Nor take off from your neck the necklace and clasp, nor cease perfuming your body with rose water and dalia.

  Do not take the rings off your fingers or cease dyeing your nails with henna; do not remove the antimony from your eyes nor (refrain from) putting it on your eyebrows.

  Let your house be clean; honour your husband – when people meet together you will bring him praise.

  (You ought to) know what he likes and follow that; a matter which he hates, do not enter into it.

  When you want to go out, you must ask leave; if you see that he is annoyed return and stay (in the house).

  Follow his directions, and you will be truly at peace; (if you go out) do not stay on the road till the fourth hour has arrived.

  And do not talk by the way, neither open your eyes to evil, look down on the ground with a modest countenance.

  Return home quickly and sit with your master, and get ready the bedding that he may lie down at his ease.

  Take every opportunity of exalting your lord, spread about his praises, and do not require of him more than he is able to perform.

  What he gives you, receive (thankfully) and let your heart rejoice; what he does not do of his own accord, you have no need to tell him.

  When you see him, uncover your teeth in a smile; what he says, attend to it, unless it should be something impious.

  My child, do not sharpen your tongue; b
e like your mother; (look at me) I was married ten years and we did not quarrel once.

  I married your father with joy and laughter, there was no want of mutual respect all the days that we lived together.

  Not one day did we quarrel; he met with no ill from me; neither did I from him, till the day of his election.

  When death comes, if he tells me he is content with me, I shall praise God and follow His commands; (but at that time) my heart, was astounded.

  There follow entreaties to God to cherish her children and her brothers and sisters, to protect her from evil and succour her in misfortune, and to watch over her daughter.

  I wish to warn her – see that you pay attention and follow God; return together with the women:

  Read this all ye women, so that ye may understand, and may bear no blame before the blessed Lord.

  Read: (these words are like) wheat springing up; obey your husbands, that ye may meet with no loss in this world and the next.

  She who obeys her husband, power and prosperity are hers; whatever place she goes to she becomes known, and (her fame) is spread abroad.

  She who wrote this poem is lonely and acquainted with grief: and if she was ever uplifted in spirit (she trusts) the Lord will pardon it.

  Let me give you the number (of verses); it is a hundred and one; and two in addition: they are what I have added.

  Completed by the help of God.