My control over the whole country now complete—Get back with my ivory to
Karuri’s—Recover all the property of the murdered Goanese—My position
recognized by all the chiefs—Violent death of my enemy, the
rain-maker—Peaceful rule—Try to improve the agriculture of the
country—Imitators of my schemes cause trouble in the country—Troubles of
a ruler—Outbreak of smallpox—Famine—My attempts at alleviating the
distress misunderstood—Daily routine in a native village—"Sin
vomiting"—Native customs—Native hospitality among themselves—Adventures
with lions
The trouble being thus settled, I got my ivory through to headquarters,
being met on the road by Karuri, bringing a force to my assistance, my
messengers having acquainted him with the state of affairs. From this
time on I had complete control of the country; everything that had been
stolen from the Goanese was given up, while their murderers had received
such punishment as they were not likely to forget in a generation.
When matters had quieted down again, and I had time to review the
situation, I took the first opportunity of sending messengers through to
the Government, with a full report of the recent occurrences; while I
also communicated with the relatives of the murdered Goanese, two
brothers who, I heard, were living at Nairobi, sending through to them
the whole of the stolen property which I had recovered. I found out
later that, through some misunderstanding or other, the heads of the
murdered men—which had been found after the fighting was over—had
likewise been sent in to Nairobi; which, while serving as proof to the
officials that the reports I had been sending in from time to time as to
the character of the natives were not without foundation, was a most
regrettable occurrence, and must, I fear, have given much pain to the
relatives.
The fighting being now over, and the Chinga people—such as remained of
them—having given assurances of their desire and intention to live at
peace with their neighbours, the country now settled down into a
condition of quietness such as had never been known before. My mission
through the country had served to produce a spirit of friendship
between the different clans and tribes which effectually put an end to
the petty quarrelling and constant fighting which had hitherto gone
on; and from this time I was looked upon as practically the king of
the country, all matters in dispute being referred to my judgment, and
I was constantly being called upon to give counsel and advice upon
every conceivable subject which affected the welfare of the people.
The three most powerful chiefs in the country—Karuri, Karkerrie, and
Wagombi—acknowledged me as their leader, and chiefs and people were
now entirely under my control. As proof of the altered condition of
the country, I could now send messengers to any one of the chiefs or
headmen without any fear of their being attacked or molested on the
way.
The reader will remember that I have several times mentioned an
individual who was known as the chief rain-maker, a man who was by no
means well disposed towards me, on account of the fact that my influence
in the country greatly weakened his position. He went out of his way, on
every possible occasion, to cause me as much trouble and annoyance as he
could; while, in connexion with this Chinga trouble, I found that my
suspicions as to his having had a large share in the matter were
perfectly correct. In fact, he had engineered the whole business, both
with regard to the murder of the Goanese traders and the subsequent
attack on my safari, the former being really a sort of preliminary to
the latter, intended to convince the natives that it was quite possible,
as well as profitable, to attack and murder a white man, as he carefully
explained to the people that the Goanese were white men, and of the same
kind as myself. This attempt having failed, like all his other efforts
to remove me, he was not content to accept defeat and let the matter
rest, but continued to scheme for my removal until his persistence was
the ultimate cause of his own death, which occurred in the following
manner.
Some time after the Chinga business, reports were brought in to my
headquarters at Karuri’s of serious tribal fighting and raiding in a
district some twenty miles to the east of Karuri’s, and after a council
of the principal men had been held, it was decided that a force should
be sent to reduce the offenders to order. Consequently I set out with
Karuri, and about a thousand warriors, for the scene of the disturbance.
Soon after we had passed the boundary of the disturbed district, which
lay partly in the chief rain-maker’s territory—for he was a tribal
chief, as well as the principal rain-maker—he came out to meet us, with
every sign of friendliness, and said that he had brought some of his
people to help us to put matters right. Being fully occupied with the
matter in hand, and quite ready to welcome any friendly advances from my
old enemy, I met him in the same spirit, and told him to let his
following of some three hundred warriors fall in with the rest of the
expedition, and we continued our march. All went well until we reached
the first of the offending villages, where we met with strong
opposition, and had to advance our force in extended order to attack the
enemy. The order to advance had just been given, and the force were
crossing the brow of the hill which stood between them and the enemy,
Karuri and myself, together with some of the principal headmen,
following them more leisurely up the hill, when I suddenly heard a shot
fired immediately behind me, and, turning round, saw the chief
rain-maker lying on the ground, while one of the four askaris who formed
my personal escort was just reloading his rifle. On my asking what had
happened, I was told by Karuri and the askari that the chief rain-maker
had posted an ambush of men with poisoned arrows in the bush near, and
was just signalling them to shoot me down from behind, when my escort
caught him in the act and fired. Going over to where he lay, I found
that nothing could be done for him, as the heavy Snider bullet had gone
through his sword—which these people wear rather high up on the right
side—and entered his body just above the hip, so that the case was
hopeless from the first, as he himself recognized. When I spoke to him
he made no complaint about his fate, but begged that five blankets which
I had given him at various times might be brought, and that he might be
wrapped up in them and buried, instead of being thrown into the bush for
the hyenas to eat, as was the usual Kikuyu custom. Having received my
assurance that his last wish should be carried out, he died, without
saying anything further. Although the man had undoubtedly brought his
fate on himself by his treachery, I very much regretted his death, as I
thought we were getting on better terms, and he was one of the finest
specimens of the intelligent savage—physically as well as mentally—that
I have known. Had he been content to run straight and work with me for
the good of his people, he would have been able to do a great deal for
them.
But we had little time to spare for regrets, for although his death took
a great deal of the heart out of his people who had been set to ambush
us, they still attempted to carry out his plan to wipe us all out, and
as our followers were by this time well over the brow of the hill, we
had as much as we could do to hold our own. I managed, however, to get a
couple of messengers through the warriors surrounding us, to summon some
of our men back to our help. On the arrival of reinforcements, those of
the rain-maker’s people who were not prepared to give up their weapons
and surrender cleared off as rapidly as possible.
Strangely enough, in the course of the same day’s operations I was able
to do my old friend Karuri a good turn by saving the life of his eldest
son, a boy of about eighteen, named Cachukia, who had only recently
attained to warrior rank, and was out on his first expedition. We were
returning from the reduction of a village where we had met with
considerable resistance, and lost rather heavily, when I noticed that
Cachukia was not with us, and on inquiring what had become of him, I was
told that he had been killed in the final assault on the village. Not
wishing to take any chance of the boy having been simply badly wounded
and left to bleed to death, I took a few men with me and made my way
back to the scene of the fight, where I found the unfortunate youngster
still living, but very seriously hurt, having two bad spear wounds in
the chest, both of which had penetrated the lung. Although the case
seemed pretty hopeless, I could not leave him there to bleed to death,
so getting the men to make a stretcher with a blanket and a couple of
young saplings, I had him carried back to his father’s place, where he
gradually recovered, and to-day he is as strong and healthy a man as any
in the tribe, of which he should be the chief on his father’s death.
It may be worth while mentioning that the man who shot the chief
rain-maker was so overwhelmed with what he had done, and the possible
consequences to himself if he remained anywhere in the neighbourhood of
the late lamented’s district, or even where his people could easily get
at him, that he cleared out of that part of the country altogether, and
no one knew where he had gone. I met him some years afterwards on the
road in the neighbourhood of Naivasha, when he recalled the incident to
my memory, telling me that he had never ventured to go back to his own
district.
Soon after my return to headquarters I organized a big safari to take
the food and ivory I had collected down to Naivasha, and on this journey
I took about a thousand loads of food into the Government station, which
they were very pleased to get. I was told that I could take in as much
food as I could possibly collect, as some of the flour was required for
the other Government stations up-country, where their supply of food had
fallen off locally.
During my absence an Indian store had been opened in Naivasha, and
having sold my food and ivory, I was able to buy everything that I
required for trading at this store, and among the other things I
purchased to take back with me were a lot of seeds, including some of
the black wattle.
[Illustration: WA-KIKUYU WOMEN POUNDING GRAIN FOR MAKING NATIVE DRINK]
Returning to my home in the mountains, I settled down at Karuri’s with a
prospect of calmer days before me than I had experienced during the
previous twelve months, during which I had been getting the country
under control, and now I had time to set about improving the country
itself, and got the natives to work making better roads and building
bridges across the rivers, and generally increasing the facilities for
getting about the country. I also made a very large garden close to my
camp, in which I planted the seeds which I had bought at Naivasha, and
had the satisfaction of finding that almost every English vegetable
would grow well in that climate, while the black wattle I had planted
also flourished splendidly, and has, I believe, at the present day grown
into quite a little forest.
With the opening up of the country by the railway, new difficulties
arose. My own success in the country induced many traders, Somali, Arab,
and Swahili, to try their fortunes with the natives, and so long as they
stuck to legitimate trading, all went well, but they adopted methods
which soon created a strong feeling of discontent throughout the
country. In many cases these traders, who had very little in the way of
trade goods, represented themselves as working for Karanjai—which was
the native name by which I was known—and instead of doing any trading,
billeted themselves on the natives, making them keep them, and would
often even steal the sheep and other belongings of the Kikuyu. The
natives repeatedly complained to me of the misbehaviour of these
so-called traders, and when I told them that they were not my people,
and that I had nothing to do with them, the natives sometimes retaliated
on these men who were thus robbing them. Wandering Swahili, and the
other rascals of their kind, came complaining to me. I told them that if
they could not get on with the natives the best thing for them to do was
to leave the country.
Matters went on in this way for some time, incidents of the kind
becoming more and more frequent, until the whole country was in a state
of unrest, and as I was continually travelling about the country from
one chief to another, I was always hearing of them, and on one of these
journeys, I had personal proof of the imposition and robbery that was
being practised on the natives by these scoundrels. I happened to be in
the neighbourhood of Mount Kenia—where it was still necessary to have a
fair number of rifles to go about in safety—and two or three of these
Somali traders, who had not guns enough to venture alone, had been
following me on the journey, about a day’s march behind. It appeared
that at the last village at which they had stopped they had driven away
about sixty sheep from the native kraal, and had afterwards sat down
quietly to trade these sheep off for ivory in my camp. As soon as the
case was brought to my notice, I at once ordered them to return the
sheep, and told them that the best thing they could do was to get out of
the country at once, as they could not count on my assistance if the
natives attacked them. It came to my knowledge that they had made their
way down to Nairobi and there spread reports about my killing natives
and taking their sheep away from them. The officials were practically
ignorant of what was going on, and I knew that the reports of men being
killed and things of that sort would be believed by them, in all
probability—especially as I was a white man and the reports were brought
by natives. This meant trouble for me both ways, as unless I got rid of
these men they disturbed the peace of the whole country; while if I did
so they carried misleading reports to the Government—always ready to
believe anything to the disadvantage of a white trader—and so, between
the natives, the traders, and the Government, my position was no
sinecure.
It was about this time that the smallpox broke out in the country, and
for the time being all my other troubles were relegated to the
background, in the face of the necessity for adequately dealing with
this awful plague. We were having a shauri, when I noticed in the crowd
an elderly man, a stranger to that part of the country, and a single
glance was sufficient to show me that he was suffering from smallpox. I
explained to the natives the significance of my discovery, and told them
that if he were allowed to mix with them they would certainly get the
smallpox and die. They immediately stood away from him and said that I
ought to shoot him, which to their savage mind was the most natural
precaution to prevent the disease spreading. I explained to them that
such a course was impossible, though in view of the subsequent events,
the forfeiture of this man’s life at that time would have meant the
saving of thousands of lives which were lost in the epidemic of which he
was the cause. I told the natives what they ought to do to avoid the
infection, and arranged for an isolation camp to be built in which the
man was placed, telling some of the people who lived near by to leave
food for him at a respectful distance, so that he could fetch it for
himself until he got better, and also instructed them to see that he did
not, on any account, leave the camp. Some days later I was travelling
through the country when I again saw the man in the crowd, and in great
alarm sent some of my own men back to the isolation camp with him. But
it was too late. The disease had already spread to others, and I saw a
lot of bad cases among the people, and though I tried to get them all
into isolation camps, it was practically no use. When an outbreak
occurred in a family they would not report it, but continued to live and
sleep together in the same hut, with the result that, in most cases, the
whole family took the disease and died. I sent into Naivasha for some
lymph and started vaccinating the people. They took the matter in the
proper light, and raised no objection, so that I was able to vaccinate
thousands of them, which must, undoubtedly, have been the means of
saving many lives; but in spite of all I could do, thousands died, many
whole villages being wiped out.
One rather remarkable thing about this epidemic was that Karuri’s
village escaped entirely, not a single case occurring among the
inhabitants, which Karuri claimed to be due to certain precautions he
took to ward off the evil. He got some sticks and split them down the
middle, and then poured some black powder in the opening, afterwards
pegging the sticks down across all the footpaths leading to the village.
It did not keep people from coming in, and I could not see in what way
the sticks could do any good, but Karuri had great faith in their
virtues, and as no case of smallpox occurred in the village he took the
credit for keeping it away.
Karuri told me that one of the reasons of the respect with which he was
regarded by his people was that he possessed a most wonderful poison. If
any one even looked at this poison it caused certain death. The secret
of this drug, he told me, had been handed down and preserved in his
family for two or three generations. The poison itself was kept buried
in the bush, one of the tribe being specially told off to guard it and
dig up the package when it was required for use; but I could never learn
anything about the way in which it was used, and was very much inclined
to believe that the whole thing was a legend, of which the old man made
use to strengthen his influence among the people. I certainly believe
that there was some box or package buried in the bush and carefully
guarded, but whether it actually contained poison or anything else I
question whether Karuri himself could have told any one. The old man was
always very anxious to possess samples of the poisons contained in my
medicine-chest, but although I gave him many medicines of various kinds,
I always refused to part with any of the poisons, as it is not
improbable that he might have taken an opportunity of testing my
immunity with some of them.
While on this subject, some account of the native practice of protecting
their shambas, or rather the crops growing in them, from thieves may be
of interest. Of course this was done by playing on the superstitious
fears of the savage, the usual method being to hang some article, such
as an old earthenware cooking-pot, an old broken calabash, or best of
all, the cast-off earthenware nozzles of smith’s bellows, on a bush or
tree near the edge of the cultivated patch, and any one pilfering in
face of this warning to trespassers was supposed to fall sick, or even
die, as the result of his temerity. A similar practice prevails on the
West Coast, where a stick with a piece of cloth tied to it, or inserted
in a cleft at the top, may often be seen in the cassava patch; and it is
supposed that any one violating the protection which this ju-ju is
supposed to afford, will, at the least, suffer the loss of some portion
of his body, which will rot away and drop off.
The old saying that “it never rains but it pours” was abundantly
verified in our case, only in a contrary sense to the literal meaning of
the proverb. The failure of the rains in two successive seasons—which
was attributed to the white man having brought the railway into the
country—brought about a famine, which still further depleted the
population. The country around Karuri’s, being mountainous, was not
affected so much as the part to the east of us, on the caravan road, and
more towards the coast. At our high elevation, surrounded by the
watersheds of Mount Kenia and the Aberdare Range, we could always rely
on a fair amount of rain, though we had had much less than usual during
these two seasons. The general famine in the country affected me,
inasmuch as the food which I was there to buy found its way out on the
borders of the country, and consequently my supplies were cut off.
Having occasion to go down to Nairobi about this time, I saw hundreds of
poor wretches dead or dying on the road, while some of my men heard
gruesome tales of men killing and eating each other in their desperation
at the lack of food. No case of this kind came under my personal notice,
but I have seen the natives sitting down and boiling the skins which
they wore as clothing in the effort to soften them sufficiently to
enable them to be eaten.
Numbers of the starving people, when they heard that food was to be got
in the part of the country from which I came, started out to try to get
there, but were robbed and killed on the way by the Kalyera people. It
sounds rather paradoxical speaking of starving people being robbed, but
the statement is, nevertheless, perfectly correct; as, before starting
out, these poor vagrants collected all their household goods and took
them along with them, in the hope of exchanging them for food. A few,
indeed, had sheep and a few head of cattle with them. Thousands of these
people would start off together, and being weak and exhausted with
hunger, they fell an easy prey to the Kalyera.
The natives begged me to take them out to Karuri’s, and pitying their
miserable condition, I agreed to do so, and got together a caravan of
several thousands of the starving wretches, among whom were a number of
natives who possessed a fair quantity of sheep—perhaps one man would
have thirty sheep, and another five or six head of cattle, while, of
course, there were numbers of others who had absolutely nothing. It was
pitiable to see these people staggering along, first one and then
another dropping out to die on the road. Before starting out I made it
perfectly plain to them that I would only lead them to the “land of
promise” on condition that they placed themselves absolutely under my
control and obeyed my orders in everything, and this they promised to
do. When I saw them staggering along, almost too weak to drag one foot
before the other, and dying at the rate of about fifty per day, I
ordered those who had cattle and sheep to deliver them up to me, and
each night when we got into camp, I had as many killed as were required
to give them just enough food to keep them alive. Niggers have
absolutely no feelings of humanity, and the owners of the sheep and
cattle grumbled loudly at my action in feeding the others with their
property, which they charged me with stealing. I felt perfectly
justified, however, in the course I was adopting, although I was pretty
certain at the time that these people would some day do their best to
make trouble for me, by misrepresenting the facts to the Government
officials, who, while always ready to accept any statements against
myself, were much less inclined to take the responsibility for their own
laxity in the performance of their duty. I never ate any of the meat
myself, nor did I allow any of my men to do so, so that it could not be
said that I had any personal benefit from my action.
As I anticipated, when I took the sheep one or two of the natives
deserted from the caravan and went back to the Government station to
report that I had been looting their sheep. After much difficulty I got
the people through to the Kikuyu country, and distributed them to the
different villages, giving them plainly to understand that they must
behave themselves.
Not being able at this time to buy any more food, I went about among the
natives and started improving my own camp, cultivating the land, making
roads, &c. On my visits to different parts of the country I talked with
the chiefs and took general note of what was going on, and at the same
time bought any ivory that I heard of. Eventually it was brought to my
notice that the people I had billeted on the different villages when
they were starving, being now healthy and well fed, were bullying and
domineering over the natives who had helped them in their time of
misfortune. These people I had brought in had previously lived on the
edge of the country, in touch with the white man and his civilization,
consequently they had different notions and ideas from those amongst
whom they had come to live, who had not, as yet, come in contact with
any white man except myself. They declined to acknowledge my authority,
and endeavoured to assert their power over the natives by taking charge
of the villages, and, in some cases, stealing their sheep and
interfering with their womenfolk. This led to all kinds of trouble, and
the people naturally became anxious to get rid of their unwelcome
guests, and they came to me saying that, as I had brought them in, and
they were now all right, they ought to leave the country. I explained
this to the intruders, but they absolutely refused to go. Amongst the
number were some Swahili, who would settle down in a village for a
twelvemonth, simply loafing about and living on the natives; and though
they called themselves traders, they were really deserters from some
caravans. There were also many who were wanted at the coast for
different offences, and had somehow or other managed to get mixed up
with the famine-stricken people. They knew that I was not a Government
official, and as they refused to obey my orders I could not get rid of
them. This gave rise to a lot of quarrelling, and a number of people
were killed on both sides; so that I could see that the only thing for
the peace of the country was to get rid of this bad element at all
costs. I therefore gave them three days’ notice to quit, informing them
that if they were found in the country at the end of that time I would
not be responsible for anything that happened to them. They took no
notice of my warning, and at the end of the three days the people took
matters into their own hands, and drove them out of the country, when,
although there was no really serious fighting, some of them got killed
and several were wounded. The evicted ones, as I expected that they
would, went straight to the officials and complained that I had robbed
them of their sheep and driven them out of the country. I was first
informed of this by a letter from Mr. Gilkinson, the Government official
at Nairobi, and at once sent Karuri and some of the other chiefs into
Nairobi to explain the true facts of the case, thinking that a personal
interview between the official and the natives would be much more
effective than any statement that I, a white man, could make. This idea
was apparently correct, as the explanation which they gave proved quite
satisfactory—at least, this was the impression which was conveyed to me
by the report which they made to me on their return.
The country having been rid of the disturbing element of these alien
rogues, I now settled down once more to a peaceful mode of life, going
from village to village buying food, and sending in supplies at more
regular intervals to Naivasha, where they were very badly needed. There
was no further difficulty in finding porters, and a safari of from five
hundred to one thousand men went down to the Government station
regularly about once every month to take in the food.
Some account of the ordinary routine of my daily life among these people
may prove of interest to the general reader. Everybody turned out, as a
rule, about six a.m., and while I had my morning cup of tea and
biscuits, or possibly a dish of porridge made from mawhali or umkanori
flour, with fresh milk, the men turned out and cleaned up the camp
thoroughly. This over, the men were formed up for a couple of hours’
drill and rifle exercise—a training which every man, whether one of the
askaris or not, had to go through, so that, in the event of my losing a
few askaris, I always had trained men ready to take their places. At
first, of course, I had to undertake this daily drill myself, but after
a time the native sergeant and corporal became proficient enough to
relieve me of everything but superintendence of the parade. Drill was
over about ten o’clock, and then I held a court for the trial of any
serious cases of crime, or met the chiefs and elders in consultation
with regard to measures for the general welfare of the people. By the
time this was over it was time for lunch, which was my first real meal
of the day, and generally consisted of a dish of mutton—and the native
mutton is some of the best in the world. This was sometimes varied by
European tinned provisions, of which I always kept a fairly good stock
at my headquarters. The afternoon was spent in overseeing the work of
the men in my shamba, attending to the repair or rebuilding of any of
the huts that were in need of attention, or carrying out improvements in
the camp—unless any of the chiefs had come in to see me, in which case
the afternoon would be given up to interviewing them. Dinner was served
about seven o’clock, in European style, as I had been fortunate enough
to get a really good Swahili cook, who could turn out a most appetising
meal at very short notice. Of course, I had to dine in solitary state,
being the only white man in the country, and about eight or nine o’clock
I would turn in for the night. This, of course, was the day’s programme
at headquarters, though when out on safari I made a point of following
the same routine, as far as the circumstances allowed. One day in each
week I had a big dance at my place; and this day was practically a
holiday, the dance taking precedence of all ordinary work.
The daily life of a chief in times of peace does not present much
variety, and the following account of a day out of the life of my friend
Karuri is a fair sample. He was not quite such an early riser as myself,
usually putting in an appearance to count his cattle and other stock
when they were let out to graze, which, owing to the fogs and damp
generally prevailing at that elevation in the early morning, was not
generally done until about eight o’clock. There was no regular morning
meal among these people, who were in the habit of indulging in a sweet
potato or a few bananas whenever they felt hungry. Having finished
counting his stock, the greater part of the day would be spent in
settling disputes and hearing minor cases, which, owing to the native
love of argument, were often of interminable length. The old gentleman
took no interest in the working of his shambas, which he left entirely
to his wives, of whom he had some sixty or more. As the hearing of the
cases was accompanied by much drinking of njohi, both judge and
litigants were apt to be in a somewhat foggy condition by the time the
Court adjourned for the day, which did not generally take place until
the time for the evening meal, which, as I have mentioned, is really the
only regular meal of the day for Kikuyu. Sometimes the cases were not
even closed then, but as soon as darkness came on judge and litigants
would adjourn to a hut, and continue the discussion over the sweet
potatoes, until it was time for them to turn in, which they usually did
about nine o’clock.
One not infrequent interruption to the ordinary routine of Karuri’s day
was the sacrificial meal of a sheep, in honour of their god, Ngai, which
took place sometimes as often as twice or thrice a week. Whether the old
chief’s fondness for roast mutton had anything to do with the frequency
of his offerings I cannot say, but he certainly never seemed to neglect
any opportunity which served as an excuse for one of these meals. As I
was present on some of the occasions, it may be worth while to give some
description of the ceremony, for which no extra preparations were made
on my account, as is sometimes the case when white men are to be present
at any of their functions.
At the time appointed, Karuri, accompanied by any others who were to
take part in the ceremony, went out into one of the “sacred groves” in
the bush, taking with them a sheep, which, on arrival at the spot where
the sacrifice was to take place, was killed by strangling, its throat
being cut directly it was dead, and the blood caught in a calabash, and
put on one side. A sort of wooden gridiron was then made, by planting
four upright sticks in the ground and laying others across them, under
which a fire was lighted, and the sheep, having by this time been cut
up, was roasted on this. While the cooking was going on, the blood,
which had been put on one side, was put into the stomach, thus making a
sort of black-pudding, which was then roasted, and eaten after the meat.
The meat was eaten in the Abyssinian fashion, each man taking up the
joint, and biting hold of as much as he could get into his mouth, the
mouthful then being severed from the joint with his sword, and the joint
passed on to his neighbour, who did the same. I managed to introduce one
or two slight modifications into the manufacture of the black-puddings,
by getting them to cut up some of the fat, and mix it with the blood,
and boil the ingredients, instead of baking them. No women or children
were ever allowed to be present on any occasion when the men were eating
meat, as, like the Masai, the Kikuyu do not allow their women to touch
meat, and therefore, to keep them out of temptation, never allow them to
see the men eat it.
How much religious significance this ceremony had I should not like to
say: the fact that it was always held in one of the sacred groves would
seem to imply that it had some connexion with their religion, but, as
there was no further ceremony than I have described, I always had a
lurking suspicion that it was simply an excuse for a good meal of roast
mutton, and that the groves were chosen for the meeting-place as being
more likely to be secure from interruption from the women and children.
While on the subject of sheep-eating, it may be worth while to mention
another of their peculiar superstitious practices, much encouraged by
the medicine men, which was known by the somewhat unpleasant name of
“vomiting sin.” When a man was sick, and went to the witch doctor to be
cured of his illness, he was very often told that his illness was due to
the anger of God at some sin he had committed, and that, if he wished to
recover, the only thing to do was for him to go through an extremely
unpleasant ceremony, which I will describe. If he agreed to do so—and I
do not think that the man who refused would enjoy much good health
afterwards—he brought a sheep to the witch doctor, who, having killed
it, wound portions of the entrails round the patient’s neck, wrists, and
ankles. Then, taking out the dung, he emptied it into a calabash, and
mixed it with water, until it was quite liquid. Taking his place
opposite the patient, who squatted on the floor with his mouth open, the
witch doctor took a couple of small bundles of twigs with the leaves on,
and commenced beating the mixture in the bowl with them, and splashing
it into the patient’s mouth until he was violently sick, when the sin
was supposed to be got rid of, and the patient would go away expecting
to be quite well in a short time.
On my asking one of these old frauds what became of the sheep, he
explained that he would eat it himself, as if any one else ventured to
touch the meat, he would die at once. When I said that I should have no
objection to eating a leg, and was certain that no ill consequence would
follow, he replied: “Of course you could eat it quite safely. You are a
great witch doctor like myself; but if any of these savages ate it, they
would die at once!”
In the meantime, I made friends, by Pigasangi, with those natives with
whom I had tried, on my first journey through the country, to make
arrangements for that ceremony, and who said at the time, it will be
remembered, they would wait. This enabled me to open up fresh food
stations, and altogether my enterprise in that direction was progressing
very satisfactorily. The only people who now caused me any trouble were
the Kalyera, with whom I had always to be cautious when passing the
borders of their country, as they were continually on the war-path, and
I heard that they had lately extended their operations into close
proximity to the railway, where they had been giving a lot of trouble by
robbing and killing the Indians engaged on its construction.
Living, as I did, in close touch with the everyday life of the natives,
I became well acquainted with their manners and habits of living, and I
also managed to learn a good deal of their genealogy. I found that the
Kikuyu tribe was divided into a number of clans, or _mahirriga_, each of
which bore a distinctive heraldic sign on their shields. The origin of
these clans was wrapped in mystery, none of the natives with whom I
discussed the question being able to tell me how they originally came
into existence, or what was their real purpose. The word “clan,” as we
understand it, suggests unity and combination, but this certainly was
not the interpretation of the term accepted by the members of these
Kikuyu clans, the members of which were mixed up indiscriminately, and
scattered all over the country. They all knew to which of the clans they
belonged, and there the connexion seemed to end, so far as I could
gather. The only similar instance of such “clans” that I can call to
mind is the “clan” system which formerly existed among the Red Indians
of North America, where men of different, and often hostile, tribes
might belong to the same “clan,” the clans being known by the names of
various animals, such as bear, wolf, fox, &c.
All the Kikuyu worship a god called Ngai, and I was given to understand
that they had also another god, whom they called Ngoma, though this
latter appeared to correspond more to our idea of the devil; for
example, when a native went into a fit of hysterics at one of their
war-dances, as I have previously stated was frequently the case, they
said that it was Ngoma who had entered into him and caused it.
I noticed, in various parts of the country, quite a number of large
trees which had been left standing alone, and which I took to have been
left as landmarks when the ground had been cleared for cultivation. They
were usually to be found on the top of a hill, and stood out prominently
in the landscape. I found on inquiry, however, that these trees were
looked upon as sacred, and had some religious or superstitious
significance. The natives had many other curious beliefs and practices,
and had many ways of seeking the favour of their god Ngai. Some of the
chiefs, when things did not go right, were in the habit of killing a
sheep, which they then took into the bush, and left there as a sacrifice
to Ngai; and when a sheep had been sacrificed in this way, none of the
natives would go near it, for fear of offending the god. When I remarked
that Ngai did not eat, and therefore did not require food, they replied,
“Oh, yes, in the morning everything is gone.” I took the trouble to find
out what became of the sheep, and, as I expected, saw that the hyenas
came during the night and ate it; and, to prove this, I shot a hyena one
night while in the act of devouring the sacrificial sheep. But when I
told them that this was the Ngai for whose benefit they were making
these sacrifices, it did not alter their belief. Some of them told me
that Ngai lived on the top of Mount Kenia; but others said that his
habitation was on a mountain in the Kedong Valley, not far from Lake
Naivasha. This mountain, on the summit of which is the crater of an
extinct volcano, called Longanot, is known by the name of Kilemongai,
which means “the mountain of God”; and it was said by the natives that
any one going up this mountain would never come down again, as they were
bound to die up there. This piece of superstition probably originated
when the mountain was active, and there was every probability that any
one going up would have but a poor chance of getting down alive.
When going down to Naivasha I had on various occasions noticed that the
natives when they crossed certain streams used to leave a little food at
a particular place, generally a few sweet potatoes broken up—sometimes
it was left in the bush; and when I asked why they had done that, they
gave me to understand that they were performing some religious rite, but
I never managed to get any satisfactory explanation of it.
Still more curious, to my mind, were some huge heaps of stones to be
seen at certain places as we passed along the caravan track. When we
came within sight of one of these heaps a native would pick up a stone,
or he had, perhaps, been carrying one for some time in anticipation of
coming to the spot, and cast it on the heap, at the same time muttering
some prayer to Ngai, as it was on these occasions that he would ask Ngai
for anything that he was in need of. It struck me as very remarkable
that in my later travels in Abyssinia I should come across the same kind
of heaps of stones, while some of my Abyssinian followers went through a
similar performance of adding to the heap. When I questioned an
Abyssinian as to the meaning of the performance, he would reply by
pointing in the direction of a church, which stood on the top of a hill
away in the distance, and tell me that, not being able to go to the
church to make his devotions, he threw a stone on the heap as a
substitute for the performance of his religious duty; and I noticed that
while putting the stone on the heap he would bow towards the church. The
Abyssinians are, of course, members of a branch of the Coptic Church,
and it struck me as possible that the idea had in some way travelled
from them to the Kikuyu, who copied it, not knowing precisely what it
meant, but understanding that it was some form of worship of Ngai.
I have already mentioned that the practice of spitting plays a large
part in many of the Kikuyu customs, and I also found that the same thing
prevailed among the people in the district up towards Lake Rudolph, and
in fact it was the custom with the majority of the people up towards the
north, as I found when I came in contact with them in my later travels.
It might seem to Europeans a vulgar thing to enlarge upon, but it was by
no means regarded in the same light by the inhabitants of East Africa,
amongst whom it was regarded as the highest compliment you could pay a
man if you spat on him, or, better still, on his children. On my first
introduction to the big savage chief Wagombi, he asked me to spit on his
children; and among both the Masai and Kikuyu a friendly introduction
was not complete unless spitting had entered into it. They very seldom
speak of their children without spitting, and I concluded that the
practice denoted respect.
The Kikuyu had a great variety of dances; some were for men only and
some for women only, while there were some in which it was the custom
for both sexes to take part. There was also one particular dance, which
was danced by all the young boys before they were circumcised, in which
all who took part were painted white from head to foot, while each wore
a kind of toy shield on the left arm and carried, in place of the usual
spear of the warriors, a white wand, decorated with white goat’s hair.
This band of whitewashed young savages went from village to village
performing their dance, which they did very well, keeping remarkably
good time, and as the postures were gone through each time in exactly
the same way and in precisely the same order, it was evident that they
had some recognized rule and method in their dancing.
[Illustration: RIVER SCENERY]
Although the Kikuyu are fearless fighters when their blood is up and
will slay their enemies without the slightest compunction, they have a
most extraordinary fear of the dead, and would not on any account touch
a corpse, for which reason they never bury their dead. I have known a
few instances of particularly wealthy or important natives being
accorded the honour of burial, but, as a rule, when a native dies, if he
happens to be in his hut, the body is left there, and no one ever enters
the hut again. If a poor man, or a man of no particular standing,
happens to fall sick, and they think he is likely to die, he is carried
into the bush at some distance from the village, a fire is lighted, and
a pile of wood placed handy so that he can replenish it, and he is then
left to die.
The Kikuyu, like nearly all other African tribes, are polygamous, and
the general rule seems to be that any ordinary individual may have three
or four wives, though, as marriage is simply a question of paying so
much for the woman, the number is apt to vary with the man’s wealth,
some of the bigger chiefs having as many as twenty or thirty. They do
not, of course, regard women in the same way that we do, but look upon
them more in the light of slaves, the value of a wife being reckoned at
about thirty sheep. The women have to do all the work of the family and
house, the man himself doing practically nothing. They build the huts,
cultivate the shambas, and do all the field work, though at certain
times of the year when new ground has to be cleared for cultivation the
men condescend to take a share in the work. Each wife has her own
separate hut, where she lives with her family, and, if her husband is a
big chief, he may have a hut for his own individual use, but, as a rule,
he resides with his different wives alternately. They have very large
families, and the children begin to take their share of the work at a
very early age—the little girl of three years of age relieving her
mother of the care of the baby of one year, and, as they grow older,
their share in the work increases in proportion. The very young boys
have their share in the work too, and may be seen at a very early age
tending the herds of cattle, sheep, and goats. This practice, prevalent
almost throughout Africa, of making the woman support the family, while
the man does little but loaf or fight, is at the root of the often
openly expressed desire of the (so-called) Christian natives that the
Church should allow polygamy among her African converts—a desire which
has been quite as strongly expressed by the “civilized” and educated
natives on the West Coast as among the more primitive tribes of the East
and the interior.
On the whole, the people seemed to lead a very happy and contented life.
They are almost vegetarians in their manner of living, their staple food
being sweet potatoes, although they include a variety of other articles
in their diet, such as yams (which they call _kigwa_), matama, beans,
Indian corn (or maize), and a smaller grain called _mawhali_, besides
bananas, sugar-cane, &c. They also have a very small grain like
canary-seed, called _umkanori_, which they grind into flour by means of
a hand-mill, composed of two stones—a large one at the bottom, on which
they place the grain, and a smaller one on top, with which they grind
it, after the fashion of the mills described in the Bible as being in
use in the East thousands of years ago. With the flour made from the
umkanori-seed they make a kind of porridge, which I found very
palatable. The natives call it _ujuru_, and it combines the properties
of both food and drink, being left to ferment until it somewhat
resembles _tywala_, or Kafir beer, and is very nourishing. When the
natives are going on a journey which takes them any distance from their
homes, or out to work in the fields, they take a calabash of ujuru with
them, a smaller calabash, cut in half, being used as a cup, into which
the liquid is poured for drinking.
The Kikuyu appeared to have no regular hour for eating, except in the
evening, when the day’s work is over. Then everybody, men, women, and
children, could be seen sitting round a huge calabash, cut in half to
form a kind of basin, all helping themselves from the contents of the
vessel, which would, perhaps, consist of sweet potatoes, or Indian corn,
or perhaps bananas, roasted. In connexion with this custom of the
evening meal, I may here make mention of the open-handed hospitality
which is the rule rather than the exception among all the native races
of Africa; in fact, I make bold to say that any man who is willing to
work at all cannot possibly be stranded in Africa, unless, it may be, in
one of the larger towns. I have often noticed a native come into a
village at the time of the evening meal, walk up to the circle, and sit
down and help himself to sweet potatoes or whatever there might be; and
on my remarking to the headman on the number of his grown-up sons I have
been told, “Oh, that is not one of my sons; he is a stranger.” When I
asked where he came from, I was told that they did not know; they had
not asked him even his name, and knew nothing whatever about him. He
would settle himself by the fire for the night, and go on his way the
next morning without his host being any the wiser as to his name or
where he came from.
This is only one of the points in which the ignorant heathen so often
set an example worthy of imitation by some of the so-called civilized
Christians.
They grow a calabash which serves them for almost every household
purpose, such as storing liquid, carrying water, or as a drinking
vessel. For carrying grain or other purposes of that kind they make a
bag from the fibre which they obtain from certain trees, and which
varies in size according to the purpose for which it is required; while
for cooking or for storing large quantities of water they use
earthenware pots, which are made in certain districts of the Kikuyu
country in practically the same way as pottery was made in the early
days in our own country, being fashioned out of a particular kind of
clay and then burnt to harden them. The method of cooking is very much
the same throughout Africa, a small fire being made within a triangle,
composed of three large stones. An old camp may always be recognized by
these three stones, which show where the fire was made for cooking,
although all other traces of the camp may have disappeared under a
luxuriant growth of grass, several feet high.
The Kikuyu make all their own weapons—spears, swords, and arrows—from
the iron which is found in various parts of the country, and which they
smelt in the old-fashioned way. I found that the style of bellows used
by them was the same as those I had seen in other parts of Africa, being
made out of a sheepskin, fashioned to a pointed bag, which, when opened,
admitted the air and expelled it again when pressed down. Two sets of
bellows were worked together, one with each hand. The native blacksmith
uses a large stone as an anvil, and possesses a variety of hammers, some
of them being simply ordinary pieces of stone, while others are in the
form of a dumb-bell, which he grasps in the middle when striking with
it. Singularly enough, the tongs which he uses to hold the heated iron
are practically the same as those used by the English blacksmith. As the
smith is, of course, paid for his labour in kind, he charges one sheep
for a spear, while a sword may be had for the same price. I found that a
lot of the iron-wire which I brought into the country was worked up into
swords and spears, possibly because it entailed less labour than the
working up of the native iron. In addition to the fighting weapons, they
made iron rings and chains, which were worn as ornaments.
Speaking of ornaments, one very characteristic feature of Kikuyu
adornment is the enormous size of their ear appendages—they cannot be
called earrings. When the children are quite young a hole is made in the
lobe of the ear, similar to the fashion in Europe of piercing the lobe
for earrings. But they are not content with the comparatively small
ornaments that satisfy the vanity of European women: their ambition is
to have the ear ornament as large as they can possibly manage; so the
hole in the lobe of the ear is distended by means of a series of wooden
pegs, gradually increasing in size until it is large enough to allow of
the insertion of a jam-jar or condensed milk tin, which are by no means
unusual ornaments for a native to be seen wearing in the ear. And very
proud they are as they go about wearing these extraordinary adornments,
which one would think must be decidedly uncomfortable for the wearers;
they certainly appear so to European eyes, but the natives do not seem
to consider them so, and are quite satisfied with the effect.
I do not think that I have mentioned that the Kikuyu cultivate a large
amount of tobacco from which to make snuff, for, although they do not
smoke, all the men take snuff. Many of the other tribes grow tobacco,
but not to such an extent as the Kikuyu, who know better how to cure it
than any of their neighbours; in fact, the Kikuyu tobacco has such a
reputation in the country that to my surprise I found that the natives
about Lake Rudolph, and even right round as far as Abyssinia, were
inquiring for Kikuyu tobacco.
The most striking incidents of my life at this time while I was living
among the Kikuyu were occurrences which took place on some of the
journeys down to Naivasha with the caravans taking in food. On two
occasions while marching down I had people killed by elephants, which
were fairly numerous in the bamboo forest at certain times of the year.
With a safari of a thousand men the long line of porters extended for
about five or six miles, winding through the forest like a huge serpent
and tailing away into the distance; and occasionally, when an elephant
crossed the path, one of the stragglers in the rear would find himself
suddenly encircled round the body by an elephant’s trunk and hurled
several feet in the air, to be trampled to death under the ponderous
brute’s feet when his body crashed to the ground again. The porters
nearest to him would then set up a shout, which was repeated all along
the line until it reached me, when I would immediately rush back as
quickly as possible, only to find, when I at length reached the spot,
that the elephant had been lost in the forest long before I got there,
the bamboos growing so thickly that it could not be seen for any great
distance. Incidents of this sort happened on two occasions on the road
to Naivasha.
The forest was full of animal life, including a fair number of bushbuck
and some specimens of a very rare kind of buck known as the bongo. The
bongo has horns like those of the bushbuck, but very much larger,
curving backwards with one or two spiral twists, and ending in a point
tipped with white. The hide is reddish in colour, with very narrow white
stripes. There are a few of the species to be found at the Ravine. Among
the other inhabitants of the forest I have seen wart hogs and wild pigs,
while the colobus monkey makes his home in the bamboo forest, and is
regarded as sacred by the natives, who, as far as I could understand,
were in the habit of placing sacrifices in the forest, which these
monkeys came and ate. The skin of the colobus monkey is greatly prized,
the hair being very long, while the upper part of the body is jet black,
with a white stripe down each side, widening towards the tail, which is
also white, the result of the peculiar arrangement of the two colours
being to give the animal a very curious appearance. Guinea-fowl were
very plentiful, and I also saw some partridges, but was never tempted to
shoot any. At times we had great difficulty in getting through the
forest, in consequence of the elephants having pulled down a number of
the bamboos and thus blocked the path, and we frequently had to make a
new path before we could proceed on our journey.
I had some personal experiences with animals in the forest, which added
a little excitement to the journeys. On one occasion as we were going
along some of the boys pointed into the bush, saying, “Yama,” which is
the Swahili word for meat, and is applied indiscriminately to any
animal. It was getting dusk, and, peering into the bush, I could see
something dark moving, but not being able in the half-darkness to see
what it was, I thought that the best thing to do was to try the effect
of a bullet on it. I had no sooner fired than the animal charged out on
me, and I saw that it was a huge rhinoceros. Having only soft-nosed
bullets, my shot had not injured it, and as it was only about ten paces
from where I was standing I had only just time to spring out of the way
before it blundered past me. Immediately every man dropped his load and
sprang up the nearest tree, while the rhino, after passing me, slowed
down and began sniffing about among the loads which the porters had
thrown to the ground in their hurry to get to places of safety. Although
I knew that unless I could hit him in a vulnerable spot it was no use
firing, I gave him a few shots at random, which had the effect of
driving him off.
One night we had a peculiar experience with a lion. With such a number
of porters it was impossible to provide tents for all the men, so we
used to bivouac at nights either on the edge of the forest or in some
deep ravine where we were sheltered from the wind. On the particular
evening of which I am writing we were settled for the night in a ravine,
and I was suddenly aroused from my sleep by shouting, howling, and the
waving of firebrands, while at the same moment a huge boulder came
crashing through my tent. Thinking that it was at least an attack by the
Kalyera or Masai or some of the other natives, I rushed out of my tent
to find that what had really happened was that a lion had come prowling
round the camp, and was in the act of springing on some man sleeping
below when he dislodged a boulder from the overhanging ledge on which he
was crouching for the spring, which had dropped on my tent. The noise
made by the porters and the stone slipping from under its feet must have
scared the animal, as he made off just as I came out. There were quite a
number of lions on the Kinangop Plain and near Naivasha, so we always
made big fires at night to guard the camp, and never had the bad luck to
have any one taken. One day a Masai reported that a lion had been into
the kraal and had killed thirty sheep, every one of which had been
killed by a tap of his paw, but none of them had been eaten.
I was told of a remarkable occurrence which had taken place at Naivasha.
One of the officials there had a white horse, and one night a prowling
lion sprang on its back. Hearing the noise, one of the soldiers fired,
and, although it was too dark to take an accurate aim, he was fortunate
enough to hit the lion, which dropped off the horse’s back dead, while
the horse was none the worse, save for a few scratches from the lion’s
claws. Of course, it was purely a chance shot, as it was much too dark
for the man to see clearly, and that was probably how he came to kill
the lion—niggers being, as a rule, atrocious shots with a rifle.
When going into Naivasha, the country around there being considered
practically safe, I often used to gallop on ahead of the caravan on my
mule, taking only a couple of boys with me, to let them know that the
safari was coming and to make arrangements for it on arrival. On one of
these occasions, when crossing the Kinangop Plain, I had a rather lively
experience with a leopard. After being cooped up in the hills for so
long it was a pleasure to get a good gallop over the open plain, and I
was riding along, thoroughly enjoying the exercise, when, chancing to
look round to see how far my gun-bearer was behind, I saw a leopard
following me at a distance of about thirty yards. I at once pulled up,
when the leopard immediately followed my example, and, after looking at
one another for a minute or two, the animal began walking slowly up and
down, swishing its tail about, and looking for all the world like a big
cat, but it did not offer to approach any nearer. This went on for some
time, until I at last saw the boy come into sight, carrying my gun; but
directly he saw the leopard, which was between us, he was afraid to come
any farther, and though I waved my hand to him to make his way round to
me, he would not move. The leopard still continued to march up and down,
until presently it saw the boy and appeared to hesitate, as if wondering
which of us to attack, though my mule had evidently been the first
attraction. The animal seemed to be puzzled at seeing me on its back,
and apparently did not quite know what to make of it. Seeing that the
boy was too scared to come to me, I made a detour—the leopard still
following me at about the same distance—and as soon as I reached the boy
I dismounted quickly, and, taking my gun from him, fired at the animal,
and evidently hit him, for he gave a bound and cleared off. Whilst he
was making off as fast as he could go I managed to get two more shots
in, and followed him until he disappeared into some bushes. Knowing that
one does not stand a chance with a wounded leopard in a bush, I
hesitated to follow, but I did not like to leave it; so I tried, by
throwing stones and in other ways, to find out whether it was still
alive and likely to be dangerous or whether I had actually finished it.
Hearing no movement, I plucked up courage, after some manœuvring, to
go into the bush. Moving as stealthily as I could, not knowing whether
the animal might not spring out on me at any moment, I worked my way
cautiously in, but I had not gone many yards before I found it lying
stone dead.
A wounded leopard is one of the most dangerous animals in the world to
tackle, and two of my friends were lamed for life as a result of
following up leopards which they had only wounded. One was a man named
Hall, and the other a hunter named Vincent. The latter had wounded a
leopard, and was following it into the bush when the animal sprang at
him suddenly and tried to seize him by the throat, and a hand-to-hand
fight ensued. Vincent managed to throw the animal off and fired at it,
but it flew at him again, and the struggle went on until he had emptied
his magazine into the brute’s body, having fired ten rounds into it. The
leopard had managed in the struggle to fasten its teeth in his knee and
to bite him very severely. As the result blood poisoning set in, and
Vincent was laid up for several months and was lamed for life.