Bantu Beliefs and Magic: With Particular Reference to the Kikuyu and Kamba Tribes of Kenya Colony; Together with Some Reflections on East Africa After the WarH. F. & G. Witherby, 1922 - 312 pages |
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Common terms and phrases
A-Kamba Africa aiimu ancestral spirits animal athamaki athuri ya ukuu become thahu beer believed belonging blood bracelet bullock bush called candidate cattle ceremony child circumcised clan cohabits cooking council crops curse custom dance death deceased Dorobo eaten Eithaga Engai European evil father fire girl goat gourd grade guild half gourd hand head husband hyæna ithembo itwika J. G. Frazer Kamba Kamiri kiama Kibwezi Kikuyu fashion kirume kithito Kitui lustration Machakos district magic makwa male goat Masai fashion mbugu meat medicine mother mugumu mundu mugo Mwangi Mweithaga native ngoma owner person piece pigeon pea poured pray probably purified remove rika round rukwaru sacred fig sacred fig tree sacred tree sacrifice Semitic senior elder sheep skin slaughtered smeared smith snake spit stomach stones sugar cane Swahili tatha thabu tribe twins ukuru village wife woman women wrist
Popular passages
Page 67 - ... myrrh five hundred shekels, and of sweet cinnamon half so much, even two hundred and fifty shekels, and of sweet calamus two hundred and fifty shekels.
Page 67 - And he shall live, and to him shall be given of the gold of Sheba : prayer also shall be made for him continually ; and daily shall he be praised. 16 There shall be a handful of corn in the earth upon the top of the mountains ; the fruit thereof shall shake like Lebanon : and they of the city shall flourish like grass of the earth.
Page 190 - And when the barbarians saw the venomous beast hang on his hand, they said among themselves, No doubt this man is a murderer, whom, though he hath escaped the sea, yet vengeance suffereth not to live.
Page 142 - He shall lend to thee, and thou shalt not lend to him; he shall be the head, and thou shalt be the tail. 45. Moreover, all these curses shall come upon thee, and shall pursue thee, and overtake thee, till thou be destroyed ; because thou hearkenedst not unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to keep his commandments and his statutes which he commanded thee. 46. And they shall be upon thee for a sign, and for a wonder, and upon thy seed for ever.
Page 73 - The first of the firstfruits of thy land thou shalt bring into the house of the LORD thy God.
Page 103 - Thahu, sometimes called nzahu, is the word used for a condition into which a person is believed to fall if he or she accidentally becomes the victim of certain circumstances or intentionally performs certain acts which carry with them a kind of ill luck or curse.
Page 141 - Therefore every one that eateth it shall bear his iniquity, because he hath profaned the hallowed thing of the LORD : and that soul shall be cut off from among his people.
Page 115 - ... come and sacrifice a sheep. If the side-pole of a bedstead breaks, the person lying on it is thahu and must be purified. If the droppings of a kite or crow fall on a person he is thahu, and if a hyaena defaecates in a village, or a jackal barks therein, the village and its inhabitants are thahu. I have purposely chosen from our society two examples of ritual avoidances which are of very different kinds.
Page 118 - In such a case the thahu (result of the violation of the taboo) is removable. The elders take a sheep and place it on the woman's shoulders, and it is then killed, the intestines are taken out, and the elders solemnly sever them with a sharp splinter of wood ... and they announce that they are cutting the clan, by...
Page 43 - And thou shalt cut the ram in pieces, and wash the inwards of him, and his legs, and put them unto his pieces, and unto his head.