or healer engages for the cleansing process. Some purification ceremonies
involved the sacrifice of different animals like a bull or goat in order to provide
offerings to the spirits (2.0.2). The purification process also utilizes different
symbols (2.0.1) like n’gondu medicines and mtaa to represent healing and
cleansing.7 Also represented by this object are artifacts like the musical bow,
singing, dancing, and drumming used to move the afflicted through purification
states.8 The application of the different symbols and artifacts are dependent on
the purification specialist∕healer who has been trusted by the community to have
divine knowledge and contact in order to know what to use.
There are several purification phase relationships that may exist during
cleansing and healing ceremonies. These phases are represented as separation,
Iiminal1 and restoration (objects 2.1, 2.2, and 2.3, respectively).9 These phases
move the individual and/or community through various states from being isolated
so that the negativity∕illness can be understood and removed, to a rebuilding,
7 These specific applications will be described in more detail under the pre-colonial purification process.
8 The drumming, chanting, and dancing were all associated with the purification process. Wendo Wa
Kavete. Kibwezi District. “Purification Ritual Performance”. December 2008. Video tape recording and
notes. Also the musical bow was used to invoke the spirits; it was a medium to connect to the supernatural.
A.N.M. Matingo. Machakos District. “Mau Mau PurificationZCleansing Performance". December 2008.
Video tape recording and notes.
9 This language has been used following the theoretical models of Victor Turner, The Ritual Process and
The Forest of Symbols and Jean Comaroff, study of the Tshidi in South Africa in Body of Power, Spirit of
Resistance which provide a framework for understanding the key phases and structures of various African
ceremonies. For example, according to Turner there are three phases in ceremonies: (1) Separation; (2)
Liminal; and (3) Aggregation, but in the above model aggregation is replaced with Restoration. The
separation, liminal, and aggregation steps identified by Turner were also noted in a 1960 study, The Rites of
Passage, by Arnold van Gennep, but he classified the phases as separation, transition, and incorporation.
For more background see Comaroff, Body of Power, Spirit of Resistance, The Culture and History of a
South African People (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985), 207, and Turner, The Ritual Process:
Structure and Anti-structure. (Walter De Gruyter Inc., 1969). The Turner and Comaroff theories
complement each other because they focus on different levels of the ritual experience. See Purification
model, objects 2.1-2.3, compared to objects 2.1.1-2.3.1 for an example of the levels.
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