The name is absent



environment. Finally, the changes show that key cultural values deeply rooted in
a society will find a new modern path to exist.

Brelsford summarized the purification changes as a phenomenon where:

“...old customs die out or are forbidden by English administration, but the old
beliefs persist, and a new set of customs cluster around them, customs
whose outlines are moulded [molded] by the presence of European
civilization.”42

He points out the continuity of cultural beliefs even though the specific processes
are suppressed. In other words, these beliefs were still embedded into the
people as important concerns. European civilization could not erase the inner
beliefs; they resurfaced in new ways when appropriate.

Purification Continuity

Purification is an old process that is still embedded into many African
societies. Purification and cleansing knowledge is still being used to stabilize
many of the modern environmental challenges such as poor rainfall, drought,
disease, famine, and poverty as discovered during field work in Talla in the
Kangundo district in Kenya.43 The field work took place during a very harsh
period in Kenya, the 2008-2009 droughts. The request to perform a purification
reenactment became an opportunity for an actual ceremony to address the
drought problems. The ceremony consisted of Iibations (beer drinking) and
prayers to the ancestors and was followed by singing, drumming, dancing, and

42 Brelsford, “A Bambwela Purification Rite,” 52.

43Talla. KangundoDistrict. “Purification and Rainmaking Ceremony.” December 2008. Video tape
recording and notes. The ceremony consisted of an actual rainmaking ceremony responding to the drought
in 2008; the ceremony continued on till late in the evening.

204



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