The name is absent

of purification was a natural, embedded, and significant aspect of pre-colonial
Kenyan life.

Offenses

In Pre-colonial Kenya, purification ceremonies were also required in the
case of murder, manslaughter, or accidental death. Elders of the affected clans
settled murder through payment of a “blood price” for the deceased person and
any other deaths that may have been linked to the initial murder. The purification
ceremony was designed to neutralize negativity that resulted in the offense. The
process also was aimed to stop all omens, bad spirits, illnesses associated with
the offense while also redeeming the offender and the offender’s family. The
purification of offenses was a process that allowed for the neutralizing of these
ills. These pre-colonial ceremonies normally involved the sacrificial offering of a
goat or bull and the n’gondu.⁵⁷

In addition, certain types of disorderly behavior required purification.
Adultery and forbidden relationships required compensation and cleansing. In
the case of adultery, the elders and the Utui elders gathered to hear the
circumstances. The man committing adultery paid a bull, and a goat was offered
at the home of the husband.⁵⁸ If there was a pregnancy from the encounter, the
husband claimed the children. Likewise, forbidden relationships with family and
minors resulted in payment of a goat and bull. In all of these cases, order was
restored by purification and compensation.

⁵⁷ Lindblom, The Akamba, 295.

⁵⁸ Dundas, Native Laws of Some Bantu Tribes, 248. Also see Penwill, Customary Law, 73.

208

<<   216   217   218   219   220   221   222   >>

More intriguing information