Thread by @HistoryKE

#HistoryKeThread: Wakamba Nation, Rites, Origins of Names

Several times previously, we have referred to names of towns or neighbourhoods e.g. Kajiado, Ruaraka, Msongari and even the country we call Kenya, that were coined from indigenous names that Europeans couldn’t pronounce.

Machakos, too, is such. It was a British mispronunciation of the name “Masaku wa Musya.“

Masaku, was what the Kamba referred to as a mûthani or seer. He was famous for his ability to predict rainfall. He lived near the site of what became the earliest major British administrative center in upcountry Kenya: Fort Machakos.

Masaku lived around the same time as another mûthani, Syokimau, who has also been referred to by some historians as a prophetess.

Although they lived roughly 250 miles apart, Syokimau and the Orkoiyot of the Nandi both had, in the late 19th century, eerily similar visions of the coming of Europeans to our shores.

The latter had a vision of white people arriving in Nandi territory in an iron snake that emitted smoke. Syokimau on the other hand, warned that people “with skins like raw meat" would arrive in Ukambani...

...using “a long narrow snake that would move from the coast towards the setting sun.“ She also said that the visitors would bear “fire in their hands”.

Early visitors to Kenya discovered two things about the Kamba: they were long distance travelers (and traders) and, secondly, that theirs was a culture that was steeped in witchcraft and sorcery.

In a previous post, we observed that Chief Kivoi was a regular traveler to Mombasa, and was often singled out as one individual who Europeans and Arabs could rely on as a “tour guide” to the East African hinterland.

In fact, Ludwig Krapf (pictured) was introduced at present day Kwa Jomvu in Mombasa to Kivoi, who eventually led the pioneer German missionary past Ukambani and into central Kenya in the 1840s.

At Kwa Jomvu, traders from the interior, mostly members of the Kamba community, used to meet with Arabs and Europeans for trade. Items of trade included cloth, mirrors, ivory, spices, beads and cowrie shells.

Some historians also hold that as interior guides, Kambas assisted Arabs in the East African slave trade.

Thus the Kamba were arguably the first community from the interior of Kenya to be exposed to globalization, so-to-speak.

It is therefore not surprising that the Kamba provided large numbers of porters to early European visitors. Besides, members of the community were more knowledgeable in the geography of the interior than were, say, Miji Kenda.

In his book, “Man: Past and Present”, Irish Roman Catholic journalist Augustus Henry Keane described the Kamba as of "lighter color, larger cranial capacity, smaller teeth, and less pronounced prognathism than the negroes”.

According to him, the Kamba were “distinctly more intelligent, more civilized, and more capable of upward development than the full-blood negro."

Many early visitors set camp at Fort Machakos and used the time to learn more about their host community. Machakos was favored by the British because it was situated in ideal country that had a hospitable, tropical climate.

The Imperial British East Africa Company (IBEAC) which was nothing but an instrument of the establishment of colonial rule in Kenya, established its first hinterland station here. Some missionaries set up their mission stations adjacent to the Fort.

One of the missionaries who spent some time at Machakos hailed from Pennsylvania, United States. He was Willis R. Hotchkiss.

In 1896, he described the location of his Machakos mission as follows:

“The Wakamba live in a mountainous country, about 325 miles from the coast, but still about the same distance eastward from Victoria Nyanza. They occupy a lofty valley, the elevation of which is about 5000 feet above the sea. The portion of this valley where the mission...

...is located is about 15 miles south of the equator. Northward go miles rises Mount Kenya, 18,000 feet high, while about the same distance to the south is Kilimanjaro, 19,000 feet high - both snow-capped the year round.

The nearest town, which consists of a fort and a few houses, is Machakos, on the line of the Uganda Railway, which is being built from Mombasa to Lake Victoria....”

The early missionaries were as shocked by some Kamba rituals as they were surprised by others.

“The only commerce or exchange known among them (Kamba)”, one of the missionaries, a Mr. Hulburt, wrote, was the “the exchange of their daughters for a certain number of goats. The men are almost universally nude, while the women...

... wear a curious apron made of skins, and sometimes worked with beads....”

Hotchkiss also made observations about Kamba rites in a memoir dated 15th January 1899.

“.....while they believe in a God, most of their religious exercises are devoted to the propitiation of evil spirits. They make offerings of goats, and, at certain seasons, produce of their fields offered to Aimu, the chief of the evil spirits”.

The blood of the goat was poured out as a propitiation to the demon, while the flesh “furnishes a feast for the old men”.

Whilst the feast went on, he noted, the women engaged in “an indecent dance” (although he didn’t provide details of the indecency).

The dance continued until many community members went into convulsions, and had to be carried away.

What he found intriguing were rites that he found had commonalities with Semitic sacrifices described, as he noted, in the Bible’s Book of Leviticus 16.

One of the commonalities he noted was the dancing during sacrifices, which were similar to old Semitic sacrifices described in the Bible.

The propitiation “of the demon Aimu with the blood of a goat”, he wrote, reminded him of the goat with which Aaron in the Bible was propitiated during the Day of Atonement.

The Kamba believed Aimu spirits resided around sacred fig trees. Kamba families built shrines around these fig trees called ithembo, and where animal sacrifices to ancestral spirits were carried out. It was believed that the sacrifices...

... appeased ancestors, who would then ensure the wellbeing of the families.

There was also another lethal brand of witchcraft known as uoi in Kikamba. This had to do with spirits that were feared for their uncompromising nature.

Some sources have referred to these spirits as the Aimu ya Kitombo. They were feared for their ability to cast a black magic spell of death.

Overall, I’ve learnt - and could be wrong - that there were two classes of Kamba. Ordinary members of community and individuals who were revered and respected for their psychic abilities. The latter had an innate ability to interpret dreams and foretell the future.

As I wind up, did you know that after Kivoi showed Krapf the mountain Kii Nya, the missionary actually put down the name of the mountain as “KEGNIA”?

I learnt this from a report on a debate about how to name the new colony in the making (Kenya). The debate happened among members of the Royal Geographical Society.

Indeed, in the Society’s journal of January 1942, decades after Britain had colonized the country, some settlers like one R.N. Lyne wanted the country renamed Kinya.

He had support from another settler, one Major Orde Brown, who however proposed that it be spelt slightly differently - Kiinya.

Well, that debate seemed to have started earlier.

Writing from Lumbwa country to the Editor of The East African Standard (present-day The Standard) sometime in the early 1920s, a white settler, T.O. Morgan, had also proposed Kiinya.

Excerpts:

"l was very sorry to see by your paper last Saturday that the Royal Geographical Society had ruled that Kenya should be pronounced as spelt, instead of ruling that it should be spelt as pronounced by the Wakamba, from whose language we have adopted the name....

...I have addressed a protest to the Society, which I hope will not be too late to save the Public from perpetuating a meaningless word, without any reasonable derivation.

Ki Swahili: Kilima.
Kikuyu: Kili Nyaga.
Kikamba: Ki'i Nya.
English: Mountain Ostrich.

‘Kili Nyaga’ is familiar to everyone in the Kikuyu country and everyone knows it means “Mount Ostrich."

‘Kii Nya’ is likewise known to mean the same thing to everyone in Ukambani...”

<end of letter>

To all of you I say, kama nesa.

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