The rate at which some Agĩkũyũ Christians have been reverting to their cultural practices, beginning with the Kĩama kĩa Athuri (Kĩama kĩa Ma, shortened to Kĩama), has prompted several studies in order to gain an in-depth understanding of the movement, and so inform the church’s response.
There are those Agĩkũyũ Christians that dismiss the Kĩama as having no place in the modern world. They refuse to accommodate the Kĩama in Christianity because of the risk of syncretism. In their study titled The Effects of the Mt. Kenya, Diocese of Mount Kenya South: 1960-2020, S.N. Ndung’u, E. Onyango, and S. Githuku find the main contention Christian theologians hold against the Kĩama is in its initiation rituals, the “aspects of sacrifices (blood), praying facing Kirinyaga and libations”. These Christians consider Kĩama rituals repulsive and this is why they reject the movement.
Given Kĩama’s significant role in Agĩkũyũ society both in the past and in the present, is there a compelling reason to refute the claim that the rituals are merely initiation rites? Are Christians not demonstrating prejudice when they categorize Kĩama initiation rituals as religious? Might the dangers represented by the Kĩama lie not in its rituals but elsewhere?
What is going on here?
Over the last 20 years, scholars have noted a revival of Agĩkũyũ cultural groups such as Thai, Kĩama kĩa Athuri, Gwata Ndaĩ, and Mũngiki, among others, that are calling for the restoration of the Agĩkũyũ cultural practices which they jettisoned in the post-colonial era. During the 1980s, as was the case in the colonial era, President Daniel arap Moi’s government outlawed tribal groupings, targeting in particular the Agĩkũyũ groups. Police often arrested the members “in the forest carrying out the initiation [and] locked them in a cell together with the meat they were roasting”. However, there was a resurgence in the formation of ethnic groups after 2002.
Following the 2008 post-election violence, there was an unprecedented cultural awakening in the country that can be attributed to a number of factors: the increased reach of vernacular media, which became a medium for messaging ethnic sentiment; political participation through the formation of ethnically-based political parties; the drive to preserve ethnic cultural practices; and the promulgation of the Constitution of Kenya 2010. The 2010 Constitution buttressed cultural heritages in law, allowing for their open practice, hence the registration of the Kikuyu Council of Elders Association Trust (KCEAT) in 2014 and the Agĩkũyũ Council of Elders (GCE) in 2018.
The term Kĩama kĩa Athuri a Ma (Kĩama) first appeared following the 2007/8 post-election violence when its leadership brokered peace with the elders of other ethnic groups in the Rift Valley. The violence had affected the political and economic lives of the Agĩkũyũ living in the Rift Valley and Agĩkũyũ elders sought protection from further eviction. Thus did the Kĩama distinguish itself from other cultural grouping such as Gwata Ndaĩ, Mũngiki, Thai and Kenda Mũiyũru.
Of late, Kĩama kĩa Athuri has been initiating Agĩkũyũ men in droves, including church leaders, who, following the resurgence of the Kĩama, have convinced new members that the association has a vital role to play in present-day society. In the study by Ndung’u et al., 60 per cent of respondents said that, as a governing council, the Kĩama was focused on the public governance issues of the day because the “Kĩama was in charge of the religious, economic, political and social order of the Agĩkũyũ people”, 35 per cent said it provides a mentorship framework for men in the society, while the same number found in the Kĩama a uniting factor that minimizes vices among men.
According to a 2018 report by the Diocese of Mount Kenya South (DMKS), the Kĩama draws its membership from all levels of society and has established cohorts throughout the country. Most Kĩama adherents are Christians; they attend church service in the morning, partake of the Holy Communion, and in the afternoon attend Kĩama and join in its rituals and ceremonies. Several are office-holders within local churches right up to the level of the DMKS Diocesan Synod, working and relating with the bishops and archbishops of the diocese.
Even though 15 per cent of the study respondents regarded the Kĩama as irrelevant, they did acknowledge that it raised issues of genuine concern for the government, with 20 per cent of the respondents considering the Kĩama as a partner of the government and the church in the fight against “drunkenness, immorality, sanctity of life and other abuses in the society such as female circumcision”.
The Kĩama draws its membership from all levels of society and has established cohorts throughout the country.
The study also found that 60 per cent of the respondents had prior knowledge of the Kĩama initiation rites. However, younger respondents (10 per cent of respondents) learnt of the rites during initiation and the subsequent teachings. Recruits are counselled in matters of family, morality, respect, and their responsibilities, regardless of their entrance level. Being the heads of their families, they are expected to live exemplary lives based on the members’ code of conduct. Guided by the Kikuyu Council of Elders, they discuss the ethnic and political challenges facing the Agĩkũyũ society. At the end of the initiation ceremony, a designated person leads the men in prayers facing Mount Kenya where they lift up their hands and invoke God saying, Thai thathaiya Ngai thai.
The study acknowledges that “Agĩkũyũ are divided on the relevance and importance of Kĩama in modern society”, and there are many Christian Agĩkũyũ today living in modernity and within the church who consider it to be irrelevant.
However, according to the study, Kĩama adherents have transformed its operations. They have “stopped advocatory for rites such of 2nd birth, circumcision, dances and elaborate ceremonies … but they keep praying facing Kirinyaga”. They do not advocate for female circumcision or the obscene and sexually-oriented dances during the circumcision rites of boys, and nor do they advocate for Gũthinga (warriorship), having modernised aspects of this tradition by exchanging the spear and the shield for the book and pen that are given to initiates, since the battlefield has changed. Instead of the elaborate ceremonies and dances that previously marked their new status, initiates receive certificates upon graduation. But while mũratina has been replaced with water and soda, meat must be roasted.
The origins of Kĩama
The Kĩama kĩa Athuri was the highest authority among the Agĩkũyũ, vested with legislative, executive, and judicial functions. They were the custodians of Agĩkũyũ ancestral land, governance, military, customs, and religious matters.
According to oral tradition, the Agĩkũyũ had been a matriarchal society where the ruling women oppressed their menfolk. The riika rĩa Iregi (the Iregi age group who were circumcised when the conflict to overturn matriarchy was at its height—Iregi means protester, dissenter) retreated to the forest to plot their freedom from tyranny. Their secret meetings bore the Kĩama. Since their meetings were long and they needed to eat, the men made it a habit to bring a goat, Mbũri ya kĩama, to be eaten during the Kĩama (meeting).
Legend credits the Iregi with executing the violent overthrow of the matriarchal regime. They impregnated their wives at the same time and engaged them in physical fights a month before the women were to deliver, when they were at their most vulnerable, and thus a patriarchy was established.
The new order required that men no longer obey women and that they live in their own separate huts (thingira) and stop sleeping in their wives’ houses (nyũmba). They would continue meeting in a “Kĩama” to review the new constitution and the progress of their emancipation. The men would also be meeting in their “thingira” to mentor their sons on manhood, honour, allegiance to the community, integrity and to uphold the new system of governance. They declared that animals, children, land and the women themselves were the property of men and that men had exclusive rights over them. Where it had previously been paid by women, the men would now pay dowry so that they could exercise full authority over women.
Legend credits the Iregi with executing the violent overthrow of the matriarchal regime.
Mothers, aunts and grandmothers were to give instruction concerning the new government to all female children in the nyũmba while fathers, uncles and grandfathers were to do the same in the thingira. All issues of morality, economy, social welfare, leadership, religion and justice would be adjudicated by the Kĩama.
The Iregi thus became the custodians of the Agĩkũyũ and, to ensure the continuity of its social function, the Iregi metamorphosed into the Kĩama kĩa Athuri. The Kĩama was further sub-divided into various stages of eldership whose members were assigned various functions. Henceforth, members had to make the payment of a goat to advance in eldership. Humphrey Waweru identifies the councils of elders that a man joined in stages as follows.
The first of these councils, Waweru holds, was Kĩama gia Kamatimũ (the Spear Council), also known as Kĩama kĩa Mbũri Imwe (the Council of the First Goat). This is because one gave a goat, Mbũri ya Kĩama (the council’s goat) in order to belong to this council. This council was comprised of recently married men whose children had not yet been circumcised. They were deemed too inexperienced to adjudicate cases in the society and were mentored by senior elders and assigned to gathering firewood, lighting the ceremonial fire, and roasting the Kĩama meat.
The second council was Kĩama kĩa Mataathi or Kĩama kĩa Mbũri Igĩrĩ (the Council of Two Goats). To rise to this council, a man had to give two goats and a lamb. In his unpublished PhD thesis, The Role of the Agĩkũyũ Religion and Culture in the Development of the Karing’a Religio-Political Movement K. Kang’ethe observes:
“The first goat, mbũri ya mwana, was given shortly before the circumcision of a member’s first child; the second goat, mbũri ya Kĩama, was given in order that they could officially accept the member as a member of this council; and the lamb, ndũrũme ya kũinũkania, was given to the council immediately they had circumcised his child in order to re-unite the child with the family and to bless the homestead.”
This council executed the legislative and judicial functions of the Agĩkũyũ nation, hence the esteem with which it was held.
The third council was called Kĩama kĩa Matũrangũrũ or Kĩama kĩa Ukũrũ (the Council of Old Age). To join this council, Waweru observes, members gave two extra goats. The Agĩkũyũ considered the elders of this council to be the wisest in the land and they were called athamaki. They wore brass earrings and carried ceremonial leaves of Matũrangũrũ as a symbol of authority, and decided “the dates of circumcision feasts and the holding of Itwĩka ceremony.”
Waweru identified Kĩama gĩa Gũthathaiya (religious council of elders) as the last stage. Its members were required to have had their children’s children circumcised and their wives sexually inactive and beyond childbearing age. They also officiated at public religious ceremonies at the designated Mũgumo tree (the fig tree) and were the custodians of Agĩkũyũ religion and culture. Few reached this most honoured stage.
Liturgical rites
Like other African societies, the Agĩkũyũ developed worship liturgies as they took part in prayers and making offerings and sacrifices. They did not always make the offerings to God; lesser spiritual beings such as “divinities, spirits and the departed” also received offerings. The Kĩama members prayed facing Mount Kenya, lifting their hands, and invoking God saying: Thai thathaiya Ngai thai. During the ceremonies, a designated person led this invocation. Kĩama elders were first responsible to God; it is in response to God that these men became dedicated to ensuring justice prevailed through the council to which they were inducted through a sacrifice.
Its members were required to have had their children’s children circumcised and their wives sexually inactive and beyond childbearing age.
Since in Gĩkũyũ traditional religion, priests, rulers, the living dead, and ritual elders were mediators between man and God, it is easy to assimilate the Gĩkũyũ eldership system to a mediatorial office. In traditional African religions, John S. Mbiti observed, “To reach God effectively, it may be useful to approach him by first approaching those who are lower than he is but higher than the ordinary person.” L.S.B. Leakey notes that in the Gĩkũyũ tradition, religious functions had to be conducted by a priest who was drawn from the head of the family or clan and assisted by other junior elders. Thus, according to K.M. Ndereba, Kĩama ritual elders played a mediatorial role within Gĩkũyũ culture, serving in the words of Mbiti as “conveyor belts” in approaching God.
However, the impetus of the present Kĩama appears to have two key motifs: cultural and political.
Cultural Motif
The resurgence of the Kĩama kĩa Athuri expresses a yearning to return to the Agĩkũyũ customs that were disrupted by colonialism and the coming of Christianity. While the colonialists endeavoured to maintain certain aspects of the Agĩkũyũ system such as the Agĩkũyũ initiation rites so as not to disorient them, missionaries on the other hand sought to replace the Agĩkũyũ religious and belief system with the Christian belief system, including the initiation rites. Such missionaries included C. Cagnolo, who asked Bishop Filippo Perlo (the initiator and organizer of the Consolata Fathers among the Agĩkũyũ), “How could morals be found among the people who in their age-long abandonment, have become so corrupt as to raise practices openly immoral to be a social institution?” Thus, missionaries associated the Agĩkũyũ religion and culture with the devil. For them to turn to God, the missionaries demanded of their converts that they break with their traditional religion and culture. The break was to be so complete that any accommodation of culture was deemed gũcokerera maũndũ ma ũgĩkũyũ, going back to things of the Agĩkũyũ.
Political motif
Proponents of the present (post-colonial) Kĩama, gather in the name of preserving culture and offering leadership to the community. The colonial government’s adoption of the Local Native Councils had made the administrative role of the Kĩama redundant and, by appointing chiefs to replace the traditional athamaki, the colonialists had shifted the centre of authority in the Agĩkũyũ society where, for example, in Southern Kĩambu, Kĩnyanjui wa Gathirimũ replaced Waiyaki in 1892. As Jomo Kenyatta laments, “Irũngũ or Maina generation whose turn it was to take over the government from the Mwangi generation, between 1925 and 1928 … was denied the birthright of perpetuating the national pride”. Thus, by 1925, the colonial political structure had virtually replaced the Agĩkũyũ political system and its administrative units, setting in motion a gradual disorganization of the Agĩkũyũ social structure.
Today’s Kĩama manifests a political motif, seeking to restore its diminished role under British colonial rule and the independence government. The Kĩama denies direct participation but indirectly takes part in politics. In March 2021, for instance, Kĩama leaders endorsed the then Speaker of the National Assembly, Hon. J.B. Muturi, as spokesperson for the Mt. Kenya region. The Kĩama also came out in support of certain political candidates in the 2022 general election.
Kĩama ceremonies as initiation rites
Kĩama ceremonies bear the features of initiation rites like those advanced by A. van Gennep in his celebrated work, Les rites de passage (The Rites of Passage). The Kĩama rites involving prayers, libation, isolation, rituals, and sacrifice of goats comport with van Gennep’s definition of “rites which accompany every change of place, state, social position and age”. He sees the performing of sacrifices as enabling an individual to make a meaningful change of status within the society.
According to Ndung’u et al., initiation was done in the forests and members were required to pay a goat to be promoted from one grade to another. The men were grouped according to their grades based on functions which had duties and rights.
Are Kĩama ceremonies acts of worship?
Victor Turner’s insights can help determine whether the sacrificing of goats at a Kĩama ceremony is religious worship or whether it constitutes a rite of passage as is purported. Turner applied the Van Gennep passage model and rituals in both tribal and modern industrial societies. What he found in rituals among the Ndembu of Zimbabwe compares favourably with those of modern society and among the Agĩkũyũ. These rituals involved symbolic manipulation and a reference to religion.
Mathieu Deflem discusses Turner’s approach to rituals, first, as part of an ongoing process of social drama. Here rituals play a significant role in a society’s conflictual equilibrium. Second, as dealing with symbols that make up the smallest units of ritual activity, symbols in themselves are carriers of meaning. Third, the meanings of symbols are multiple, giving unity to the morality of the social order and the emotional needs of the individual.
The resurgence of the Kĩama kĩa Athuri expresses a yearning to return to the Agĩkũyũ customs that were disrupted by colonialism and the coming of Christianity.
Rituals, according to Turner, are symbols showing crucial social and religious values by which information is revealed and regarded as authoritative, as dealing with the crucial values of the community. Since they embody beliefs and meaningful symbols, Turner claims, they can be objects, activities, words, relationships, events, gestures, or spatial units. In Turner’s definition, therefore, ritual refers to ritual performances involving manipulation of symbols that refer to religious beliefs. In the current practice of Kĩama, the goat is offered at the Kĩama eldership initiation rites for two main reasons: to atone for the sins of the elders and to initiate new elders into the council.
Ritual as symbols in perspective
Turner distinguished dominant and instrumental symbols. Dominant symbols appear in many ritual contexts, but their meaning possesses high autonomy and consistency throughout the total symbolic system. Kenyatta observes that sheep and goats were important in the religious and cultural life of the Agĩkũyũ for purification and sacrificial rites among the Agĩkũyũ. Agreeing with him, anthropologist L.S.B. Leakey pointed to the incomparable value the Agĩkũyũ placed on goats and sheep in their social organisation. Sacrificing goats was not just the preserve of the Kĩama but permeated Agĩkũyũ life; for example, in the indigenous ritual of Gũciarwo na Mbũri (birth by goat) ritual, a ceremony where a stranger is “born” into the community. Julius Gathongo observes that they slaughter a goat just like in the Mbũri cia Kĩama, but they do not perceive this as worship, although blood is shed, and they make sacrifices. He cites as an example the Gũciarwo na Mbũri ritual that the Embu medical missionary Dr Crawford performed in 1910:
“In 1910, for his entrance fee, he presented the elders with a bull and there was a great feast. This made the Embu elders recognise him as one of their own, and his ‘religion’ as part of theirs. In turn, they promised him ‘that they would now insist on all the people keeping God’s Day and attending [church] service, and that he was to be the leading elder (Muthamaki)’.”
John DeMathew, a popular Kikuyu musician, opined that blood is indispensable for an Agĩkũyũ marriage to endure. In one of his renditions he states:
Atῦmia aitũ magῦrwo na rũru (The dowry be paid with a flock)
Thakame yacio ĩrῦmagie mohiki (The blood that is shed will sustain marriages)
Kĩrathimo kĩumage gatũrũme-inĩ karĩa mũhĩrĩga wao ukarũmia (Blessings flow out of the [slaughtered]) lamb of which the clan will partake)
Chorus:
Kanitha wa Ngai uuge ũndũire ũcokio (Let the Church of God encourage culture)
Na muma wa kĩrore ndikaugũkwo (And the oath of kĩrore, I shall not recant)
DeMathew affirms the age-old Agĩkũyũ belief that marriage lasts because goats are killed and blood shed during the dowry ceremony. He lists what makes an enduring marriage union to comprise shed animal blood, clan prayers and fellowship in the partaking of meat.
Rituals as instrumental symbols are the means of attaining the specific goals of each ritual performance. We can investigate instrumental symbols only in terms of the total system of symbols that make up a particular ritual, since we can reveal their meaning only in relation to other symbols. In Turner’s opinion, Deflem notes, using symbols in ritual empowers them to act upon the performer and cause change in the person. The Kĩama rituals resulted in the transformation of the initiate’s attitudes (status) and behaviour (responsibility). For Agĩkũyũ men, these eldership stages were important as a rite of passage since once initiated, men gained social authority, influence, and power. Their status affected their wives, whose social status, responsibilities, and duties also increased. Conversely, when husbands failed to ascend the social ladder, other women ridiculed their wives.
The association of rituals with supernatural powers
Most of the respondents in the study by Ndung’u et al. – African Christians – viewed the Kĩama initiations as religious, involving rituals and sacrifices, and as being demonic and against Christian norms. It is possible to characterize Kĩama activities as religious, just as S.G. Kibicho framed the Mau Mau uprising in Kenya in 1952 as a religious conflict between African culture and westernization. They prayed (facing Mount Kenya) and sacrificed to Ngai (God) before launching their raids against the British government. They prayed: “Hoyai ma amu Ngai no ũrĩa wa tene…” (Continue praying to God (Ngai) comrades, the God of our ancestors). Kibicho’s claims concerning the Mau Mau members agree with Leakey’s allegations that the Mau Mau movement withstood the British not because of their war strategy but because they were an African religion. The Mau Mau were, asserts Leakey, “… a new religion, of which through oath ceremony formed only a small part that was the force which was turning thousands of peace-loving Kikuyu into murderous fanatics”.
Sacrificing goats was not just the preserve of the Kĩama but permeated Agĩkũyũ life.
Today’s Kĩama ceremony has adapted Kikuyu traditional oaths to bind its members, as did the Mau Mau freedom fighters. For the Kĩama ceremonies are not unique, since according to Van Gennep, the passage between groups requires a ceremony, or ritual, which is the rite of passage. In their initiation rites, groups in modern society practice customs traceable to their sacred past. Van Gennep hypothesises that such “social groups” are also grounded in their magico-religious foundations.
Turner argues that even though rituals in modern society occur in the secular domain of recreation, they are situated outside the confines of religious groups, and have some religious component. This is because, according to Turner, they have “something of the investigative, judgmental, and even punitive character of law-inaction, and something of the sacred, mythic, numinous, even ‘supernatural’ character of religious action”. All rituals are religious, Turner concludes, because they all “celebrate or commemorate transcendent powers”.
Rituals in modern society share characteristics, in Turner’s view, with the tribal rituals he studied in Ndembu society, where “all life is pervaded by invisible influences”. In this way, tribal societies are wholly religious, and ritual actions surrounding their religions are “nationwide”.
Rituals can be traced to religious belief and symbols and hence, Turner holds them to be related, forming the ground for his definition of ritual as “a stereotyped sequence of activities involving gestures, words, and objects, performed in a sequestered place, and designed to influence preternatural entities or forces on behalf of the actors’ goals and interests”. Hence, rituals must not be viewed in the sacred domain alone. Muchunu Gachuki, a member of the African Independent Pentecostal Church of Africa (AIPCA) who administered the Mau Mau oath says that it:
[c]onsists of vows and commandments. People who have no sacred vows cannot be said to be religious… Our ‘creeds’ in Mau Mau were organized in accordance with those of Kikuyu Central Association [political party formed in 1925] which existed before Mau Mau … based mainly on the traditional beliefs of the Kikuyu … that, ‘we are praying to the God of Gikuyu and Mumbi’ who gave to us this country – a country that was alienated by the Europeans.
Since the industrial revolution and because of secularization, modern religion, claims Turner, is decoupled from the rest of culture. Religion in modern societies is, writes Turner “regarded as something apart from our economic, political, domestic and recreational life. Religion is part of the division of social labor”. Turner, thus, regards rituals of modern, industrial religion as liminal (as are tribal rituals where religion and other cultural sectors are interwoven). This is because it is no longer, as its most distinct characteristic, a community affair but is individualized and covers a certain aspect of specific groups.
We can understand Kĩama rituals in this light, as not fully embracing the entire way of life but certain aspects of it. For instance, Karanja wa Mwangi, head of Agĩkũyũ Academy, who is committed to restoring Agĩkũyũ customs including Kĩama kĩa Mbũri, describes himself as a progressive advocate of culture. He accepts changes such as eradicating female genital mutilation and states: “All that we don’t subscribe to is colonialistic doctrines in the church but we can’t go back to wearing skins, the way our forefathers used to do. We have those of us [traditionalists] advocating for such uncivilised practices and this causes confusion.”
In modern societies institutions are disintegrated and independent of each other. As such, they deal with given needs and respond to certain questions faced by their members such as, law, politics, the economy, and religion. Rituals taking place within such domains may not carry religious connotations as they occur where supernatural matters are not dealt with.
In their initiation rites, groups in modern society practice customs traceable to their sacred past.
But, while being cognizant of Turner’s distinction between tribal and modern societies, S. Moore and B. Myerhoff question whether this distinction can be made between religious and secular ritual, since in tribal societies, as Turner argued, religion, economy, law, politics, and other cultural domains are interwoven. Tribal rituals, therefore, must have some religious component, since tribal religion in both mythology and ritual practices has not (yet) split off from other sectors of tribal culture. The sacrifices and prayers at Kĩama eldership should therefore be understood as a socio-cultural rite of passage and not a worship-religious event. Although these observers are quick to perceive the rite as spiritual worship, there is a need to distinguish Kĩama’s initiation rites from Agĩkũyũ acts of worship. This concurs with the conclusion reached by T. Kibara, B. Ngundo and P. Gichure that, “the church needs to recognize Mbũri cia Kĩama as one of the rites of passage within the Gikuyu culture so as to embrace the concept of Christianizing certain aspects of the traditional ritual.”
Today’s version of the Kĩama is much diluted. It is not the status symbol that shaped the Agĩkũyũ society in the precolonial days. Kĩama ceremonies remain initiation rites into eldership whose practitioners are bent on politicking. In effect, the turbulent political climate around ethnicities has given rise to the need for ethnic intervention and so, if the Agĩkũyũ are to survive politically and economically in the lands away from their ancestral homelands such as in the Rift Valley, Kĩama kĩa Athuri would be the vehicle for peace, reconciliation and political patronage.
However, while this approach can secure the interests of Agĩkũyũ society, identity politics is destructive for a country like Kenya. For when we make tribe the basis of our relationships, we lose the nation in the tribal mire. As I wrote in The Elephant:
We must move from the politics of “our tribe” to the politics of “Kenya”. Only then will we rediscover the counter-intuitive truth, as Sacks states, that a nation is strong when it cares for the weak, that it becomes invulnerable when it cares about the vulnerable.
The church stands to be destroyed not with the blood of the slaughtered goats of Kĩama ceremonies, but with the logic of tribal politics that conditions us to act on tribal self-interest without a commitment to the nation’s common good. When this logic creeps into the church, the body is dismembered, torn between loyalty to tribe and loyalty to Christ.
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This publication was funded/co-funded by the European Union. Its contents are the sole responsibility of The Elephant and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union.
