Aren’t some issues & occurences really stupefying? They are!
Among the Agikuyu people strange things happen. One of the most astonishing reality is when people, either men or women (husbands & wives) die suddenly and the cycles repeat themselves affecting the consequent spouses who get married to the bereaved men and women though the pattern seems more pronounced with the bereaved women……..
Sadly, not knowing (ignorance) or love perhaps places new husbands and wives in the positions and traps of the death patterns until later when the pattern deaths recur again.
In the Agikuyu community, these realities are well identified and people often talk in fear and whispers about the phenomenon. Here, people even have names and terms for women whose husbands die suddenly and in the patterns described.
The women are described as ‘women of red thigh’.
Until recently, when I listened to Elder Wachira Kiboi, (a Kikuyu elder and teacher of the Agikuyu culture & often a guest every Friday morning on Kameme FM), i did not know that the pattern and misfortune also follows men. As contrasted to ‘woman of red thigh’, men are called ‘athuri aa Kanyaga’..
… .Mr Kiboi said that the ‘red thigh’ is not in literal terms and that no redness can be seen.
…. According to the elder, such deaths can repeat themselves up to 7 times unless cleansing ceremonies (‘Ndahikio’ or ‘Guitururio’ are performed by Kikuyu elders or others qualified men.
Mr Kiboi tried to burst the bubble on this phenomenonal happenings.
According to him several reasons or factors could be at play but what he emphasized most was on the importance of mourning with seriousness and respect for the departed .
People should mourn earnestly and avoid disrespect and having needless fun and especially fun that can lead to sex play. Because, according to Elder (mutonyi) Kiboi, children who get conceived during a family’s mourning period easily get marked and even ‘possessed by the spirit of death and this could explain why the women and men when they mature and get into marriage face the dilemma of sudden death of their spouses and in cycles as above described and up to seven times until the cleansing if it ever happens or is availed.
Talking about the increasing deaths incidence in the country, Elder Mr Kiboi suggested that people especially in Kikuyu land are joking too much with death or rather courting death a lot.
According to him, the Agikuyu feared and respected the dead. Terminally ill persons were often taken to nearby bushes prior to succumbing and people never stayed with dead bodies.
Burial issues including arrangements and carrying the dead were strictly family or close relatives affairs. Today however all and sundry join in families’ private burial affairs and even allocate themselves tasks even in the carrying of the body in caskets .
Elder Kiboi reasoned that people who needless entangle themselves in death affairs including in touching bodies as if honoring the deceased or even touching coffins end up entangled with death spirit and could ‘carry’ the death spirits with them to their homes.
Though such claims could invite contention and diverse debates, they tend to be in tandem with a statement issued by Lord Jesus Christ when He advised – – “Let the dead bury their dead.”
The eating or feasting observed in present day burials is also strange despite being part of evolving cultural practices especially seeing that the Agikuyu never even performed burial ceremonies in the first place