There is a curious custom in Ukamba which throws some light on the spiritual beliefs of the people
- Date of account
- Published 1922
- Source
- Bantu Beliefs and Magic With particular reference to the Kikuyu and Kamba tribes of Kenya Colony; together with some reflections on East Africa after the war
- Reference
- Bantu Beliefs and Magic With particular reference to the Kikuyu and Kamba tribes of Kenya Colony; together with some reflections on East Africa after the war · selected passage 10
- Rights
- public_domain
- Language
- English
- Record updated
- 2026-08-25
Record summary
There is a curious custom in Ukamba which throws some light on the spiritual beliefs of the people
Published source text
Read the available text below. Archive transcriptions may contain OCR errors; later context is labelled separately. A recorded claim is not a finding that it happened.
Source passage
Source text · mention onlyThere is a curious custom in Ukamba which throws some light on the spiritual beliefs of the people. If a young unmarried man is killed away from his village, his imu or spirit will return there and speak to the people through the medium of an old woman in a dance (see p. 86, author’s work on the A-Kamba), and say, “I am So-and-so speaking, and I want a wife.” The youth’s father will then make arrangements to buy a girl from another village and bring her to his, and she will be mentioned as the wife of the deceased, speaking of him by name. She will presently be married to a brother of the deceased, but she must continue to live in the village where the deceased had his home.
Historical context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyThis material belongs to a folklore tradition. Story type, collector, community, transmission and literary editing matter when comparing it with other sources.
Modern context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyLattice compares motifs and reported features without assuming that a traditional being is a biological species or that similar stories document one external cause.
Investigate related details with Anomaly Graph’s account-based search, or read how matching and provenance work.