It often happens that during a ceremony at an ithembo a woman is seized, or possessed, and passes into a…
- 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 24
- Rights
- public_domain
- Language
- English
- Record updated
- 2026-08-25
Record summary
It often happens that during a ceremony at an ithembo a woman is seized, or possessed, and passes into a condition of semi-trance in which she will prophecy either that the rains are coming or that they will fail, or, in former days, that a Masai raid was imminent
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 onlyIt often happens that during a ceremony at an ithembo a woman is seized, or possessed, and passes into a condition of semi-trance in which she will prophecy either that the rains are coming or that they will fail, or, in former days, that a Masai raid was imminent. An explanation of this was carefully sought, and, upon investigation, I was told that the message came from the imu or spirit of the person of olden times to whom the ithembo was dedicated and to whom it was supposed to belong, but quite clearly, that this spirit was only an intermediary, the message really coming from the high god Engai or Mulungu.
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.
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