360 



TO KENIA 



slain by the owner of the property, the latter is not punished 

 at all. 



The Wakikuyu marry, or rather buy, as mau}^ wives as 

 they can afford, and there do not seem to be any special 

 marriage ceremonies. Funerals are conducted in the simplest 

 manner also, a feast for which an ox or sheep is sacrificed 

 alone marking a death. The dead are buried in their own 

 ground, but those without friends or relations are left lying 



where they die. All the 

 boys are circumcised in 

 the Masai fashion. 



Goats and sheep are 

 killed by strangling, so 

 that no blood may be 

 shed ; oxen are slain, as by 

 the Masai, by a stab from 

 a knife or spear in the 

 nape of the neck, after the 

 animal has been already 

 half stifled by the tying 

 up of the mouth and 

 nostrils. 



It is difficult to get an}' insight into the religious feelings 

 of the natives, the only outer and visible sign of which are a 

 few amulets made of little bundles of horn or wood, &c. We 

 saw no fetiches, no sacred spots, but there is little doubt that 

 the Wakikuyu believe in something higher than themselves. 

 Generally speaking, this something has no corporeal form, and 

 represents nothing more than a vague feeling after the wonderful 

 and incomprehensible, but in the present case it has a certain 

 personality, for it is supposed to dwell upon Kililnara or Kenia. 

 Whether the natives here do or do not believe in a future state, 

 we were unable to ascertain. 



TOOLS OF A KIKUYU SMITH. 



