KIKUYU CIRCUMCISION CEREMONIES 
48 
they let fall to the ground. Here a tussle for the twigs occurs 
amongst the women, who present them to the boys and girls — 
an odd number of twigs to a boy and an even number to a 
girl : it is usually five twigs for a boy and four for a girl. 
The ceremony is now over, but each boy and girl takes 
his or her bunch of twigs home to the village at which they 
are to be circumcised. They are there given in charge of the 
mother of the village, who takes particular precautions that 
they do not get lost or changed until the next morning. At 
the circumcision next morning each boy or girl has his or her 
twigs placed for sitting upon during the operation ; and, the 
operation being performed, takes them back to the mother 
at the village. She stores them very carefully in two calabashes, 
one for the boys and one for the girls, and puts them away 
in a particular position. These twigs make their appearance 
again on two subsequent occasions : a few days after, when 
they have added to them twigs (five for a boy, four for a girl) 
of a bush called * mukenia,’ and again when the boys and 
girls have healed and the ceremonies of circumcision are ended, 
and this time they are strewed by the mother in the cupboard- 
space at the head of her bed, the stems all pointing to the head 
of the bed, and are left there to wither and be consumed by 
the white ants. 
The ceremonies connected with the 4 Mugumo ’ vary in dif- 
ferent parts of Kikuyu. In the district near Nairobi the tree is 
not an ancestral one but may be any ‘ Mugumo ’ tree fixed 
upon by divination and not necessarily one which has been 
used for the purpose before. Neither is the tree trimmed, 
as, being always a small tree, the * ndorothi ’-sticks are thrown 
right over the top and not through a gap in the middle of the 
branches. No sacrifice either is considered necessary at 
the foot of the tree to guard against unfriendly influences. 
At the throwing ceremony a boy to be circumcised first throws 
a club over the tree and then a ‘ ndorothi ’-stick of the long 
kind ; after which the boys themselves climb the tree, armed 
with clubs or axe-handles, and knock the branches and leaves 
off the tree until it is almost bare, but they are not allowed 
to cut with a knife. Before descending each boy picks his 
bunch of five, or any odd number of twigs, which he retains until 
