Magic g. Magic (ugao) is one of the essential elements of the Tharaka cultural system.

It is an activity socially recognised and institutionally integrated in the dynami cs of the social processes. It pursues the welfare of the community and therefor e opposes To understand the the evil, importance the witchcraft and sense (urogi). of the magical activity of the Tharaka, i t is necessary to consider it in relation to the totality of their eco-system. I nfact, together with the religion, from which it is not always separable, magic constitutes the whole complex of the answers and interpretations given by man to the questions posed him by the community. For the Tharaka the nature that surro unds them, the society, the depth of the human soul, are pervaded by "good force s" and "bad forces". The magical activity has the scope of conveying the "good f orces" towards the persons the animal, the fields, etc. and of everything the "e vil forces" from them. Magic has got the task of defending the individuals and t he society from the evil influence of "evil forces" expecially in the crucial mo ments of the existence. As we shall see in the initiations, these can be constit uted"good The by the forces" age passages. and the "evil Witchcraft forces" instead can concentrate works in the themselves opposite in sense. herbs, roo ts, leaves, mineral or even some parts of animal bodies. Therefore if we mix, fo llowing the traditional prescription and rituals, these natural elements, we can The confectionate Tharaka magical-herbalistc either medicinesart or identifies powerful poisons. two types of medicines: a) the mut hega, that derives its therapeutical virtues exclusively either from the symboli cal value, that the elements used in preparing it have in the Tharaka magic, or form the magical rites they are prepared with; b) the ndawa, that acts in virtue of the natural elements with which it is confectioned. It takes the name of kio ria when it is prepared under the poultice form and the name of muthega when it is prepared Even when weunder consider the witchcraft form of ashes. we can make a theoretical distinction of the ma terial elements with which they are confectioned, and these that exclusively der ive their power from their symbolical values and from the witchcraft's rites per formed The distinction upon them. between However, ndawa theand same muthega term urogi in magic indicates is, nevertheless, both of them. intellectua listic. In the magical practice what counts most, for the Tharaka, is the therap eutical power that is conferred wether to the medicine or to the whole curative procedure from the power of the magic transmitted by the rites that the magician -herbalist celebrates for such scope. The two elements magical-ritual and natura l-herbalistic The agents of the or symbolical-herbalistic magical practices are the are magician-herbalists inseparable at the practice (agao, sing. level. mug ao). The agents that practice witchcraft are the witch doctors (arogi, sing. mur ogi). The first ones are well known and estimed by the people, the second ones w ork secretly and if discovered, they are condemned to death. In practice, everyb ody magician-herbalist The can be a witch doctor, is abecause professional they work man with in the a more shade. or less large practice according to his fame, and to the number apprentice to whom he teaches the secre ts of The art his ofprofession. magic is complicated and requires many years of apprentice ship. Acco rding to my friends the magician-herbalist M'Kamundi, M'Mugwongo and Njoeri M'Mu ciri, to prepare themselves well for this profession requires averagely thirty s ix who He season, aspires about tonine become years. a mugao must find a "father", a declared professional, that would ritually adept him as a "sen" and teach him all the secrets of his ar t. the magician-herbalist is a technician and must know deeply all the herbs, th e minerals and the animal parts that have therapeutical propeties and those that have poisonous properties. He has to know their symbology and the method of pre paring them according to the many recipes traditionally handed down. he even was to learn the rich ritual necessary for the preparation and the administration o f the The magician-herbalist medicines and also is, the inright a certain symbolic sense, language. even diviner. To make the diagnos is of the illness that he is going to cure, he infact, uses the art of divinatio n asthe For well Tharaka, as his sickness personal is, experience or caused andby the the social work of interview. a witch doctor or derives from factor that are never only physical, but also and above all moral; such as the violation of the social or ritual important rules by the sick person or by hisany In family. case, whatever the cause is, the magician-herbalist, in preparing himself to cure, considers more the sick person and the society than the disease physic ally considered. If we analyse his action we can distinguish in it various analy tical The first levels. one is the mistical-ritual and the religious one. He starts his work b y invoking his professional totems, Njeru and Nyaga, while he marks himself with "Njeru, (Njeru the white Njeru, grant me gukuremba I both beg kaolin you things gintu powder to grant grant simultaneously" gikiega; me (iraa) me a Njeru, favourable and pronounces good thing; events; ngukuremba themantu following manega; ritual naraformula: ukurutha na bue)same The (15). formula is repeated towards Nyaga. According to the explanation given t o me by the magician-herbalists interviewed, the names Njeru and Nyaga indicate

the illuminating force that emanates form the sun (irioa) and from the moon (mwe ri) and that derives directly from the divinity. Thus, the formula more clearly (for the lay men) can be translated as: "Murungu, thou that with you force illum inate The magician-herbalist the night, give me makes ....". use of some tools to perform his rites. He keeps th em in his professional bag, called the "basket of the magician-herbalist" (kiond o The gia small mugao). calabash The most for important the divination of them(mpau are: ya kindaji). It contains seed-pear ls, seeds small stones, cowries, etc. (that of M'Mukamundi, magician-herbalist a nd one of the main informers, even contained a nipple of the mother). The magici an-herbalist shakes it and then sprinkles on the ground its contents. From the p osition assumed by the objects he makes the diagnosis: the kind of disease or th e A causes smallof calabash the illness. containing the powder for blessing (mpau wa muthega). It cont ains the muthega that he uses to propitiate himself the forces of the nature, ea ting Theasmall graspcalabash of it atcontaining the beginning the white of thekaolin rite. powder (mpau wa iraa). With thi s powder (iraa) the magician-herbalist marks first his temple, umbilicus and som e other part of his body, and then he marks the tools and the herbs before and d uring Two small the rites. dry guards (16) with their seeds (mbugu). He uses them as a crepitacula d uring A smoking the rites. pipe (murangi). It is made from a hallowed stick, about thirty centi metres long. He uses it to exorcise the evil or the poison by blowing on the smo keTwo to bells make it (ngonia). dissolve. Of the two one big and one small. They are like those that the herdsmen tie around the neck of cows and goats. The magician rings them alt ernatively A small bundle duringof the magic rites sticks or while (miti travelling. miruku). Such a small bundle is of four o r five centimetres of diameter and it is formed of many sticks of various plants , about ten centimetres long. They are tied together by a strip of goat skin. A penis of baboon and a hoof of a goat are placed in the middle of the bundle. It isAused hornfor forthe drinking blessing. the muthega (rugoci). It serves also for blessing. The Tha raka say that the ancient magician-herbalist fixed inside it a diamond, that ind icated A part from the professional these we find totems otherNjeru objects andin Nyaga the paraphernalia with its shining of the light. magician. Pr ick-punches, stilettoes, horns, animal parts make part of them. These last ones are used as symbols of the either good or evil vital force of the animal. Such s ymbol acquire in the rite the values of "signs" with the property of evoking tho se forces When we consider they express. the figure of the Tharaka magician-herbalist we must not have a too reductive vision of his functions. He perform his actions not only for the welfare of the sick individual, but also and expecially for the one of the whole society that surrounds him. Even if it is true that part of the activity of th e magician-herbalist is carried out to defit the illness that manifests in the i ndividual, it is also true that a large part of his activity is carried out emin ently at social level. This expecially during the celebration of the tribal init iation. Infact some magical rites, as we shall see in the following chapters, ar e integral parts of the initiation ceremonies and have an important function in theThe 5. a. The socialization Tharaka society structure society of process thestructured is kinship of the individual. in a patrilinear clanic system with exogamic m arriage and virilocal residence. It is constituted about thirty clans (miriga, s ing. mweriga), subdivided in about sixty lineages (mariku, sing. iriku) (ref. t ab. I). Some clans have many lineages (Nyaga has some eight), ethers have a few (Gaankuyu has got three of them) ethers have got none. In the last ones the line age identifies itself with the clan (see for example, Mwagitiri). Each lineage i s subdivided in extended families (mioii, sing. mucii), which are formed by the union of the monogamic or polygamic coniugal families (even these called micii) The term mucii indicates also the group of dwellings of the coniugal or the exte (17). nded families. The all compound can be indicated also with the terms ntura or bo me. I shall translate them with the English term "hamlet" (see Bernardi, in the Italian translation of "The Nuer of Evans Pritchard, p. 167, F. Angeli ed. Milan o, 1976). The clan is constituted of one or more lineages descendant from the same mythica l founder. Its beginning is, infact, tied to the time of the traditional Tharaka society. It posses the land and the herds and it was juridically, socially and politically responsable of its members. The clan constituted either a conceptual or a residential unit. It had a territory in which cultivate and to graze its o wn herds. Neverless the possession of the land was of the whole tribe. The clans were holding only the usufruct of their territory. Traditionally the Tharaka li ved in big villages, preferably on the hills. The fields and pastures were situa ted at the valley were the land was fertile. Each village was inhabitated by one

clan. But if this was very small, it could unite with another to form a village , that consequently, resulted divided in two distinct, but strongly interagent r esidential units. The data I collected casually during my research (it was orien ted to the study of the initiation and its changes) did not allow me to reconstr uct the structure of the traditional Tharaka village. According to some informer s, this was even defended by ditches and placed near a "sacred bush" (ire), that The served lineage as ais hiding formed place by relatives, for the livestock whose unit in of case descent of raid. from a founder is, "hi storically" demonstrated and recognised by all the members. It is made up of the whole of the extended families. The males were at the head of them, because the y received their authority by patrilinearity from the unic ancestor founder of t he lineage the Anciently, (18). extended family-constituted by the coniugal family of an elder un it together with these of his sens-possessed its special dwelling delimitation, were all the coniugal families that constituted it lived adjacenlty. It also had a relative economical and social autonomy. Infact, it was disposing of the usuf ruct of the cultivated fields and the herds. It had also a certain autonomy in t he conduction of the internal relations between its members. When the old grandf ather elder of the extended family died, the coniugal families whose father had at the moment become elder, separated themselves and went to form the nuclei of new extended families. While the coniugal families whose fathers did not enjoy t he status of elder, remained united to the extended family of the brother. They would The Tharaka separate polygamic from him coniugal when they family themselves was, and would still have is formed become by elders. one or more nu clei. They are the dyads formed by every mother with hoe children, all united in The reference sons and todaughters, the same father. till pre-puberal age, live with their respective mothers and sleep in the same bed: the smallest nearer to her, while the biggest furthe r away. The coniugal family - recognisable by its special dwelling unit - anciently did not have economic, social and political autonomy. It was integrated into the ext ended The traditional family. house was made up of a space surrounded by a thorny fence (rwinc i). Its entrance, high about seventy centimetres, was closed by a thorny fascine . The houses (nyomba) were placed inside it. There was the one of the husband. I t was made of a conical roof supported by some poles spaced at about half a metr e, so that in case of danger it was possible for him to get out easily and defen d his family of his wife or wives, made of cylindrical huts. They were separated one from the others, and they were built with poles driven into ground, one nex t to the other, without mud plaster, and covered with a thatched roof. There wer e the houses of the excised unmarried daughters built in the same manner. There was the granary, that is a hut similar to the previous one, but is elevated to a height of about one metre on some robust poles, with its floor made of poles pl aced horizontally one next to the other. The whole of houses of the coniugal fam ilies belonging to a unique extended family were built next to each other, but t he total area occupied was not enclosed by a thorny fence. The same can be said for the area occupied by the whole of the houses of each single lineage. Therefo re inside the village, the only enclosures were those delimiting the houses of t he coniugal The Tharaka abandoned families. the villages and scattered themselves in the savanna durin g the colonial time, and expecially during the Emergency (1952-56). They did it to escape from the colonial administrative and military control. Thus they passe d from the traditional system of concentration in villages to the actual one of scattered hamlets, each corresponding about an extended family. This migratory m ovement was facilitated by the decrease of they. This migratory movement was fac ilitated by the decrease of the enemy raids, controlled by the colonial army. Th us gradually the clan ceased to be a residential unit surviving only as a concep tual unity. However still today every Tharaka often mention the original territo ry some In of his parts clanof wether the Tharaka in the territory, dances or in till thethe daily middiscussions. sixties, you could still me et some residential units made up of small villages formed by the coniugal famil ies, or by parts of extended families of different clans. These small villages h ave been definitively disintegrated by the Government's Land Consolidation Schem e. It assigned the property of the land to the single coniugal family and oblige d ittechniques The to build its of building house in have, its own with plot. time, undergone some changes. Though you c an mit still today some traditional hamlets, new the people usually plaster with mud the huts where they live. It is easy also to see rectangular or square huts and a number of them roofed with corrugated iron sheets. Another nearly univers

Thechange al structures is constituted of kinshipby have theremained disappearance conceptually of the unchanged thorny fence in spite (rwinci). of the c hanges to which the kinship relation have undergone in the course of the last fi fty years. Furthermore, when we shall analyse the initiation system change, we shall consider better also the changes in the political and economical functions b. When ofThe both wemilitary consider the kinship clans the clanical system and division of the we agemust classes distinguish one. the kinship clans (mi riga) from the military ones (miriga wa garu) (19). The military clans did not c oincide either territorially or demografically with the kinship clans. Since the y had to respond to the needs of the territorial defence, and since they were st ructured according to the age classes system, it could happen that to form a mil itary clan they had to unite members of different kinship clans, in order to hav e a garu The sufficient made up number the dwelling of warriors of the that nthaka, could and garrison were built the territory. on the hillsides, st rategically c. The The traditional powerbit political, for the defence. administrative and giudiciary system of the Tharaka w as based on two dynamic principles, that had structural consequences of integrat ion:political The that of the system kinship was pyramidally and that of segmented. the age classes. In the extended family, the exer cise of the political power belonged to the elder (mukuru, pl. akuru). All the e lders family-heads of the same lineage formed the coucil of the lineage (kiama g ia iriku, pl. biama bia mariku); the union of the lineage councils of the same c lan formed the council of the clan (kiama gia mweriga, pl. biama bia miriga). Th e union of the clan councils formed the council of the elders of the tribe (kiam a gia The councils Tharakaof bonte). the elders were quite fluid and not elective organism. The right to be members was acquired with the social age sanctioned by the initiation. Th e participation to the meeting was not compulsory though it is open to all the i nitiated. The decision emerged trough a series fo discussion to which, at least theoretically, all the members of the council had the right to take part. The co ncentration of the power in the council had situational character, and did not g o beyond the occasion that determined it. In such a system, the delegation of th e power was complementary. The roles, though partially defined, were never stabl e and they ceased with the solving of the situation that had rendered them neces The dynamics of the power running was quite simple. Each section of the Tharaka sary. political administrative and juridical system was autonomous in the solution of the internal conflicts, provided that it did not directly involve the external r elations. Thus, according to the structuring derived from the kinship principle, the internal conflicts of the extended family were run by the elder of the same family. Other members also had and still have important roles. For example, sti ll today, a husband that comes into a conflict with his wife, can not even repro ach her, it's the work of his elder brother, who is not emotively involved, to t alk with her, to listen to her reasons and to recompose the harmony. Long time a ge, if the wife was beaten or treated in contrast with the norms by her husband or by any other of the extended family, she, being a member of the other clan by birth, appealed to the elders of the tribe council, because this was the unique organism suited to settle interclanical disputes. If, instead, the disputes eme rged between two extended families belonging to the same lineage, it was the lin eage council that had to intervene, If, instead those who entered into conflict were members of two lineages of the same clan, it was the clan council that had to take The traditional care of Tharaka the situation. society was not devoid of conflicts. A Tharaka proverb s ays: "Men are quarrelsome" (Antu arume bari rubogiro); another says "Two adults that are always togheter, in the end will quarrel" (Tutheka twiri mboroni inwe t otirigaga). The conflicts could arise at all levels, including those structural of the kinship and of the age classes. However the system of control elaborated by the Tharaka culture was functional and adeguated. This, though not shrinking from the use of force was based on the wisdom, retained more effective another Tharaka proverb states: "Wisdom is more useful than force" (Omwe bure mbere ya i nya). Concrete example may be constituted by the intervention in the homicide ca se the In (pag. Tharaka ), and social-political by the norms ofsystem the njuri the power (pag. was ). diffused not only according to the division in clans, lineages and extended families, but also according to the age class system. This attributed more power and responsibility to those t hat reached an older social age by passing through the relative initiational sta ges.