Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Photographs
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Clans and Councils, Caravans and Conquest, Cosmology and Colonialism
- 3 Understanding Uoi, Uwe, and Kithitu in Ukambani
- 4 The “Cosmology” of the Colonial State
- 5 The Wakamba Witch Trials
- 6 Witchcraft, Murder, and Death Sentences after Rex v. Kumwaka
- 7 The World of Oathing and Witchcraft in Mau Mau–era Machakos
- 8 Cleansing Ukambani Witches
- 9 Epilogue
- Glossary
- Bibliography
- Index
- References
2 - Clans and Councils, Caravans and Conquest, Cosmology and Colonialism
Ukambani in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 October 2011
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Photographs
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Clans and Councils, Caravans and Conquest, Cosmology and Colonialism
- 3 Understanding Uoi, Uwe, and Kithitu in Ukambani
- 4 The “Cosmology” of the Colonial State
- 5 The Wakamba Witch Trials
- 6 Witchcraft, Murder, and Death Sentences after Rex v. Kumwaka
- 7 The World of Oathing and Witchcraft in Mau Mau–era Machakos
- 8 Cleansing Ukambani Witches
- 9 Epilogue
- Glossary
- Bibliography
- Index
- References
Summary
Competing myths, traditions, and memories propose various points of origin for the Kamba people. For example, different narrations of how the Kamba came to reside in Ukambani alternately pose Nzaui as a sort of Kamba “Eden” – that is, the place where the creator god put down the first man and first woman – as the location where Kamba “rain-followers” established the clan structure for which the Kamba people are well known, and as the spot where Kamba populations settled after migrating from Kilimanjaro. Other traditions assert that the Kamba people originated in locations as diverse as Shungwaya and Egypt. These competing sources concur that since the seventeenth century Kamba people have inhabited the highlands and plains in the area southeast of what was to become Nairobi.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Witchcraft and Colonial Rule in Kenya, 1900–1955 , pp. 29 - 44Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2011