A society where children defined marriage

By Pascal Mwandambo

In traditional Taita society, marriage and child bearing was the hallmark of the social fabric of society.

A couple that was childless was treated with sympathy and at the worst despised. Children were the bond that brought two families together and the more children a couple had, the more they were considered blessed.

“Signs of pregnancy was like the heavy rain clouds gathering in the sky. They were signs of blessings to the family and close relatives would be glad to see the fruits of this marriage,” says 75-year-old Kilambo Mkilo.

But Mzee Mkilo says that on certain occasions, things would go awry and this usually threw the young family into total disarray, creating anxiety and sorrow.

But childlessness aside, there were incidents that occurred during childbirth that were as bad as not having children or even worse. One of these, according to Mzee Mkilo, was when a woman gave birth to a child legs first.

Signs of a curse

“This was treated as signs of a curse to the immediate family. Though in some cases the child could be allowed to live after certain rituals were done to appease the ancestors but on most occasions the child was killed and buried in an unmarked grave,” says the elder.

He says such a child, who was referred to as “mfuri” was treated as a mere miscarriage. After such an incident, the local seers and elders had to undertake some divination rituals to unravel the cause of this misfortune and come up with ways of averting the same in the future,” says Mzee Mkilo.

A child who was a stillborn was also buried immediately and a banana tree planted on its grave as a way of urging the ancestors to bring more babies in the future just as the banana plant continued to grow on the grave.

But if the banana tree wilted and died, this was an indication that the family might not have children in the future and the marriage had to be dissolved, the elder narrates.

He says that an albino (ingila) was also killed after birth as it was considered a bad omen and an abomination to the family. After that, the mother’s head was clean-shaven and she was taken for rigorous cleansing rituals under a fig tree locally known as “muku”.

The elder says even though cases of infidelity were rare, there were?certain cases where a father to a newborn baby raised a fuss over the fatherhood of the baby.

“When a child was born resembling another person in the neighborhood who was suspected to have been having an affair with the woman in question, a council of elders would convene a special meeting where they would divine and get to the bottom of the problem,” he says.

Usually, goat intestines were used to unravel the mystery “kulaghua wula”. Once the truth was unearthed, two things would happen:

If the seers revealed the child was from the man who had raised suspicion over his wife’s fidelity, he would be fined?seven goats and seven pots of beer which would be shared among the uncles and parents of the aggrieved bride.

This was meant to cleanse the name of the bride and her family.

On the other hand, if it was discovered that the woman had been unfaithful, her parents would be required to apologise and the woman would be cleansed and banished from her matrimonial home for a certain period before rejoining her husband for conjugal activities.

A child born through such a union was called a mere passerby — “mchea-mbai”.

But in some cases where the two families respected each other for one reason or another, such a matter was kept secret and the resemblance would be explained using the comparison that the man in question had “passed behind the back of the woman while she was pregnant!”

On the other hand, anything that went wrong during delivery of a baby was believed to be a curse.

Most respected

Seers and diviners were an integral party of the society in handling these sensitive matters. For instance failure to pay a certain amount of bride price to the bride’s close relatives usually led to serious consequences.

The most respected part of bride wealth was a certain amount of beer that was usually reserved for the uncles to the bride. Called “chofi ya kiawuye”, this part of bride wealth was so crucial, failure to pay it could lead to serious family problems as well as curses to many generations to come, according to a book on Taita culture by the late Frank Mcharo, “Chuo cha mizango na maza ra Kidawida ra kufuma kokala (A handbook on Taita culture and tradition of days gone).”

Another cause of complications during childbirth was the failure to pass the name of a relative to a newborn child when their time was due. Usually in Taita traditional society, names were accorded in alternations starting with the paternal relatives.

If this process was not adhere to and an elder who was due to be “born again” did not get his deserved honour, misfortunes and calamities would dog the family lineage for generations to come.

But in most cases, once this matter was discovered, a sacrifice of a bull would be given to appease to spirit of the ancestor so they could lessen their anger and allow the family to enjoy childbearing and prosperity.