"Fringemen": The Evolution Of A-Athi

One of the major fringe communities was also affected by the migrants' ecological transition. The pre-Meru entry into Mount Kenya's forests left the cursing patterns used by ironsmiths essentially unchanged. Over time clans on each ridgetop located adequate supplies, both to perpet-

uate their craft and to retain their former supernatural methods of protecting them.

The magic available to meat and honey hunters, however, continued slowly to evolve. To a hunter the "black" forest belt initially meant fear, primarily of large animals such as buffalo, which could lie unmoving within a shadow until a Mwathi (single hunter) moved too near. Tradition declares that all hunting groups responded to the problem by adopting a number of defensive rituals, intended to create a zone of safety around them as they moved within the forest. One of these, perhaps the earliest, was known either as "blow" (ua ) or "bite" (uma ).

It could be prepared only by curse removers (Aga) who were also A-Athi (hunters). Initially, the curse remover gathered various combinations of herbs, roots, and the sap of a tree (Cacothanthera fresiorum ) known to be poisonous.^[3] The materials were mixed with water, placed in a tightly sealed clay pot, and boiled for several days. Gradually, all the liquid evaporated, leaving a hard, black, waxy residue. This was either kept intact ("bite") or ground into fine powder ("blow"), then stored in tiny bamboo tubes, gourds, or animal horn. The contents were placed in a squared-off bag of antelope hide that A-Athi and all other Meru curse removers carried on one shoulder at all times.^[4]

The magic substance within the containers was intended as a "gift" to other hunters. Tradition required, however, that it be "given" on request and that receivers reciprocate with specified amounts of honey, skins, horns (for use as containers), or meat. In this way both hunters and ritualist healers assured their economic survival.

Both bite and blow were transferred to recipients with precise instructions on their use. Blow, for example, was used at the beginning of each trek into the forest. On reaching an unknown or potentially dangerous area—such as a heavily tangled bamboo-edged glade that might conceal buffalo—the hunter would pause, uncap the powder, and blow it in all four directions. He would then chant: "Njira mno muthwa aki. Tukana gintu giku." (Only ants on the paths. We shall see no bad things.)^[5] This ritual had the psychological effect of creating a moving zone of safety within which the hunter could carry on his work, protected from "seeing bad things," whether animal or human, that might harm him.

A-Athi traditions suggest that this concept was subsequently adopted for the creation of stationary zones of safety around the more permanent hunting encampments. These became increasingly isolated as individual hunters ventured higher and farther "westward" into the

forests. The magic used to guard these camps was known as "Nkima," a word that carries linguistic connotations of "stiffness," but which A-Athi translate as "skull."

In some regions Nkima was simply an antelope horn, filled with the black, waxy mixture previously described. In others, strips of buffalo, bushbuck, and antelope hide were coated with the substance and then interwoven into a rounded mass the size of a human skull. Whatever its shape, an Nkima hung prominently in the center of each hunting camp, psychologically creating a second zone of safety for those sleeping therein.

A-Athi traditions suggest that the concepts of "bite," "blow," and "skull" were adopted ("bought") from earlier hunting peoples whom the Meru encountered as they entered the forest. These were most likely Ogiek, who lived in scattered bands across the mountain and who had adapted totally to a hunting-and honey-based ecology.^[6] The A-Athi, however, as forerunners of much larger groups of cultivator-herders, faced different problems. During the prior decades of migration, both meat and honey hunters had begun to reserve specific areas for exclusive use. They had responded to mainstream incursions by developing the traditional curse into an instrument of group protection.

Once on the mountain, however, the pressures were intensified. Within a given ridgetop all the areas initially used for hunting and gathering were eventually coveted and claimed by herders and cultivators, themselves forced uphill by the continued exhaustion of both grass and soil. Inevitably, their very presence dispersed the game. Thereafter, as the forest was cleared to provide cropland, the habitat needed for honey disappeared as well. In consequence both hunting and honey A-Athi from every region of the mountain found themselves forced steadily uphill in turn, into regions that grew progressively colder, steeper, and less favorable to both beehives and game.

Initially, A-Athi councils of elders reacted to agricultural encroachments with the traditional patterns of communally chanted curses that had served them throughout the migration. Within the forest, however, these were frequently robbed of their effectiveness by the hunters' inability to learn whether men of the mainstream had penetrated their regions and where. Dispersed wildlife and empty beehives told no tales.

Nor were the Meru cultivator-herders always aware of their transgressions. They saw the forests as vast, unknown, "black," and endless. They could therefore pass through A-Athi hunting zones, or even cultivate them, without experiencing the anxiety and guilt required for the traditional cursing system to work.

The earlier system of chanted curses, therefore, was supplemented at some point in the 1700s by a second concept, probably springing from the traditional "ax, red earth, and firestick" used by Meru everywhere to mark their land. The firestick was also used in slightly different fashion by the Ogiek hunting peoples with whom the A-Athi may have been in contact. Hunters from this culture traditionally notched their firesticks in highly personal fashion and set them at intervals along traditional hunting trails in such a manner as to advertise the identity of each hunter.^[7]

Tradition suggests that the A-Athi adopted both concepts, reshaping their use of the traditional firesticks (Ndindi; sing.: Rurindi) to meet economic needs by intensifying the ritual associated with their use. Initially, A-Athi ritualists from several ridgetops gathered in a solemn Kiama. With great ceremony they selected several long sticks from the mwinkithia , a tree held sacred to the group. Unlike the traditional firesticks these were gradually hollowed out at one end, then sharpened at the other. The hollowed space was filled with black powder ("blow") or a grey ash created by burning a number of poisonous roots.

The opening was capped with feathers from the marabou stork, one of the largest and most aggressive of East Africa's carrion eaters. The meat-eating bird was intended to symbolize that the stick would "devour" those who angered it. Each stick was then carved with the markings of its Kiama, smeared with bright red ocher (clay) to enhance visibility, and communally cursed.^[8]

The curse was delivered in traditional fashion. Members of the council, having prepared the firesticks, moved several times around them, jointly chanting the words required to give them power. Thus empowered, the "Ndindi" were no longer simple firesticks. To the A-Athi they became "bones," empowered automatically to impose the hunters' curse on every person who passed by. Anyone catching sight of Ndindi, by definition, had penetrated an A-Athi hunting or honey zone, and their simple realization of this allowed the cursing sequence to begin.

This supplementary cursing system had several advantages over its predecessor, each of which served to alleviate the hunters' problems over the use of land. One was its service as a warning system, since even the thought of bypassing Ndindi kept cultivators and herders away. A second lay in the element of doubt engendered by the cursing process. The forests were vast, but neither herders nor cultivators could penetrate them at any point without fear of supernatural retribution. Consequently, contact between the two communities diminished steadily, an isolation wholly welcomed by the hunters.

The system's third advantage was its automatic nature. Since imposition of a curse was automatic, hunters had no further need to guard their zones, nor did they have to tour herding and farming communities proclaiming general curses on those who might have caused them harm. Instead, under the Ndindi system victims worked the curse upon themselves, their anxiety and guilt at seeing the sticks proving sufficient to induce whatever physical, mental, or social calamities they believed must follow. The onset of these, in turn, left victims with no choice but to voluntarily disclose their transgressions to the A-Athi themselves, because only their ritualists could remove a hunter's curse.

People of the mainstream, however, faced economic pressures of their own. Livestock could destroy a grassy glade, exhausting it for future use. Once cleared, the mountain soil was porous and could be leached by heavy rains. Too often it also wore out, leaving the users no choice but to seek new lands uphill. Inevitably, the core communities moved upward, nibbling constantly at the lower fringe of every A-Athi zone. Women sought firewood. Boys sought grass for their goats. Warriors took shelter from potential enemies. Ritualists searched for the plants and parts of animals that were required to activate their magic. Every incursion, no matter how unwitting or innocent, worked to disperse the wild game.

Wherever possible the hunters struck back, developing new applications of the cursing system to halt the upward flow. Where Ndindi sticks were ineffective, A-Athi communities intensified the concept, resorting to the creation of a stick they called "Nguchua" (claw).^[9]

The sticks of Nguchua were cut from the same sacred tree as the Ndindi. They were said to be eighteen inches long, one inch in diameter, and smeared with red ocher. Following much of the Ndindi ritual, the sticks were hollowed at one end, split at the other, then slowly heated on one side to make them curve into the shape of claws. They were then filled with the same types of powder or ash used in making Ndindi. The hole was blocked with the tail of a mongoose, then tied with cords made from a creeping tree vine.

The completed "claw" was activated in the same manner as Ndindi, with appropriate verbal incantations to empower it to curse. The Nguchua, however, were placed in the ground, claws up, before the huts of those known to have offended the A-Athi. Members of the hunting Kiama then circled the offender's homestead, chanting, for example: "Those who eat [the food of] A-Athi, let them now die." Thus warned, the intended victims discovered the "claw" and reacted appropriately,

developing physical symptoms that led to isolation by their own community and the need to seek out the A-Athi for reconciliation.

In more serious instances, however, entire agricultural and herding communities were propelled by their own needs into outright defiance of an A-Athi ban. Ridgetop traditions record dozens of instances in which whole clans fled upward into the forest, seeking shelter from locusts, drought, raiders, or exhausted soil. Communities placed in these circumstances usually tried to buy the goodwill of local hunting bands by giving gifts. If angered, however, A-Athi frequently responded with their most potent malediction, the ritual of kallai (gazelle).

"Gazelle" appears to have been an intensification of the practice of "claw." Instead of placing a stick before the homesteads of offenders, however, the entire A-Athi hunting band circled an offending cluster of homesteads, its leading members carrying the corpse of a freshly killed gazelle. The animal had been disemboweled, then hollowed out in the same fashion as the Ndindi and Nguchua to become a "stick" of flesh. The hollow was filled with the traditional magic powders, composed in this instance of ash from a newly cremated hyena cub, colobus monkey, and keiea , a parasitical vine that grew upon the hunters' sacred tree.^[10]

While circling, the entire group chanted the curse in unison, thereby ritually intensifying its power. In theory the entire mainstream village then either sickened or reconciled with the hunters by giving gifts until the A-Athi ritualists decided to remove the curse.

At some point, however, the A-Athi added a new element to the rituals of curse removal. Unlike the rites used by curse removers of the Meru mainstream, A-Athi rituals of removal began not only to "lift" a communal curse but also to create additional conditions intended to prevent recurrence of the violation that induced it. This was achieved by imposing a "kinship clause" upon the transgressor. In Meru terms this meant that to complete the rituals of removal an A-Athi curse remover created a wholly artificial condition of kinship between the victim and every member of the hunters' Kiama concerned. In essence, an individual man of the mainstream, whether cultivator or herder, was forced to become the "brother" of every hunter in the region, as they all became "brothers" to him.

In theory the creation of such a relationship provided the basis for future harmony between cursers and victim, thereby neutralizing whatever hostility had been aroused by the initial conflict. In practice the oath of kinship bound each victim to the hunters' Kiama so that future submission to its authority was ensured.

Although permitted to remain a cultivator or herdsman, the victim of a hunter's curse was required to submit all future conflicts to the elders of an A-Athi Kiama (to the Kiama of his "kin") for resolution, rather than the council of elders that governed his ridgetop. At a more practical level, this also meant the contribution of livestock to the hunting Kiama's feasts. Because A-Athi taboos forbade consumption of either milk or meat from domestic livestock, the animals thus delivered were approximately renamed, the bulls becoming magara (an old word for buffalo) and goats, nkurungu , or bushbuck. Evasion of these obligations, or additional transgressions against A-Athi interests, led automatically to reimposition of the original curse, thereby reimposing the choice of further livestock levies as alternatives to calamity and threatened death.

However, the A-Athi system of supernatural manipulation continued to evolve along solely defensive lines. On one hand, each stage in its development, as with the system of the ironsmiths, reflected the efforts of a numerically insignificant ecological minority to protect their livelihoods from encroachers who sought however unintentionally to destroy it. On the other, the encroachers were kin, Meru who had entered a separate and often hostile ecological niche but with whom the hunters still shared common cultures, dialects, and ancestry. It does not seem surprising, therefore, that the smallest of the Meru fringe communities should have embraced the supernatural for protection against kin. Nor is it odd that the system that developed was designed first to neutralize and then incorporate transgressors rather than harm or kill them, despite the ferocity of the chanted curses themselves. By forcing cultivators to be kin, the curses made them subject to the A-Athi elders, thereby placing any violator in a position where no further transgressions could occur. At this stage in Meru history, therefore, the ultimate purpose of the dreaded "hunters' curse" was simply to impose a state of harmony upon those within the hunters' world.