Kikuyu

(map)

Mwenendega was a handsome youth, but he was from a very poor family. One day, when he went to a river near his home, he met a beautiful girl, fair as the moon, timid and modest, with a halo like a rainbow around her head. After exchanging greetings, he asked her where her home is.

"I have no father, no mother, and no place to stay," she answered.

"Then would you come with me and be my wife?"

The girl consented with pleasure, but she added, "There is one essential condition: During all our life, you must never ask me about my father, my mother, or my country of origin." Mwenendega agreed to this condition.

They returned to the boy's village and were married a few days later. Many years passed in peace and mutual love, and the couple had seven children. The time came for the first-born to go through the rites of circumcision. Here is what happened at that event. When the rites were nearing the end, Mwenendega said to his wife, "Darling, I have never seen your father or mother. What has prevented them from coming to see their grandchildren? It would be nice if they could have taken part in this family feast."

Then the trouble began! The young lady turned frantic when she heard those words. She bounced from the ground and fell heavily back to earth, making a hole seven miles deep. Stones, trees, mud, and rubble shot into the air. She shouted in an awful cry, "Father, mother, and all my kinfolk! Children of Mboto, come out." At that, the old spirits came in great number from the top of Mt. Kenya, carrying goats, cattle, food, and beer. There was a long, loud horn blast, followed by the heavy beating of a drum. Thunder and lightning filled the country, and a frightful hail storm covered the ground with hail stones. As the people sought shelter in huts and caves, the old spirits poured beer on the earth, and the country was quickly turned into a lake. The old spirits went straight to Mwenendega's house. They surrounded him and carried him, his wife, and his children to the top of Mt. Kenya and buried them there.

When people make a sacrifice now, they turn to Mount Kenya and look at the white spot there, lest a misfortune happen to them as it did to those others, long, long ago.

Roger D. Abrahams, African Folktales (New York: Pantheon, 1983), 336-338.