Aiimu beliefs.
As has been previously demonstrated the part played by the ancestral spirits in the life of the A-Kamba is intensely real, and further research has brought to light several points worthy of notice. As was before described, at the foot of each Mumbo, a sacred fig tree which is supposed to be inhabited by spirits, there is a small clearing, a shrine in fact, where offerings of food are place; this food is known to be eaten by birds, rats, etc., but it is believed that the Aiimu are pleased at this, but a human being dare not eat of any such offering as it is believed that he and his live-stock would die; in some parts of the country it is laid down that he must not enter the sacred grove wantonly out of mere curiosity, neither must he go thither alone but always in company with one or more. If he was to go there alone he would be fined a bull or five goats by the elders.
In Ibeti district it is stated that a should a man unwittingly enter a sacred grove he would hear voices ordering him to retire from the vicinity, stones would also fall all around him but would not hit him; he would then realise that he had offended the Aiimu and would return to his village, and standing outside would announce that he had been chased away by the spirits and ask for Moyo. A goat would be killed and the contents of the stomach smeared over his face, hands and feet, and only after this lustration could he rejoin his fellows.
Now this mysterious stone throwing is a very curious belief; it is said to occur all over India to intruders who trespass in the vicinity of sacred groves, and a curious case was recently related to the author of a European in this country who built a house under a sacred tree and was constantly annoyed at night by mysterious stone throwing on the roof – but this enquiry would lead us into the occult world, and it is not desired to lure the reader into the region of psychic phenomena.
At times it is said that the sacred place glows like fire – Mwaki it is called. Should a man passing the place approach it to investigate, the fire however disappears. Children are told by their parents never to mention having seen this fire or if they do they will die.
If Mumbo trees are not found in any part of the country the Aiimu haunt a prominent rock or rocky hill; there is a rocky hill in the bush West of Kibwezi said to be haunted by Aiimu; it is surrounded by the densest bush traversed by tracks difficult to find; it is said that if a man penetrates this belt of bush and reaches the hill he will hear voices all round him and the usual noises of a kraal – lowing of cattle, etc.; when he turns to leave he will not be able to find the track by which he has entered, and will wander round and round till he dies, and his spirit will then join the colony of Aiimu on the hill.E
Ethnology of A-Kamba and other East African tribes, by Charles William Hobley (1910)