#ngai

[viniciusgrcia]

" I've lost hope, can you find me hope?"

Lost and Found by Lee Chi-Ngai (1996)

[kemetic-dreams]

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Bites you

[futuremaasai-blog]

Stories and Beliefs of Maasai

Religion

The Maasai believe in a god called Engai, Enkai or Ngai, who is considered the creator of everything. This god gave people the grass, soil and cattle, making them sacred for the Maasai people. For them the soil is holy and they don’t want to spoil it. Due to that, when someone dies, they do not bury them.

The god does not have a gender and comes in two forms: the black god (Ngai Narok), who was benevolent; and the red god (Ngai Na-nyokie), who was vengeful.

Maasai people believe that at birth, Ngai gives each man a guardian spirit to ward off danger and carry him away at the moment of death. The evil are carried off to a desert, while the good go to a land of rich pastures and many cattle after death.

The Massai’s religious leader is called a Laibon and has authority over matters of religion, ritual and medicine. He is believed to have the power to vex, heal and prophesies. Despite having no political power it is by his authority that wars may be waged.

Cultural believes

The warrior (see pictures) is of a great pride of the Maasai culture. The role of the warrior is to protect their animals from human and animal predators, to build kraals (Maasai homes) and to provide security to their families. 

The agesystem is highly respected and is honoured with many ceremonies. There are three special ceremonies for the boys: a ceremony when the boy gets circumcised, when he becomes a warrior (Eunoto) and when he becomes an elder (Olng’eshere)

At the age of 14, girls are initiated into adulthood through an official circumcision ceremony known as Emorata. Presently, the female circumcision ritual is outlawed in Kenya and its use is diminishing from the Maasai culture. Young Maasai girls are still taught other functional role like how to build houses, make beadwork, cook and clean their homes, by their mothers and older women. When they come of age, their parents choose a warrior from a respectable clan as an appropriate husband for their daughter.

[kemetic-dreams]

Traditionally, as now, the Kikuyu were monotheists, believing in a unique and omnipotent God whom they called Ngai (also spelled Mogai or Mungai). The word, if not the notion, came from the Maasai word Enkai, and was borrowed by both the Kikuyu and Kamba. God is also known as Mungu, Murungu, or Mulungu (a variant of a word meaning God which is found as far south as the Zambesi of Zambia), and is sometimes given the title Mwathani or Mwathi (the greatest ruler), which comes from the word gwatha, meaning to rule or reign with authority.

   Ngai is the creator and giver of all things, 'the Divider of the Universe and Lord of Nature'. He gave birth to the human community, created the first Kikuyu communities, and provided them with all the resources necessary for life: land, rain, plants and animals.

   He - for Ngai is male - cannot be seen, but is manifest in the sun, moon, stars, comets and meteors, thunder and lighting, rain, in rainbows and in the great fig trees (mugumo or mugumu) that served as places of worship and sacrifice, and which marked the spot at Mukurue wa Gathanga where Gikuyu and Mumbi - the ancestors of the Kikuyu in the oral legend - first settled.

   Yet Ngai is not the distant God that we know in the West. He had human characteristics, and although some say that he lives in the sky or in the clouds, they also say that he comes to earth from time to time to inspect it, bestow blessings and mete out punishment. When he comes he rests on Mount Kenya and four other sacred mountains. Thunder is interpreted to be the movement of God, and lightning is God's weapon by means of which he clears the way when moving from one sacred place to another.

   Other people believed that Ngai's abode was on Mount Kenya, or else 'beyond' its peaks. Ngai, says one legend, made the mountain his resting place while on an inspection tour of earth. He then took the first man, Gikuyu, to the top to point out the beauty of the land he was giving him

[kemetic-dreams]

Religious Belief The Akamba believe in a monotheistic, invisible and transcendental God, Ngai or Mulungu, who lives up in the sky (yayayani or ituni). Another venerable name for God is Asa (the strong Lord or the Father). He is also known as Ngai Mumbi (God the creator, fashioner or maker), na Mwatuangi (God the 'distributor' or 'cleaver', from the human act of slicing meat with a knife or splitting wood with an axe), and Mlungu ('creator'), which is the name most commonly used in East Africa for the creator God, and exists as far south as the Zambesi of Zambia. Ngai or Mlungu is perceived as the omnipotent Creator of life on earth, Protector and as a merciful, if distant, entity. The Kamba say that God does to them only what is good, so they have no reason to complain. He protects people, and is known as both 'the God of comfort' and 'the Rain Giver' (rain is sometimes called the 'saliva of God', and for this reason to spit on something (such as a child) is a symbol of great blessing). At planting time, the Kamba ask God to bless their seeds and their work on the fields, and as a God of consolation and sustenance, He intervenes when human help is slow or ineffective. The Kamba consider the heavens and the earth to be the Father's 'equal-sized bowls': they are his property both by creation and rights of ownership; and they contain his belongings, including livestock, which he lowered from the sky and gave (perhaps 'lent' is more correct) to the Kamba. The traditional Akamba perceive the spirits (kiimu) and spirits of their departed ones, the Aimu or Maimu, as the intercessors between themselves and Ngai Mulungu. They are remembered in family rituals and offerings / libations at individual altars. Spirits (Kiimu): It is said that some spirits were created as such by God, whilst others were once human beings: the spirits of deceased ancestors, who are also known as the 'living-dead'. God controls them and sometimes sends them as his messengers. Some are friendly and benevolent, others are malevolent, but the majority are 'neutral' or both 'good and evil', like human beings. Nonetheless, in traditional life, families are careful to make libation of beer (uki), milk or water, and to give bits of food to the living-dead, in order to appease the ones that may wish to do harm to the living.

Some diviners and medicine-men receive instruction through dreams or appearance of the spirits and the living-dead, concerning diagnosis, treatment and prevention of diseases, although when healing comes, it is often attributed to God, even if medical agents (or spirits) may have played a part in the healing process. After recovery from a serious illness, the Kamba say 'Ah, if it were not for God's help, I/he would be dead by now!'.Spirit possession by both the spirits and the living-dead is commonly reported, though less now than in previous years. Around the turn of this century, there was an 'outbreak' of spirit possession in the southern part of the country, when the phenomenon 'swept through the communities like an epidemic'. It is believed that some women have spirit 'husbands' who cause them to become pregnant.A considerable number of people still report seeing spirits and the living-dead, both alone as individuals and in groups with other men or women. They are usually spotted along hillsides or in river beds. In such places, their lights are seen at night, their cattle heard mooing or their children crying. Mbiti, the great African traditional religious scholar mentions two such experiences, as recounted by two pastor friends of his:"One of them was walking home from school with a fellow schoolboy in the evening. They had to cross a stream, on the other side of which was a hill. As they approached this stream, they saw lights on the hill in front of them, where otherwise nobody lived. My friend asked his companion what that was, and he told him not to fear but that it was a fire from the spirits. They had to go on the side of the hill, and my friend was getting frightened. His companion told him that he had seen such fires before, and that both of them had only to sing Christian hymns and there would be no danger to them. So they walked on singing, and as they went by the hill, the spirits began tossing stones at them. Some of the stones went rolling up to where the two boys were walking, but did not hit them.   As the young men were leaving this hill, they saw a fire round which were shadowy figures which my friend's companion told him were the spirits themselves.   Some of the spirits were striking others with whips and asking them, 'Why did you not hit those boys?', 'Why did you not hit them?' The two young men could hear some of the spirits crying from the beating which they received, but did not hear what reason they gave for not hitting the boys with stones."He cited another example:"The other pastor told me that when he was about twenty, he went with several other young men into a forest to collect honey from the bark of a withered tree. The honey was made by small insects which do not sting, and which are found in different parts of the country. The place was far away from the villages. When they reached the tree, he climbed up in order to cut open the barks and the trunk of the tree. While up on the tree, he suddenly heard whistling as if from shepherds and herdsmen. He stopped hitting the tree. The group listened in silence. They heard clearly the whistling and the sound of cattle, sheep and goats, coming from the forest towards where they were collecting honey. The sound and voice grew louder as the spirits drew nearer, and the young men realized that soon the spirits would reach them. Since people do not graze animals in forests but only in plains, and since the place was too far from the villages for men to drive cattle through here, the young men decided that only the spirits could possibly be approaching them. They looked in the direction from which the sound came, but saw nobody, yet whatever made that sound was getting nearer and nearer to them. So the men decided to abandon their honey and flee for their lives. They never returned to that area again."Sacrifice: The Kamba make sacrifices on great occasions, such as at the rites of passage, planting time, before crops ripen, at the harvest of the first fruits, at the ceremony of purifying a village after an epidemic, and most of all when the rains fail or delay. They use oxen, sheep or goats of one colour, and in the case of severe drought they formerly sacrificed a child which they buried alive in a shrine.The shrines themselves are unobtrusive, traditionally being forest clearings containing either a large or otherwise sacred tree (such as the fig tree), or other notable natural objects, such as unusually smooth or polished bounders. The trees may not be cut down, and the shrines are regarded as a sanctuary for animals and humans alike (including criminals, if they dare enter them - the fear of reprisal from spirits is great). The idea is similar to the sacred kayas of the Mijikenda, and the sacred groves of the Embu and Mbeere.

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"Stupid shit"

-Ngai

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