A cleansing ceremony is set to be done at Kerugoya, Kirinyaga County after a huge Mugumo tree believed to be 200 years old fell between two residential houses.
The residents are gripped with fear and panic that a calamity might befall them given the sacred tree under which sacrifices are made rarely falls.
Although no one was injured during the incident, but, this was a major concern for the elders who believe the sacred tree had a message to pass to them.
“We know that when a Mugumo tree falls something unpleasant might happen,” said one of the residents Mercy Muthoni.
“What is so surprising is that none of the two houses was destroyed. The owners also escaped unhurt,” said Thomas Theuri.
So tensed were the residents that the elders called for an urgent meeting at the scene in which they resolved to perform a ritual the soonest possible to appease their gods to avoid bad things happening to them.
“The place where the tree stood might have been profaned and the spirits might be angry. To appease out god’s spirits, we must perform a cleansing ritual very soon,” said elder Mwangi wa Ndung’u.
The elders directed the residents not to interfere with the tree until the cleansing ceremony is performed. They asked the affected families not to use it as firewood or for any other function.
According to the Gikuyu culture, the elders are required to be secluded from the rest of the people for some time before they perform the ritual for purposes of observing purity.
The tree has been very useful to the residents in the past years given the fact that elders visited its severally to seek spiritual intervention especially during outbreaks of strange diseases or for rainfall.
However, its not the first case given in 2018 another tree fell in Uasin Gishu and allegedly rose up after some weeks sparking a heated debate among area residents.
In Murang’a county, another giant Mugumo tree was struck by lightning and immediately caught fire causing a lot of panic among the residents.