Secret rites that bring the rains

Vihiga is known for the Nganyi dynasty of rainmakers, recognised all over the country.

They can be found in a little village called Ebusali, 450 kilometers west of Nairobi through Kisumu.

They are believed to make and bring rain every year to prevent hunger.

When there was a prolonged drought in 1985, one rainmaker was brought all the way from the village to Nairobi by the Moi government, to make rain for the country threatened with starvation.

Kenyans believed that the rain, which came a few months later, was the work of the Luhya rainmakers.

Osore Nganyi, the fourth in a generation of rainmakers believes that the obuisiria (science) of making rain was bequeathed to Bunyore’s abachimba (rainmakers) by a woman they married from Banyala wa Ndombi in neighboring Kakamega.

“It is a science that we have tightly kept as a secret for generations,” he said.

He did however tell of three shrines, each standing on more than an acre of land, but politely refused to show where they are.

“Our ancestors there will strike you dead if you dare visit without a sacrificial lamb,” he explained.

But he did say that the shrines were home to the graves of successive rainmakers since the legendary Nganyi, who died in 1918.

“They were buried there in a sitting position and we have their pots before which we go for pleadings to make rain,” he said.

The process, he said, was sophisticated and was done in the dead of night, saying, “It is sacrilege to perform it during the day; the ancestors can strike you dead.”

The Nganyi goes before the shrines with manyasi (a herbal concoction) and makes a presentation known as okhwikangaya, meaning pleadings.

According the nearest translation from Kiluhya by the reigning Nganyi, the pleadings go thus;

“We come before you our ancestors, who created earth and the soil on it, you also made rain that waters our lives, may it please you and we plead in our humbleness to bring us rain to avert a catastrophe.”

This has to be said with the rainmaker’s back to the west and his eyes fixed on the east. According to the Nganyi, the pleadings and stay at the shrines could take from 11 pm to 4am the following morning.

Then, the pleadings bring a breeze and if it blows to the east, it portends good tidings of rain. But if it blows to the west, it means the ancestors have refused and the exercise must be repeated another day.

The Nyanyi said they plead for rain every January or February to ensure there is sufficient food for the country.