The Kaya as sacred centre

In being regarded by Giriama as absolute centre, dependent on no other places nor even requiring that elders live and work within it, the Kaya is clearly seen as an intrinsic source of ritual power as well as providing its elders with legitimacy in their handling of crises affecting the Giriama people as a whole. The Kaya is also regarded as the ultimate reference of their customs and identity. Yet, at the same time, the Giriama have a legend (shared by other Mijikenda peoples) of having migrated to the Kenya coastal hinterland from an original area, Singwaya, in Somalia, and of having had previous Kayas (see Spear 1981: 37 and passim, and Morton 1977 and Walsh 1987 for a critique and summary of the debate on Mijikenda origins). These two claims to autochthony need not be contradictory, for, in their migration southwards from Singwaya in the sixteenth century, the Giriama, and other Mijikenda groups said to come from there, apparently carried with them protective magic called fingo. These objects, which for each Mijikenda group may have been either a large stone, as among the Giriama, or a large pot of medicines, were buried right at the centre of each Kaya as it was settled by the new arrivals.