By Ogova Ondego
Published August 1, 2023
More than 100 people across Kenya have registered to attend a public lecture on witchcraft on August 5, 2023.
The event by David Gian Maillu, the famous writer (novelist, poet, playwright, essayist), musician, actor, designer and model also includes a cultural tour, a visit to a 10-acre botanical garden and a shrine of African spirituality, shall be held at Mathemboni (Shrines) Arts Centre in Koola Village of Makueni County on the eastern part of Nairobi, Kenya’s capital.
Among those who have registered for the event are university lecturers, journalists, critics, religious leaders, historians, lawyers, politicians and lovers of culture and the arts.
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Hey, I have seven questions for you from my visit to Mathemboni to see how much progress has been made in the run-up to the event that is barely four days away from now. Please see if you can answer them as I picked them randomly during my just concluded visit:
1). Which seven European countries colonised Africa by 1900?
2). Which US President referred to African countries, including Haiti, as Shithole Countries?
3). What is a Botanical Garden?
4). What is the place of Nature in designing structures for human habitation?
5). What is the place and role of Spirituality in Africa?
6). WHO is the legendary Akamba healer and prophetess who predicted the coming of white people to Kenya and the construction of the Mombasa-Kisumu Railway line?
7). Who is Kenya’s Father of Popular Literature?
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The answers to all these questions are self-evident from the event in Makueni County on August 5.
Asked to explain why he intends to talk about witchcraft Maillu, who also doubles up as a painter, palmist, philosopher, theologian and politician, says it is because witchcraft, though useful, ‘has been gravely misunderstood since the British colonists gave it a bad name as primitive superstition’.
Whereas witchcraft is a universal subject, Maillu contends that the ‘black man has been so heavily associated with witchcraft to the extent of implying the black man is the genesis of witchcraft’.
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“The fact is that witchcraft is both real and integral to African cultures,” Maillu stresses. “Witchcraft is a household subject in Africa. Unfortunately, scholars have failed us by not researching on the
subject.”
“From my long scholarly research across Africa, I have come up with amazing revelations that I wish to share with society,” Maillu says. “The information I have unearthed is crucial for people involved in social matters and in community development. It is invaluable information for people interested in medicine and in the dimensions and depths of African cultures. The lecture is a move to debunk prejudices against the subject. I can say, without any single doubt, that you can’t understand what the psychology of the African is until you have understood what witchcraft is!”
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Mathemboni (shrines) Centre, Maillu’s home in Koola Village, is also home to The Centre for African Aesthetics, Neterian African Religion and African Comb Books, and boasts a book museum, a botanical garden and unique architecture that marries with nature.
For contributions of Sh5000 per head, participants shall get to attend the lecture, cultural tour and lunch. The contributions are sent to M-Pesa numbers 0729 505203 or 0707 810329.
Interested? Please call up David G Maillu on 0729 505203.
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