Myths and legends that surround prophet Elijah Masinde’s life

By Amos Kareithi

Heavens have no wrath like a prophet defied and when the spurned prophet also happens to be a politician, the results can be catastrophic as happened to one shopkeeper.

Awed residents punctuate the myths and the legends around one such prophet, Elijah Masinde, with anecdotes as a former follower, Enos Simiyu recalls. " I was near the shop when Elijah pointed at a shopkeeper and shouted that by the end of some showers which were about to start, he would be no more."

At the time sun was shining brightly at Maeni trading centre just a short distance from Kimilili town but the heavens suddenly opened and rain came.

The ill-fated man, Moses Sangura then rolled about three times in his shop and by the time the rains subsided, he was dead, according to Simiyu, a boda boda operator, who hails from the area. The incident occurred in 1986 and remains engraved in the mind of Simiyu, a former staunch follower of one of Kenya’s most controversial sect, Dini Ya Msambwa.

Although Simiyu has since converted to Christianity he, like thousands of other adherents in western Kenya and beyond still recall Elijah with awe. Such is the reverence and fear that the name evokes that many idolise him and throng his final resting place for special prayers every year.

Household name

The prophet, popularly known, as Elijah to distinguish him from Masinde Muliro the politician, is a household name and credited with a string of prophesies like the triumph of Kenyans against the colonialists.

To the followers of Dini Ya Msambwa, Elijah was like his biblical namesake, who prophesied and could foretell the future. To the scholars, he is an enigma, an embodiment of myths entwined with facts and fantasy that it is almost impossible to tear them apart.

It is estimated that Elijah was born between 1909 and 1911, although Vincent Simiyu, author of Elijah Masinde, explains the icon was born during the Khaoya (rinderpest epidemic) that marked the end of Kolongolo age set of 1900-1910.

Elijah’s father, Mwasame belonged to the Bachuma age group that was circumcised between 1872-1886. His mother Wabomba Mwasame was the first of the three wives, and originated from Omukhana Mumeme clan known for producing prophets. Little also is known of his early education although Prof A Wiper in her book, Rural Rebels: A study of Two Protest Movements in Kenya claim Masinde went to Kima from 1925 to 1931.

Agemates recall Elijah was circumcised in 1928, at a time when the Uganda Railway was being constructed in Bungoma, automatically placing him to the Machengo age group. Four years into manhood, he married his first wife Sara Nanyama, at the Friends African Mission (Quakers), although he would later marry a Ugandan, Rebecca. He later expanded his matrimony, holy and African, to six wives who bore him 27 children. Elijah’s rise to fame was not through his matrimonial exploits but from his soccer playing mastery that earned him a permanent place in the first team of Kimilili. It is from soccer that a myth evolved about how Elijah had used magic to send a ball to heaven, after kicking it up, never to be seen.

Though this myth is repeated as folklore all over western Kenya and beyond, Elijah fuelled it by declining to explain. Simiyu, in his book traces the genesis of the myth to a day the ball went missing after it was given to his (Simiyu’s) brother, Wanyama, then six years to play with it. When he was later asked by the soccer players where the ball was, he said he had kicked it so high that it had failed to return.

Dini Ya Msambwa

Despite the deflated ball being found hidden in a cooking pot, a story was weaved of how Elijah, then captain of Bukusu FC had performed the feat. Around this time Elijah started mobilising close friends such as Khasoya, Walukuke and Walumoli to secret meetings, culminating with the formation Dini Ya Msambwa. Elijah abandoned soccer in 1942.

Elijah took it upon himself and the sect to enforce strict moral adherence, at times assaulting women perceived to be indecently dressed, or working in bars. This earned him the first brush with the law although he would later spend more than three quarters (30 years) of his life in jail for various offences, including assaulting women and provincial administrations. Elijah’s son, Wafula, recalls how his father was working in 1937 as a Native Tribunal Process Server, arresting people and attaching their property when he resigned.

Wafula adds," He accosted the DC at Kabuchai African court shouting that he was not going to be government servant anymore, hurled his uniform at the local DO proclaiming he had seen a vision." There are contradicting explanations of who between Elijah and Walumoli actually owns the vision of reviving the Bukusu traditional way of worship, and rallying the people to chase out the white man.

Although some as the founder of the Dini Ya Msambwa regards Walumoli, Elijah was its undisputed leader and was persecuted by the colonial authorities for it. In 1955, DC C J Denton warned that Elijah posed a greater threat to law and order than Mau Mau, which had started a rebellion in central Kenya. In 1944, Masinde literally took on the colonialists by attacking a chief in Kimilili; he was jailed on February 14 after he refused to execute a bond of Sh500 to keep the peace after being found guilty of assault.

The colonial authorities certified him insane and locked him up at Mathari Mental Hospital for two years. Wafula, one of his sons talks of years of hardship the family endured while his father was in custody to a point his siblings had to drop out of school due to lack of school fees

Upon his release, Elijah intensified his attacks against the colonialists and was forced to go underground when the Government hunted him over a number of cases.

He was, however, betrayed by Omari Kuchikhi, who was privy to the hiding place, in the hope that he would be appointed a village headman.

Deported

Elijah prophesied that Kuchikhi would never secure the job he thirsted, proclaiming that he was destined to live off skins. He later eked out a living from selling hides at Chesamisi. On February 16, 1948, Elijah was arrested alongside four of his colleagues and charged with sedition and being a member of Dini Ya Msambwa.

He was deported to Lamu alongside Walumoli, and Wekuke, and their sect declared illegal while members were arrested and prosecuted. As Elijah languished in custody, Dini Ya Msambwa flourished, and linked with other organisations fighting for freedom, spread to West Pokot where 300 followers were jailed for 900 years.

Elijah was released on May 12 1960 after nationalists Jaramogi Oginga, Masinde Muliro, Tom Mboya and others pressured the colonial Government for the release of political detainees. Upon his release, he joined Kanu, a move which caused him problems with other area politicians among them Masinde Muliro, who belonged to Kenya African Democratitc Union (Kadu).

Politicians sympathetic to Kadu disowned Elijah and his religion during a meeting held in Kimilili in 1962, demanding that the sect and its leaders be expelled from Elgon Nyanza. Although Kenyatta’s Kanu regime tolerated Elijah and Dini Ya Msambwa for a time during which it was registered as a society, on May 16, 1964. But the marriage did not last long after Elijah lambasted the Government for not chasing settlers from their land.

Traditional ways

Apparently he took Dini Ya Msambwa’s license to promote traditional ways of worship too far in 1968, when he stormed Sisi Kwa Sisi bar and assaulted a bar maid, accusing her of introducing prostitution in Kimilili. On October 24, 1968, barely four years after its registration, his sect was banned by the very Kanu Government, which Elijah and his followers had fought so hard for.

In the meantime the followers spent most of their time fighting off criminal charges or fundraising for fines imposed on Elijah and hundreds of other followers who were always in and out of prison.

It is while serving his last stint at Kodiaga Prison at around 1986 that Elijah developed health problems that persisted long after he had been released. The ailing Elijah predicted his own death, and showed his son Wafula the exact place he would be buried.

"As I was taking him to the hospital in Lugulu in 1987, he pointed at a big kumwirurusia tree situated a distance from his house and declared that was where his grave would be." When he finally died on June 8,1987, the elders and followers of Dini Ya Msambwa amended his dying wish, and dug his grave in his compound.

"When the grave diggers started they unburied a human skeleton. This was strange, as no relative had been buried there. This was warning that my father’s wish had to be followed," Wafula adds. Twenty-four years after his death, the grave in which he was buried in a sitting position has become a shrine. Namanya, 93, keeps vigil from her mud-walled hut a few metres away. Every June thousands of pilgrims of the Dini Ya Msambwa faith pay homage to the shrine where they feast and pray facing Mt Elgon in remembrance of their ancestors and their ways of life.