Kit-Mikayi in Kenya

About 29km west of the town of Kisumu in Western Kenya, Kit-Mikayi is a rock formation known as a tor around 120 meters high. About 1km from the Kisumu-Bondo road, the sign board is on the gate of Kit-Mikayi primary school and access comes via the N’gop-Ngeso main road. In Dholuo, the Luo language, Kit-Mikayi is “the stone of the first woman’s,” or “the stone of the first wife’s.” According to legend, the Seme people and other Luo ethnic groups living around Kit Mikayi Shrine are blessed with good fortune.

Thought in the East Seme neighborhood, Kit-Mikaya is a safari location home to young advocate Barack Gumba, the professional Public Health Officer.

Kenyan Kit-Mikayi

Long ago, an old man by the name of Ngeso was in great love with the stone; every day he would walk into the caves inside the stone and remain there the entire day. In that even he could compel his wife to bring him breakfast and lunch every day. The stone of the first wife (Kit Mikayi) so the elderly man got passionate in love to the extent that whenever people asked his wife her whereabouts she would respond that has gone to the first wife (Mikayi).

Then the shape of the unique stone is the Kenya safari structure which represents the Luo cultural polygamous family which had the first wife’s house (Mikayi) built further in between on the right hand side was the second wife’s house (Nyachira); while the third wife’s house (Reru) was built on the hand side of the homestead.

At the same time the rock is seen to have a nuclear family where the father (Ngeso) is the middle stone followed by the bulky Mikayi (first wife), then Nyachira (second wife), then Reru (third wife) and further in front they have the child which represents Simba, which is the house for the first born boy in the homestead. For many years, the people have revered this stone as a holy safari spot to pray during difficult times.

Currently for the generations, the community has relied on the shrine as a sacred site, where visitors on a Kenya safari visit and commune with the Deity, but although the element is now threatened by the various factors like the declining frequency of its enactment, aging bearers and practitioners, and encroachment onto the surrounding cultural spaces.

The site is connected with the sacrifice and many legends from Pre-Christian times especially stories explaining the meaning of the name; Kit-Mikayi is a regional point of sightseeing interest especially among the neighboring Luo tribes; it also has become a popular local pilgrimage site for the Legio Maria sect who come to the rock to pray and fast for the several weeks at a time, once the locals living around the stones known as the Luo-Kakella clan.