The Kariokor Crematorium in Nairobi on October 4, 2011. PHOTO | NATION MEDIA GROUP
At the National Museums of Kenya are pot-sherds, beads and burnt
human bones in one of Kenya’s oldest crematoriums – known by
archaeologists as the Njoro River Cave site.
As debate
kicks off once again on cremation – following revelations that
politician Kenneth Matiba’s would be cremated – unknown to many, Kenya
has one of the oldest crematoriums in East Africa, dating back more than
3,000 years.
The remains, preserved in boxes, were
excavated in April 1938 by Louis Leakey, a promoter of the study of
human origins, having been discovered by Mrs Nellie Grant, the mother of
famous writer Elspeth Huxley, the author of TheFlame Trees of Thika.
“Going
by the evidence at Njoro River Cave, cremation is an old practice in
Africa,” says Dr Purity Kiura, a research scientist at the museums.
“We
also have burial sites in northern Kenya, which also point to the
beginning of burial practices rather than discarding of bodies. The best
known is the Namoritunga site on the western side of Lake Turkana.”
DISCOVERY
But it is the cremation at Njoro that has always astounded researchers.
But it is the cremation at Njoro that has always astounded researchers.
“Njoro was an interesting site in the history of cremation in Kenya,” Dr Kiura says.
When
it was excavated, Dr Leakey with his wife, Mary, removed the remains of
74 individuals cremated and buried with their beads, pots, baskets and
one wooden vessel, now housed at the museum in Nairobi.
While Dr Leakey had at first thought that the remains belonged to some “Mesopotamians”, and he told The Times
as much, he would later discover that what he thought was evidence of
opal mining in Africa turned out to be beads at a cremation site by
local inhabitants.
The site became of interest to archaeologists.
Apart
from the stone bowls, the presence of pestles and mortars did suggest
that the crematorium existed during a time when people knew how to
ground grain.
CUSTOM
Before the discovery of the Njoro River Cave site, it was always thought that burnt human remains at some sites were accidental and not an ancient burial custom.
Before the discovery of the Njoro River Cave site, it was always thought that burnt human remains at some sites were accidental and not an ancient burial custom.
Other smaller crematoriums were discovered at the Keringet and Egerton caves.
In their book Excavations at the Njoro River Cave, Mary
and Dr Leakey say the excavation yielded at least 42 males, 21 females
and 11 individuals “too poorly preserved to make a sex determination”.
“Of
the males whose age can be estimated, 15 out of 34 never reached even
early middle age, while 20 never reached full middle age. Only one
reached an advanced age,” the two wrote after studying the remains.
While
no cremation sites have been found during the iron-age, cremations in
modern-day Kenya were associated more with the arrival of Hindus during
the building of the Uganda Railway.
It was the Mombasa
Hindu Union, founded in 1899 – when the railway reached Nairobi – that
build the first crematorium in Mombasa in 1904, near the Shivalaya
Temple, to serve the Hindus, Jains and Sikhs.
It also served others who chose to cremate the dead rather than bury them.
KARIOKOR
In the interior, other crematoriums were set in Nakuru and Nairobi in 1907.
In the interior, other crematoriums were set in Nakuru and Nairobi in 1907.
The Kariokor Crematorium was opened in 1933 and remains the best known in Kenya.
In
1967, there was debate in Parliament seeking the removal of Kariokor
“from an African area”, with Butere MP Martin Shikuku arguing that the
smell of “the smoke from dead Indians” was offensive to residents.
But
then Parklands MP F.R.S. De Souza told him off, saying that cremation
was the “cleanest and healthiest way of getting rid of the dead”.
POLITICIANS
In 1974, Attorney-General Charles Njonjo also sparked debate in Parliament when he suggested that the dead “should either be cremated or thrown to the hyenas”.
In 1974, Attorney-General Charles Njonjo also sparked debate in Parliament when he suggested that the dead “should either be cremated or thrown to the hyenas”.
The first high-ranking Kenyan to be
cremated was Cabinet minister Bruce Mackenzie, who for many years was
Jomo Kenyatta’s minister for Agriculture. He was cremated in 1978.
The bodies of former Cabinet minister Peter Habenga Okondo and Nobel laureate Wangari Maathai were cremated at Kariokor.
In
2002, the cremation of Mary Kuria, the wife of Archbishop Manasses
Kuria of the Anglican Church, caused uproar within the church.
“We do it because it is Christian,” said Bishop Kuria, whose body was also cremated.
When she died in 2011, Prof Maathai was cremated, in what is catching up to be a tradition in Kenya.
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