Rain is on the horizon in semi-arid Tharaka county, and traditional spiritual leaders, seed savers and farmers are gathered at Mathendu sacred shrine under a fig tree on the shores of Kithino River.
They come to seek divine favours and guidance from the spiritual world ahead of the planting season. Barefoot, they brave the semi-arid midday heat on a dusty path that leads to the shrine.
Gitonga Chabale, dressed in an attire made from goat skin and cattle hide and armed with a calabash containing a cocktail of different indigenous seeds, herbs, honey and milk, lead the ritual, which includes addressing the gods of his ancestors and spraying the content of his calabash around the shrine.
“This is where we commune with our ancestors, bond as a community as we share knowledge, values and traditions,” Chabale says as he prepares for the prayer ritual, which must be done facing Mount Kenya.
“It is also here that we decide on what to plant in every season based on shared wisdom and indigenous knowledge from elders in attendance and experiences from different farmers and seed savers.”
After the prayers, the entire team retreats back to a hall specifically built for this purpose, where they sing and dance to different tunes praising the ancestors and seeking their favours.
It is at this point that seed savers will announce the type of seeds each of them has conserved for the past couple of seasons, explaining why they think their seeds should or should not be considered for this particular season.
“The main aim of this sacred agricultural movement is to revive our culture, traditional foods, restore our environment back to where it was during the times of our ancestors and decolonise our food systems,” Simon Mitambo says.
Mitambo is an Earth Jurisprudence Practitioner who introduced the cultural and spiritual agricultural movement that is now embraced by 175 households in Tharaka Nithi.
Earth Jurisprudence is a philosophical worldview that views human governance and legal systems within the perspective of natural systems.
It all started in 2013, after Mitambo’s visit to Latin America and some parts of Africa, where he witnessed communities adapting climate change and improving their food security simply by abandoning what he refers to as ‘colonial agriculture’ to embrace traditional farming techniques.
The techniques include agroecology and permaculture, which are friendly to the environment and the entire biodiversity.
A report by the International Institute for Environment and Development shows that indigenous food systems are critical for achieving Zero Hunger and other Sustainable Development Goals.
