Much as it pains me, my friend, I have to admit that this is merely a tiny tip of the iceberg.

Things are much worse than this.

The Kirinyagan and his/her obsession with land throws out Christianity, Education, Riches, Poverty, and common sense out the window the moment matters land come up.

This, coupled with spontaneity that was the MaSuspects' defense at the Place That Does Not Belong To Our Mothers, has been the death of many an innocent victim all over Kirinyaga.

One of the reasons that Her Excellency Waiguru won the "erections" was that the sane among the Kirinyagans were of the opinion that a rank outsider would come in and help get rid of this rank stupidity.

Apparently, she has much to accomplish and the obstacles in her way are awesome.

In the mean time, more will die from spontaneity founded on "witchcraft" "devil worship"; "Illuminati"; the whole nine yards before sanity ever reigns in my beloved Kirinyaga County.

@masukuma, did you get an answer to these legal questions ama we can cherry-pick the lwas as we like ?

You must not eat the blood of any creature, because the life of every creature is its blood; anyone who eats it must be cut off.”

Thanks @mahegoat. There is a hustle that keeps me on the road most of the times and I don't get to visit wazua as frequently as before. Tell me more about the land issues. I am almost concluding a one acre transaction in Sagana. Any hostility towards "outsiders" ?

Do NOT conclude the transaction until you have made the Nyumba Kumi Chairman belch with more roast beef than he can eat and drunk with "real" beer.

He will give you the 411 on the local "witch" the head of the resident"Illuminati", and the neighborhood "devil worshiper".

Most important of all, he will introduce you to real head of the local boda boda sacco.

The boda boda gangs are the enforcers in rural Kirinyaga and even law enforcement officers handle them with extreme care.

He will give you the land history of the piece of land you are about to buy and who would be opposed to your conclusion of the purchase.

Among those opposing are the third son, the second daughter, the first wife who was "chased" away by the seller, and the illegitimate son and her mother who have been "cultivating" the plot you are about to buy.

All these will have connections with the Boda Boda gangs who can organize "spontaneity" at the drop of few "real" beers or even panties\bikers.

In land purchase in Kirinyaga, there is the officially recognized due diligence.

Then there is the "real" due diligence among the folk you will live among.

Do both.

That is unless the Nyumba Kumi Chair has interests on the land. In that case, your goose is cooked.

This is why i refuse to believe that gene mapping project that was telling us there is no connection between race and brain capacity. We seem to have a majority of Africans with awfully under-developed brains.

Witchcraft in Europe

Long before religions based on a belief in one god, such as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, became the dominant religions of the world, most cultures believed in more than one god, or were polytheistic. At the center of this ancient belief system was the idea that the world is controlled by powers that are both visible and invisible, and people relied on magic—the use of means believed to have supernatural power over natural forces—to understand and control their environment. In an ancient community one or two people possessed the wisdom and skill to work magic, which involved making potions and casting spells to bring about certain effects or events. They predicted the future, gave advice, and interpreted the will of unknown spiritual forces. They concocted herb remedies for pain and disease, assisted in the birthing of children, and were relied upon for success in hunting and growing crops.

People with these special skills, which were considered sacred, were granted a high moral and social status. Most were women, but many men also possessed the knowledge to alter events through supernatural and natural means. Nevertheless women were believed to have a direct connection with unseen forces through their ability to bear children and thus influence the continuity of life.

During ancient times a distinction was made between sorcerers and witches. Both were considered to have the power to influence events through the use of magic, but sorcerers were feared more than witches. Acting in malevolent and spiteful ways, sorcerers performed what was called "black magic." On the other hand, witches used "white magic" for the benefit of their communities. They were regarded as valuable and necessary members of society up until the beginning of the Middle Ages. The distinction between sorcerers and witches was finally erased by the Christian movement, which equated any form of magical practice with Satanism and evil.

As Christianity (a religion founded by Jesus of Nazareth, also called the Christ) became the prevalent religion in Europe, ancient traditions were increasingly pushed toward the fringes of society. At the beginning of the transition period, however, there was minimal conflict between Christians and those who continued traditional practices. In fact, traditional practices were often combined with Christian rituals (religious ceremonies). The first converts to Christianity were people who belonged to the upper classes and the nobility. Thus being a Christian became a sign of high social and political status. Peasants and members of the lower class, known as "pagans" (from the ancient Latin word for peasant or country dweller), were generally left to practice their versions of the old religion as long as they posed no threat to the church and ruling class. Over time non–Christian beliefs came to be called "paganism" by the Christians.

Between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries Christians came to see paganism as a major threat to the church. By this time the positive and honorable aspects of the old religions had been redefined to appear both destructive and evil. Ironically, witches who were once instrumental in guaranteeing continued fertility, good health, and plentiful harvests were suddenly held responsible for sterility, disease, infant mortality, famine, and blight. One reason for this shift was that the monotheism (belief in one god) of Christianity was in direct opposition to the old notion of multiple gods and natural forces at work in a mysterious universe (polytheism). The nature–based pagan approach to life was displaced by rigid allegiance to the one all–knowing God and the one "true" religion, Christianity. Now the focus was on life after death—the Christian concept of heaven (paradise) and hell (eternal suffering)—rather than human existence on Earth. Church leaders declared that any form of worship or spiritual power other than Christianity was related to the devil. This narrow view allowed little room for pagan beliefs and the mysterious healing practices of witches. Since the church could not dismiss the fact that healers held some authentic power in pagan communities, Christian officials simply declared that witches were doing the devil's work. In other words, the Christians reasoned that if healers were not receiving their power from the church, they must be getting it from the devil, who used them to commit evil. This was also a time in history when people believed that humans were on Earth to suffer for God. Anyone who could relieve suffering was thought to be working against the will of God and collaborating with evil forces. Witches were thus anti–Christian and therefore needed to be destroyed.

The witch craze was also fueled by serious social, economic, and political changes taking place across Europe. For instance, the bubonic plague, a widespread contagious disease that raged for about twenty years beginning in 1334, killed nearly three-fourths of the populations of Europe and Asia. In addition, a large percentage of men had died in wars, leaving more women than men in many European countries. There was also a high infant death rate. At the same time, women were increasingly being viewed with suspicion for their role in childbearing and for the mysterious functions of their bodies. Many rural healers and witches were unmarried women or widows who did not seem to fit into society, and church leaders became suspicious of the power they wielded in their communities.

The Pagan Horned God Becomes the Devil
One of the main deities (gods) found throughout the pre–Christian world was the horned god. Known as the god of hunting, fertility, luck, and winter time (when hunting was the primary means of survival), he was referred to by many names, such as Pan, Dionyssus, or Bachus, to name a few. Various cultures worshiped this god through ceremonies in which antlers or horns were worn by participants prior to major hunting expeditions. Relics from and drawings of the ceremonies have been found all over the world, with the common factor always being the existence of horns from the main herding animals of the region. Many historians and archaeologists believe that Christianity took the symbols of the old religion and altered their meaning forever by creating the image of the devil. The replica of the old horned god was given the added characteristic wings of the fallen angel, or the devil, and other elements relating to the Christian belief in heaven and hell. Christianity in essence stole the horned god, who had symbolized positive aspects of humanity's relationship with nature, and made it into the very representation of evil on Earth and the greatest enemy known to God. Ironically, witches did not even believe in the devil but they became closely and fatally associated with it through their connection to the old religion.

Malleus Maleficarum triggers horrors
As the result of mass production made possible by the printing press, the second-best-selling book in Europe for more than two centuries was the Malleus Maleficarum. This three-part work was the official handbook for detecting, capturing, trying, and executing witches. It was written in 1486 by Austrian priest Heinrich Kramer (also spelled Kraemer; 1430–1505) and German priest Jakob Sprenger (c. 1436–1495) at the request of Pope Innocent VIII. An especially frightening impact of the Malleus was that it united the church and the state, making horrific torture perfectly legal as a means of obtaining "confessions" from accused witches.

One of the most common means of torture was the stretching rack, a device that would slowly tear a person limb from limb as he or she was repeatedly commanded to confess to specific crimes. A similar tool was the strapado, which involved attaching weights to a victim's legs, then slowly lifting the person off the ground so that the legs would begin to tear out. Another method involved the victim being stripped naked and slowly cut in half by being dragged along a very tight rope. Some people were tied to stakes and placed near a fire that would very slowly "cook" them. Many others had their eyes gouged out or were beaten, raped, disemboweled (having ones internal organs cut out), dropped from high above the ground, or subjected to numerous devices created specially for the task. Also popular were "Spanish Boots," which were put on a victim's legs and could work in either of two ways: one used internal vices that would slowly crush the victim's legs, while the other involved pouring boiling water or oil into the "boots."

These methods were extremely efficient. People were brought close to death and promised relief if they confessed to the charges against them. Thousands gave in, no matter how fabricated or ridiculous the charges might have seemed, to save themselves from further torture. In turn, the "confessions" fanned mass hysteria, "proving" that the initial suspicions had been correct and creating an enemy out of innocent people. Officials in some regions used "tests" that pointed to the guilt of an accused person in various inevitable ways. One that was extremely popular in England (where torture was considered a crime) was the water test. The results were supposed to determine whether a person was indeed a witch—yet nobody could actually "pass" the test. It involved tying the accused person's arms and legs together, then throwing him or her into a body of water. If the victim sank, he or she was not a witch and would be dealt with by God accordingly in heaven. Since multilayered clothing was worn at the time, people quite often ended up floating because their clothes created pockets of air that forced them to remain at the surface of the water. Many "witches" were declared guilty by this method, then publicly burned at a stake in the center of town. Burning was considered another test, as well as the most severe form of punishment: it was thought that witches could survive fire because of their association with the devil. The prevalence of the fire test led to this era being called "The Burning Times."

Malleus becomes basis for laws
Another cruel aspect of the witch-hunts was that relatives of the accused were charged money for all manner of details involved in the trial of their loved ones. Not only did they pay the salary of the judge/torturer, they also bore the cost of food and lodging for the accused in prison. In addition, relatives were charged for the wood and straw used for kindling the execution fire, and they were billed for the lavish banquets typically held for officials before mass executions. In the case of accused people who had no relatives in the region, personal property was confiscated to pay the bills. The result was that many people lost their land, money, and lives while a few witch-hunters and judges accumulated wealth with every successful trial.

Records from specific regions help illuminate the full magnitude of these events. The most horrific and extreme measures were taken in Germany. At the start of the seventeenth century the ruling prince of western Germany established a huge team of prosecutors and torturers equipped with special buildings and devices made specifically for torture. In the city of Bamberg, for instance, officials burned nine hundred witches in the first half of the century alone. Three hundred of the victims were under the age of four. In the village of Langendorf all but two women were arrested as witches. Two other German villages were left with only one female inhabitant each. Records show that in nearby Alsace, a province in France, a total of five thousand people were burned during the witch-hunts.

England had its moments of severity as well, particularly after 1604, when King James I (1566–1625) passed a law that officially prohibited pacts with the devil. James stated publicly that out of every twenty-one witches, twenty were women, thus contributing to a focus on women as targets. In one case, after a particularly severe winter the Bishop of Treves executed the inhabitants of an entire village because he could not determine who was a witch.

It is difficult to establish the number of people who were killed in the anti-witch campaign because many died in jails from torture and starvation and were not recorded in official execution counts. Estimates based on compilations of regional figures throughout Europe range anywhere from 100,000 to 9,000,000. The majority of those killed were not necessarily followers of the old religions but Christian men, women, and children who had been wrongfully accused. On average, 80 percent of the accused were women and 85 percent of those actually executed were women.

Although there were some vocal opponents of the witch craze throughout Europe, very few survived their own outspokenness. Most were considered guilty by association and were virtually powerless against the enormity of the campaign. By the end of the seventeenth century, however, two factors brought the persecutions to a halt. First, officials were running out of victims: so many people had been killed that entire regional populations had been altered. The high number of executions began raising concerns about the need to slow down. In response to the atrocities in Bamberg and other areas of Germany, Ferdinand II (1578–1637), the Holy Roman Emperor, issued a decree to stop the killings. Other officials slowed down the mechanisms of the campaign as they began to realize it was no longer necessary: in a sense, the war had been won and it was not particularly profitable to carry on the hunt. Another factor that helped grind the machine to a halt was a new European ideology (system of beliefs about the individual's place in society) that envisioned a more rational and ordered universe.