In a recent article, we told you why it was a taboo for any person including a child to die inside the hut in the Gikuyu traditional culture.
This was, however, not the only taboo that was associated with the hut or what we today call a house.
In the real sense, there were over 40 taboos that were associated with the hut in the Gikuyu culture.
Breaking any of these taboos was so serious that it needed a purification ritual in order to cleanse the breaker(s) of any particular taboo.
Because of the severity and emotional burden of breaking any of the taboos, behaviour among the members of the community was controlled.
For instance, small children were not allowed to swing with the door of a hut as it was equivalent to wishing their parent's death.
Also, a man could not close a hut's door at any particular time, save for the wedding day.
However, here we focus on why it was a taboo (thahu) for a lizard to fall into the fireplace in a hut. To many, this may look like a simple thing that should easily be swept under the carpet or ignored, but among the traditional Kikuyus, it wasn't.
According to the Gikuyu Centre for Cultural Studies (GCCS), the remedy for this taboo was for the entire hut to be demolished and a new one built. Quite serious. Isn't it?
But there was a serious reasoning behind the seemingly drastic move as GCCS explains.
"The fact that a lizard had found its way into the grass thatch was evidence that there were so many insects in the grass as to attract the lizards, so the argument went; and if there were insects, it meant that the smoke was not curing the grass enough to keep away insects and thus the grass must be rotting.
"Such a roof could not be trusted and had to be demolished at once before it fell on the occupants resulting in a greater tragedy," GCCS documents.
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