The ritualistic nuances of Efumbo: The Mystical Bukusu Drum

Abstract

Communities in Western Kenya have over time used drums and drumming for education, emotional expression, aesthetics, communication, symbolic validation, condemnation, information, therapeutic, and religious rituals, contributing to the continuity and stability of culture. However, critical aspects of traditions and rituals around the drums are likely to be lost due to a lack of sufficient documentation and the dwindling social institutions for which they were initially known (such as traditional circumcision ceremonies). This article investigated the ritualistic nuances associated with Efumbo ‘the mystical Bukusu drum’. The article argues that there is a rich cultural expression of the rituals of the Bukusu manifested through the drum tradition. As such, Efumbo in the Bukusu community is played in various functions such as circumcision, weddings, funerals, invoking spirits of barrenness, and prayer sessions when a spirit possesses one. The documentation of Efumbo and the traditions associated with it will improve and preserve the creative and cultural   works of the drummers, drum makers, and allied.