ABSTRACT
This chapter concerns a sequence of ritual activity, observed among the Iraqw, which has the advantage of being complex enough to pose some intriguing problems of interpretation. It describes the sequence of acts as they could have been observed by someone with no knowledge of the language of the Iraqw. When author entered the herd had already been driven out to pasture by one of Ako Slama's grandsons, but a red bull, which was still able to hobble about despite a broken foreleg, remained inside the house. While the woman was engaged in this task two men from nearby homesteads arrived and they and Ako Slama's sons managed, with some difficulty, to get the bull off its feet and onto the ground. The chapter examines why the bull was smothered to death instead of being killed by thrust of a spear or by having a knife drawn across its throat, the methods most commonly used by East African peoples.
