The Talai clan wielded great spiritual power over the Kipsigis. They were considered to be diviners and ritual healers with mystical powers.
One thing that bothered the colonial establishment was whether they truly had these powers or they manipulated their subjects psychologically to live in fear.
Superintendent EK Laws, who was working as a police officer in Kenya before moving to Fiji where he became the Commissioner of Fijian Police recalled one incident.
A man in Kisumu was arrested on suspicion of breaking a safe and taken to Kisumu prison where he met a Talai laibon who was serving a sentence for unlawful possession of a gun which had been found buried under the floor of his hut.
Just before the man left prison after being acquitted, a confrontation ensued between him and this Talai man. According to the man, the Talai Laibon ordered him to get him some tobacco to chew, something that the man refused to do.
The Talai became so annoyed and told him: "You may have been acquitted in this case, but you have not escaped. Some trouble is waiting for you at home."
As soon as the man arrived home from prison, he was hit by a mysterious illness. After many weeks of suffering, he was escorted by his relatives to Assistant Superintendent Laws, to whom he narrated the source of predicaments.
Asst. Laws wrote:
"An African arrived in a semi-demented state with some of his relatives and a letter from his employer. He is evidently subject to periodical fits, and his lower limbs get paralysed at intervals. A few abrasions on his body and the look in his eyes bore witness to the fact that there was something wrong with him, whether physically or mentally, I could not tell. When he had calmed down, he was asked what the trouble was. He told his story simply. He had been acquitted on a charge of safe-breaking at Kisumu. When in gaol there, he met a Laibon who cursed him."
The man and his friends and relatives wanted Asst. Superintendent Laws to fetch the Talai Laibon from Kisumu prison so that he could heal him by rubbing his saliva on his shoulder. Failure to do this, the so-called bewitched man would die.
It was shortly after this incident and many others that the Laibons Removal Ordinances No.32 of 1934) was passed by the Legislative Council. The Talai were rounded up in the Kipsigis country and taken to Gwassi in the Luo country on the shores of Lake Victoria, where they were restricted. While there, they were restricted from carrying arms, holding meetings and moving without permits.
The accusation against them were that they had instilled too much fear among the Kipsigis, they hindered the work of the Native Authorities, and they promoted crime by giving protective charms to criminals.
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