Contemporary Aesthetics of the Akurino: A Religion or a Cultural Movement?
Contemporary Aesthetics of the Akurino: A Religion or a Cultural Movement?

Summary/Abstract: This paper examines the aesthetics of the worship rituals, music, artifacts and theoral tradition of the Holy Ghost Church of East Africa, or Akurino religious sect, which is aunique blend of Christian religious practices and traditional African worship systems. Themain question here is whether the Akurino are a Christian religious sect or a cultural movement?The Akurino are significantly interesting due to the fact that they claim to be an indigenousAfrican Christian religion, among many such others. But the fact that they are mostlyfound in Central Kenya and the Rift Valley regions, and are confined among the Gikuyu peopleonly and have not attracted adherents from other segments of society, raises the questionas to whether they may not also be a cult or a cultural movement. The Akurino started appearingin the middle of the 1920s. They grew strictly out of indigenous leadership. Their firstgeneration membership came out of various missions as well as the unchurched populationthat followed Gikuyu traditional religion. The group was in its infancy and was functioning invarious parts of Gikuyu country, but had little influence with the general population, its appealbeing to such individuals as had been pronounced ‘sinners’ by missionaries, and to others whohad been cured of diseases.

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