The Magic of Kyamwilu Hill

Picture this: you are standing in the middle of a sloping road with a ball in your hand. All around you are beautiful green hills, and from your vantage point you have a clear view of the hilltops. Then you drop the ball. Naturally you would expect it to roll down the slope, obey the laws of gravity, but instead, it rolls in the opposite direction, slowly making its ascent up towards the hilltops. How would you explain this phenomenon to others who haven’t visited the Kyamwilu Hill?  

The Kyamwilu Hill is located in Machakos District, within Machakos County in Eastern Kenya. It has for years inspired myths because it defeats Isaac Newton’s laws of gravity.  And in case you have heard of it by another name, it is also known as Kituluni Hill. The area is characterized by car incidents in free gear rolling uphill as well as water that flows uphill when poured onto the road. While many have racked their brains for a logical explanation for this occurrence, the Akamba community who have known Machakos as home for well over a century have a story that explains the mystery of the Kituluni – Kyamwilu Hill.  

Long ago, the Hill was called Kyaume, an Akamba word that means, “the place of men”. The name was coined after two men who once lived in the area. The first was called Kyalo and the other Mwilu. As neighbours, the two men became friends, that is until they fell in love with the same woman. Neither was willing to give up the lady (she must have been someone special), and so they both agreed to marry her and became co-husbands. The norms of the time supported polygamous marriages that were polygynous, but polyandrous cases such as this were completely unheard of.  

Still, the trio made their union work. One of the men lived at the top of the hill, and another at the bottom. The woman alternated the nights that she spent with her husbands and did her best to divide her time equally between the two. But this was never enough for Kyalo and Mwilu. Eventually, the two men died and were buried on their respective sides of the hill, and their widow returned to her home. The Akamba believe that even in death, the two men are locked in an eternal battle over their wife’s attention, thus destabilizing the natural flow of things. The hill in which they once lived was renamed to Kyamilu Hill – a fusion of the husband’s names – in honour of their undying love for their wife. 

As for the Hill’s unique phenomenon, science attributes it to an optical illusion. Researchers believe that the layout of the surrounding land creates a visual deception that the land is sloping uphill, when it is in fact sloping downhill. This is why a ball appears to roll uphill, and even why tourists visiting the region have claimed that jogging uphill at Kyamwilu is much easier than jogging downhill! This is stuff that can’t be made up, and while gravity hills have been witnessed in different countries around the world, #OnlyInKenya is there a hadithi ya mapenzi tied to the uniqueness of the location. 

Have you visited Kyamwilu Hill before? Do you believe either of the two explanations?  

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