A translation by Jane Achieng.
The title of this post is in Luo and stands for Luo customs, beliefs and traditions.
I promised to write about some of the customs of my ancestors before the coming of the white man. Sadly most, if not all, of these are no longer practiced. The bigger tragedy is that as the generation of our grandparents die out, they are dying with the knowledge of our customs and traditions. Our tradition being mostly oral, it means there are hardly any records of the past. This present book does not give an explanation for the various customs. The author’s intent to was to note them down as he knew them or from the discussions with elders. It is not conclusive. It is however a good place to begin for students of anthropology.
I think the author would be very sad if he rose from his slumber today. In his preface he wrote
I have written this book as a collection of our beliefs, practices, customs and laws so that current generation and future generations will have access to them and may not lose them.
We have all but lost them.
It should not be believed that my ancestors were savage and that it is the colonialist who rescued us from savagery. On the contrary, let the record be clear that whereas the customs were different, these old women and men were not savages. They were a very organised lot.
It should be noted the Europeans first came to Kisumu in 1896 and went to war with people of Uyoma [my next door neighbours] in 1899. They raided cattle near Karachuonyo in 1904.
Having said the above, I will share a few things that I learnt from the book.
The largest geopolitical unit was chiefdom, headed by a chief. There was a standing force, clan elders, peacemaker, medicine man, chief warrior and so forth. A bastard, an unmarried man, one whose mother was not a Luo, people whose mothers were separated from their husbands were not eligible for leadership positions in the community. Whenever a matter affected the whole community, a national assembly was called. In attendance were the various clan elders.
Law regarding insult and lack of respect
A young person should not insult an elder person nor should he correct him openly. A young person should offer his chair to one older than him.
Law regarding homicide/ accidental killing
When one killed another unintentionally, there was no case. The elders required the person who killed to bury the dead and to stay for all the funeral ceremonies.
Laws which allowed one to kill
If one caught his wife with a lover, he was free to kill the lover, there was no case held against him. One was free to kill an enemy at war.
Law regarding sex and adultery
Sexually immoral persons were considered unfit to bring up children. Attempting to/ seducing someone’s wife was ground enough for battle.
Traditional courts
These included the tribunal, clan meetings and the national assembly.
Gods worshiped.
They believed god flowed in the human body. They did not know where God lived, that’s why they thought he lived in the human body.
There is a story that we are suffering today because some bride failed to heed instructions from God when she was told to go cut the ground once with a hoe and leave it there, for the land will dig itself. She didn’t do this. God was displeased and condemned us to dig till we sweat as the only condition for getting food.
Wars and the warriors.
It was forbidden to kill a person who had surrendered by climbing a tree, entering a house, carrying a baby or carrying soil or grass to take an oath. One should never kill a woman, a child or a traveller.
Oath taking and swearing
The Luo did not like taking oaths believing they retarded the development of homes.
Matters of the seasons and days of rest
If there was a death in the village during land preparation, the people rested; 4 days for a man and 3 days for a woman.
If a dead body was carried through the village, the people rested
The people rested after a cleansing ceremony.
Matters of marriage
When a father considered his son ready for marriage, he advised him to propose to a girl from a good family. There was a go-between. All information was passed through the go-between. The girl and boy each had a go-between. The son of the first wife was the first to marry.
The following were grounds for dissolution of marriage
- proof that wife was a food thief
- a witch or extremely lazy
a woman could leave the husband if
- he was a thief
- impotent
- a wizard
- interfered in the kitchen or served himself from the pot
Twins married at the same time and all that was done to the boy was done to the girl. The treatment was similar/ equal?
Mothers and their children.
If a mother had twins, the day the children were taken out, the village rested.
When a woman gave birth, she was given a baby sitter.
When a woman was 6 months pregnant, she got a tattoo.
Feeding children
The first food fed to the baby after delivery and even before breast-feeding was milk from a sheep.
Naming children
Children were named, and still are, according to time of birth, memorable events, a new proverb that has come into fashion, death of a great man and a big man passing through the country at the time of birth.
The death of an old man
If an old man died in the daytime, there would be no mourning till sunset. The wives stripped off their clothes in mourning. Everyone stripped; married sons, brothers, sisters, in laws. If the man didn’t respect his wife, she refused to strip. No one could strip if the woman hadn’t.
The third day after burial, was the day for community celebrations. People came from the community to celebrate. There were plays by each group. Everyone wore their best attire. The villagers brought the food to be eaten. This celebrations could go for a minimum of 4 days.
Some bad deaths
- death of a virgin woman
- a widow dies while still wearing the funeral dress
- a bride dies before she is confirmed
- a woman dies without giving birth
- death of a pregnant woman
- death of a person with abdominal swelling
- the death of a hunchback
- the death of a newly married man
- a man died leaving a pregnant wife
- a widow conceives whilst wearing the funeral dress
- a married man dies in his father’s house
Communal celebrations
As I have mentioned above, there were celebrations after a funeral.
Taking bhang
This was taken by senior boys in the boys’ simba. The elders took theirs in their huts. Bhang taking started in the middle of the morning till evening. These people loved their weed!
Playing the game of ajua
Pipe smoking
Playing hockey
The game of ndiga [Marksmanship]
Wrestling
Luo music-
Wooing or befriending girls
Here, I will note that sex before marriage was highly discouraged. It was not a burden to be a virgin. Boys who tried to solicit sex from girls before marriage would end up being beaten.
Luo brew.
I think almost everyone drank alcohol.
Playing the bassoon
Social status and leaders
The rich were well respected. They were seen as the backbone or strength of society. The poor were not liked. This is because it is the physically weak, lazy idlers and gossipers who do no work who became poor.
Counting.
It is sufficient to mention they knew how to count. Numbers which involve millions are incomprehensible.
The above summary is not comprehensive of the scope covered by the book but was intended to shine some light on the practices as they were before the coming of the Europeans.
If you have read up to this point, I think you will find the link below an interesting read.
The worst thing white colonialists did, apart from killing indigenous people, was export christianity.
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I think we agree.
Good morning my good friend?
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Still warm here in Gib. Too warm to do anything. Hence we need that two day week. 🙂
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I think I would do more in a 2 day week than I do in 5 day week
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I’m not sure of the truth of this, but i have read that aboriginal cultures did not have a word for “ownership.” It could be argued that introducing that idea was worse than Christianity.
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Among the Luo, that ship had sailed
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Except christianity is synonymous with ownership anyway. Of women and slaves and property and countries …
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I don’t think I can argue against that.
Christianity is about being owned. Everything belongs to god. Even your non existent souls.
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Add your time, your money (tithing), your life. Whether you look at the christianity of the bible or current church (any of them) practices, freedom doesn’t exist. Look at the feelings expressed by some of our deconvert blogging friends.
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Now that you mention it, when I read of their experiences, I think they had it worse than it was this side of the world, for me at least. One would think by living in the first world, such level of indoctrination would be rare. Seems I was wrong.
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Hmmm. America, the first world? I think we have strange definitions some time. I suppose first = rich therefore powerful. My definition would be very different.
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Someone somewhere convinced told the rest of us America is the first world. I think to get there one need only to be rich.
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I think I’ll stick with being not rich in Europe.
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Strangely, I don’t read similar stories from Europe. Could it be that I don’t interact a lot with Europeans or is this an American problem. Barry says nothing of the sort happens in NZ. JZ before he crossed seas says Aussies are not like the Americans we read their blogs or interact with
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I don’t see it in Europe. Didn’t in Aus or NZ either. Given that the Bad Brits colonised all three I don’t know what went wrong in that country. Maybe they rebelled too soon. Who knows?
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Maybe. I think they rebelled too soon
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Whatevs. Glad they aren’t part of the Commonwealth. Too embarrassing. Trump? Ugh.
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How do they justify Trump?
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Rich.
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In other unrelated news, I thought you may like this ->http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03qq1tc
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Well, yes. But if it’s true, can you imagine the oddity of having someone say “I own this (land),” when nothing in your entire lexicon (and therefore, reality) can explain it.
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I don’t understand some things people write in English, so yes I can easily imagine it. I suppose there is a difference between nomadic peoples and those who traditionally live in the same area without having so-called property rights. Communism in practice? But I suspect there would still have been some innate concept of ownership of some things. For example, Mak’s list above gives adultery as a legitimate reason for murder. That sounds awfully like ownership to me. ‘That’s MY woman. Hands off!’
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I think the found here referred to finding them having sex. People still kill their mates today for the same. Jealousy reigns supreme unabated. Talking of jealousy, a few weeks ago there was an unfortunate event here. A woman doused herself in paraffin because the husband was seeing another woman.
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Hmmm. I’d just take him for the money 🙂 £££££££
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Haha. I think the payment back then wasn’t attractive
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Henri Bergson had this to say on property (free translation):
—the origin of war is ownership, individual or collective; and as private property is inherent to man, war is natural – and thus, inevitable.— ‘
I wonder if you also agree with this statement. .-
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Hard to fault the logic, although many animals protect their land, their patch, so it’s not really unique to humans. In a world where resources are scarce, and populations have a tendency to expand, there will always be conflict. Nature tends to favour larger, stronger incissors than inter-group politeness.
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I agree with that statement.
I an convinced there will always be a war somewhere
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Bhang (Bhang lassi) in India is awesome.
I like the theodicy, although once again, its the poor woman who is blamed.
Any rules on who you could marry? In aboriginal nations (which were quite small) they had developed an astonishingly complex set of rules concerning who could marry whom according to genetic bloodline diversity. Seems they figured out interbreeding wasn’t healthy.
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From what I gather, interbreeding had been figured out. The only requirement I could figure out was they had to be from a good family.
Interesting thing about bhang is the different age groups used such moments to criticize any member of the set who was not behaving as expected. New songs could be created in these meetings.
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Bhang helps!
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Especially for the creative spirit, I hear. There should be a world wide move to decriminalize weed
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It’s already happening.
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Not as fast as I would like it
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Truly an informative read. Thanks, Mak.
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Anytime, my friend
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Fascinating.
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I am glad you find it so
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Thanks, Makagutu, I’d like to carry on with the reading.
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You are most welcome. If I can get a copy of the translation, I may just send it your way
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I’d enjoy that, thanks very much.
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A lot to unpack and think about.
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I am glad you think so
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Very interesting. The rule against killing women is good, but then there’s this:
“The following were grounds for dissolution of marriage
1.proof that wife was a food thief
2.a witch or extremely lazy
a woman could leave the husband if
1.he was a thief
2.impotent
3.a wizard
4.interfered in the kitchen or served himself from the pot”
I notice that being abusive is not on the list, so if you have an abusive spouse, it looks like the only recourse is to accuse them of being a witch/wizard. That’s a sure way to keep the belief in witches strong, if it’s the only way out of a bad marriage.
And the “men interfering in the kitchen” reminds me of a Korean custom I’ve been told of by my Korean sister-in-law. In Korean tradition, men are NOT allowed to do anything in the kitchen, they have to stay out. If a man asks a woman in his household to bring him food, she is required to do that. But if all she brings him is rice with kimchee, he is supposed to accept that, and not demand better food. Interesting balance.
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The belief in wizards/ witches is still prevalent. And this is despite the presence of Christianity.
I am finding more material and will see if there were any safeguards against abusive marriages.
The example of the woman refusing to strip when the husband died, if she wasn’t treated right does point to the expectation that men were to treat their wives well
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Sounds like they had a fine working system. Until the Europeans showed up. I know it’s already been said, but that invasive parasite religion, can be traced to the fall of many cultures.
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All these imported religions. Islam in the north and Christianity every where else
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