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Chahilu’s Funeral; Logooli Culture in action

Guuga Chahilu was respectfully laid to rest at his home on Saturday 14th June 2025. Having passed on at Mbale Referral Hospital on 31st May 2025, the two weeks leading to his burial were full of cultural discussions. His passing on is a great loss to the Logooli Language and Culture Family as he was a custodian and informer of Luhya Indigenous Knowledge. An observation as to how the funeral proceeded leads us to revist Logooli traditions amidst modern realities.  One, having left the house alive and now coming back in state, Chahilu was to be taken inside the house, placed muihiilu for a moment and then officially taken out in wait for earth burial. His casket was able to enter the doors. There are cases where the dead would find it difficult to be taken in and then out due to an oversized casket or thin door. A man or a lady of his house who died out of home has to be taken in the house for a last ritual mark. But if the person had died inside, he or she would not be brought bac...
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Must we trade both on the dying and the dead, Dr?

We do not have enough money to help us get our sleeping boy from Kenyatta Hospital Morgue. They are debting us Ksh 400,000 and more. It increased today. If we pay about 75%, they say that they will allow us take him out- but some of us will part with identification cards.

I am not writing this so that we contribute some money. That is indirect thievery.

My father works for a company in Industrial Area. His NHIF medical card can not be accepted in hospitals away from that which his company is registered with. He has no enough to knock the offices of leading insurance firms. He got sick and we had it tough. Can't there be systems to make sure that the average man lives  a better life? If he gets sick in the rural sides and the hospital has no branch there we have to ferry him.

Back to our boy. His father is one of my friends;guard whose salary is a matter of the arrow roots and vegetables he grows on the small land in the primary school.To him the cash is but a dream and wonders how. But he cannot throw away his child- his tradition does not allow. He must see to a way that he will have the money if it means slicing a piece of his rural small share.

Something is wrong here. Can't the society itself see to such? Must the doctors be paid, must he lose a share, must the morgue attendants refill their perfume bottles? Must we pay to get the body of our own? Must a human pinch another? Oh, wait. We are still evolving.

Picture Source: Gado.

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