Skip to main content

Featured

Posted by

The struggle with many a rigid Logooli cultural practices

  The Logooli community is one of the deeply cultured societies – with near everything supposed to have been done as per custom – to allow another custom to follow. One example is that for a mature man (with a child or more) to be buried, there must be a house structure at home. Another is that a boy must be circumcised and nursed in father land. If maternal family decides to, the boy will have a hard time reconnecting with father people - a dent on his masculinity. There were two children who got burnt to death in a house in Nairobi. The single mother had left for night work. Elders were told that one of the children was Logooli. The other, the woman had sired with someone else. The Logooli family wanted to burry their little one and long discussed the do’s and don’ts. Of a man who died childless and the grave was placed as if he had died as a man with children. It should have been dug on the sides, the grave. A real thorn should have been thrust in his buttocks, his name go...
Post a Comment
Read more
Posted by

Marara were the beddings from Banana trees. Have a look.


Bananas are precious in my community. What does a woman cook for in-laws for breakfast and eat to be proud of her? What does a grandmother give to quick grandsons? What makes a home a home?

We have a saying that kirie kinyare ketegerwaa rikora- that let it eat to satisfaction and in the end it will be trapped by a banana string. Banana string is such a delicate one that can be cut off with least strength. However an expert will dip it in water and with great marksmanship knit a strong string that a goat can trapped in. It was what we fetched to when we ran to the forests for firewood. Strong strings prevents one from cutting off the barks of young trees. 

A treasure comes with some amount of superstition. Banana farms are fertile because of  house sweeps waste- for houses are mud plastered. Plants that find their way in banana plantation grow healthy. Peppers are such plants. Weeds are often avoided and only medicinal plants left to grow. Healthy leaves prevent undergrowths and the land is always stree free. So, when you encroach to steal, the owner can speak a few obscenes on the rotting stem and leave it to decay away. It is believed that as the stem fade away, the thief will die of rotting legs and a bloated stomach. Sometimes the thieves are very wise and it may take days for the owner to notice. But how can the owner fail to notice when all the time since its fruitful stage he has been checking and supporting with fidles against falls?

Ceremonies are planned and waited for with bananas. You haven't seen my mother refure to cut the ready banana simply because dad hasn't yet arrived for December holidays. If it happens that rowdy winds blow a banana down, the expert famer will look at it closely and support it till its mature. Take a walk and see nature at work.

To cut a banana with an axe is a taboo. Use a panga. Let a man cut for you- a woman may hurt herself in the longrun. It also needs an input of strength that it may not fall to split some precious bananas. Men have that. 

It does not end with eating and going to the bushes. Cows are served the stem with a limited condition that too much of it is bad. The leaves are made into zingata for carrying water and firewood on their heads. The buds that get removed to hasten maturity are used in making lids for jericans. Dried leaves can be good mulching materials but importantly they acted as our mattress on the floor- sleep used to come in triplets.

And when a visitor is served with the precious plate, you are a daughter of soil. Long live you. May you sire daughters that will do same in a foreign land. 

Comments

Post a Comment