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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...

MOON 05/09/2015 (Traditions)


The time was between sleep.


The only tradition I know of is that I exist. Coming and going seems to be a tradition. But that is from a complex perspective. What happens in between is the tradition maybe. Like to marry- the event we were in attendance. 

As the cold blew, far in the Eastern horizon there was an embryo. The sun was at its conception stage. How marvelous. Scientists say it is fixed and ever blowing. But I saw it young in age, move like a toddler, gaining shine and later it could not be seen by naked eyes.

I climbed on a shrubby tree to get the best picture of it. Each step I made on the road my eyes were sideways looking for the rising sun. From violet to Yellow to less yellow to sunny. The horizon clouds outsmarted it. It was weak to melt them. And I wonder why such glimpses aren’t in Nairobi. The altitude?

As my eyes complained of sleep, old women danced to kilumi. I had no words for them but to think of life as a comedy- enjoy or die. They still clung to dear life when I think of it as vanity. They look forward to more children when I think we are many. They are hopeful and contended with their dry smallness of land- they are good.

When the event was taking too long, the sun was at its horizon. People from the groom side- my uncle- who had spent the night there cooking for people who are attending, as the tradition requires- were taking too long to solicit back what they spent. The camera could not host more power.

On the way back, the sun was greeting bye to the eyes that were looking at it. As it was in the morning, so it was in the evening. A yellow turned violet upper part of the circle was fading away in the hill on the West horizon. I saw it as a relief. There was hope that the moon will take its position before it welcomed the sun back in resurrection. I breathed in the wind and forgot my pains though my phone had lost in the ceremony.

As I looked back for the second night to see the heavens again, the bug in me had died and I waited for the late moon show. I woke up in the night a midst sleep to greet its face with a camera.

 Oh what a beauty!

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