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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...

Day -O! Day Light come and me wanna go home.

Stuck Banana Till Morning, Come Mr, Tally me banana, Six foot seven foot eight foot bunch! A beautiful bunch, a ripe banana! Hide the Deadly Insect. Me say Day O. Me say! Me say! Me say!

Lately I watched a clip where Mozambiques regarded cotton growing as the Mother of Poverty. Kenyan Kikuyu woman said how they could come and build houses just before theirs as if they never existed. Day O song, a Jamaican worksong, talking of their banana – cotton in Other countries-came into the picture.
Like any other sweet new song in preference to one’s likes, it triggers emotional feelings- we are beings of emotions. The better the triggered emotions the better the understanding. I settled on what life was during the opressive time or what is life now to the oppressed?

I may not say that we are living in better days for there are wars and human sufferering everyday in the news whose causative factors are generally speared by human’s rush to accumulate resources. We may think that we are living in better times as we propagate simple present day fouls as tribalism, corruption and gender inequality that may be an issue of discussion as slavery come the future of emancipation. As we are unfair to our sisters and brothers from other places so the future will treat us as the collaborative kings and betrayers.

And to understand it better by the Jamaicans from West Africa they sung this song repeatedly with a refraining soloist and respondents, though oblivious never to be heard long before William Wilberforce and his men sounded emancipated enough to do away with slavery. The agony, suffering, detachment and unfairness could not be explained better. Day light never came and Rum was all that could make it appear the next hour.

Talliban, the tally man in industial places in Africa continues to work against the will of the people by making it hard to afford sugar till they go to the industries. He decides to hike the prices. He is in the form of a boss- a politician, a father, a church leader, a donor and all the wrong people in the right offices. They never listen to music, afraid to feel and abuse love.

The song, by Harry Belafonte is one of the cultural triggers to the pidgin reggae rennaisance spirit. In Reggae we feel the agony of oppression and the spirit of self-rule. The oppressor was the colonizing man. Today’s opressor is none but my brother and in extension my distant cousin. Hide the deadly black Aphid!

Day-O ! Day light come and me wanna go home!

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