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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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Izava Walk : A river of Inzara

Izava River must have been named after a swamp. The name of a swamp is kizava. This swamp was largely not full of water always but in rainy season. There is none called Zava who can be recalled to have lived. When you ask people around what Izava means they don't know yet they call their valley bottom muzava - ( in-Zava). It is where a rough road from Lusui descends to rise to Senende.

A man fenced his farm down to the river preventing both animals and intruders like me from spying and spoiling the young trees he'd planted. Asking him whether it was noble to encroach, he said 'inzara'. To mean hunger or poverty. 

He bought his land in 1971. He had sold two of his cows at 400 each. While in Nairobi he'd saved and for a total of 3000/- he was presently owning 1.6ha. Up he farmed and down he grew trees. During rainy season the whole of his valley is inaccessible. The trees have however managed to kill reeds.

They'd buried two school going children recently who drowned. A cyclist carried three on the motorbike. Because it had rained and the motorbike falsed heavy to resist the overflow,  the chap had motored in only to save one. The rest wailed away. On dawning, they were found a distance further taken hold by stunks. Their parents must have wept great.

And why didn't you destroy the bridge? I asked. It is the only way they may fix it. You'd not have burried the kids before something was done. More lives shall be lost. He listened to say that since 71 he was still regarded as an outsider by the neighborhood. Aren't they also migrations too? Or because they spoke real Tiriki?

People have closed all water ways and directed water to the roads and paths. There remains no water speed control  means cause even the swaps are vandalised. If rain found you down there it'd take least time to drown.

He showed where the first road used to be. By the tree  in somebody's compound. How over time the road got crooked is the ignorance of the concerned authorities. Road Ways, the great sung about buses used pass there heading to Seremi and Nairobi. Now a lorry couldn't manage. The place is erodedly steep.

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