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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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Ruragori : Bunulu is not Vunuru

This is a third article on Lulogooli (ruragori). I was cycling down Eregi for the lack of adventure when I arrived at the centre. Bars, shops and groceries were on and I could get a cold banana. The road should have been tarmarked along ago that the many motorbikes on the route would only zoom noisily and not spew dust. Opposite, a butcher stood. Meat hung and choma roasted. 'Bunulu Butchery,' it read.

'Why have you named this butcher so?'
'What is wrong with the name?' Question for question.
'You mean you steal from people?'
'Ah, Bunulu means delicious!'
'Aaaa! I didn't know!'

What did I not know? I did not know that lwidaho is not ruragori. In fact we are wrongly put in 'luluhya' when the first white man tried to group us. Ruragori is a distant tongue with no 'Khwes' and khas' as the '17 luhya sub-tribes'. In harmonising, they wanted to put 'l' for 'r', 'b' for 'v'. We ended up mixing up our tongue. The present interactions make it worse. Unless we stand on both legs, we falling...

Bunulu is what we would term 'vunūru' to mean thuggery, robbery and theft. Written, we are asked to do so as on the butcher yet we do not speak that way!! But Idakos' are speakers and writers of the same. We therefore in our 'harmonising' get lost. 'vunūri' is a synonym. It is bad kunūra. You won't live kuhindira if you keep nunūra vandu.

Delicious in Lulogooli would go 'vonoru or vunoru.' Go to hell with 'bonolu or bunolu.' Something delicious is kenoru. At a party, vinoru (delicacies) are prepared. Hen is enoru as isindo. And to those who are initiates to curiosity know how munoru venus is. Maximum Sweetness, Mumias Sugar.

There is a challenge that a learned man needs to write and speak his language well without bringing in his own ideas. And those ideas are what but writing what the tongue says not? Let the tongue rule. The brain is its servant here.

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