[28/07 4:49 pm] Vwiraa vana viitu. My grandpa had 3 wives & lived with the youngest,when he died I noticed they removed ile mabati that's normally at the tip of his 1st wife's house,sijui yaitwaje.Wakaeka ingine mpya before putting him there.
Anyone who knows what that meant?
Also, he had indicated he wanted to be buried near the last wife's house but wazee insisted aekwe at his 1st wife's, is that Maragoli protocol ama?
[28/07 7:25 pm] Lung'afa: I am trying to make calls. I would want to know too. What I know is that kesegese is integral and symbolic. A man cannot build a house for himself. He builds for his family and the wife is the creator of this family. You would hear men who want to buy shambas and build palaces before marrying being corrected as a fallacy by elders. The first richness, property is a wife.
And when she came, she found you in Idisi, that house dads build on the right hand of the homestead. You only get from it when a wife is come, brothers are complaining of being squeezed or the wife wants her castle. A wife starts by cooking and doing all her chores with her mother in law. This can go on as long as they love each other. But because junior wives from junior brothers are being admitted, the wife challenges the man.
And the man, with two or three kids with the wife, cause you do not build a house for a woman you have not seen fruits rising from, asks the father for KUTUNGIRWA KISAARA. If dad died, a nearby elder kin can do it. The stick is from Rushiora plant. Then the rest is left to the guy, organising vikoongo, a process called KUTIINDA. If you have friends, the process was easy, singing going on and beer served.
The lady in charge on that day was somewhere on her way to her mother home, gone to bring a cock and a hen, inyambeva, flour in kihiinda and meat. This her people gave her in prayer that she goes KUHIINDIRA as a wife. Rukari RUMUHUL'LI. As she arrives home, she finds only a few things remaining....kesegese and ridoshi. The man had done his job. It is the mother to the husband who puts the first ridoshi and later the house is fought on by women in great chatter. As the wife and man look, or as one cooks there and another gives Kiju, kesegese is put. It is not their bussiness to put it, a MUSIZA does it. They just in their doings feels heartily glad for the moment.
And in weaning her, the mother in law yaanzarara maanda to her fireplace. The best person to make a fire for this house is one's elder sister. She has the right to even cook for you this first meal. She makes the three sacred stones for you. Now a man would not wait for the ridoshi to dry...there is warmth for him every night...and the children have their Idisi.
It would come that as days go the wife would be less committed to the man or things of that nature that a man sought a second or third who would be weaned by this first wife to their new houses. Harmony was key. This harmony would end at death...as the man goes to Hades. If a wife died it was easy...not in grief but in ways the family was affected. Kids were taken by other wives or relatives but a man's death meant the wives were in dark. A stable wife would mind raising her kids. It took great challenge because elder sons were asked to 'maintain' later wives. When there was no harmony or sons too small, mukari yaaharariraa. She would go back at her maternal home and forever bemoan. If she was aged, Mwandu would come in. But the guy coming in had to give Eng'ombe yo rogoke. Cleansing ritual that is.
Death affects no other wife than the first one. The last would be 'loved' more but the first wife was loved first and she 'loved long'. She grew to became a friend, a sister, a mother to the man. Marry ten wives but people would point to the grave of the first wife. Waamutaziiza wokutanga.
To the question above, a house without kesegese means it was done by woman resources, a man who is not yet settled or married, a divorced wife, a house that has no MAN. Like I am ready to house a man. Now the reason I think a new kesegese was put was to rekindle the first love that was in death. Him suggesting to be with the third wife in death could indicate a 'cold love' with the first. It had to be lit for them to meet in the spiritual world in harmony.
.............
With pleasure at,
saniaga.blogspot.com
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