Skip to main content

Featured

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...

Discordant voices within Me

From within me, dear Dad
I hear voices; clear, tense and discordant
One shouting knowledge and facts at any cost
Without pity, hate or love!

Another craving the golden world
Of power and glory, a cherishable gift
Wrapped in the velvet veil
Of blissful ignorance!

Yet another yearning for peace immeasurable
Toleration, moderation and accommodation
Beyond us, 'all laud'
With the romance of sweet longing!

Dad, what means this?
Which one is my true voice?
Which one speaks truth?
Which one is false and demonic?

Idiot, my dearest,
If to school you hadn't rushed
And swallowed up all the half-truths
Nature might have taught you - Anzigale
The meaning of voices within
They are what we are
A curious mix of competing oddities!

- Poem by Bearnerd Chahilu. 

Comments