It is my pleasure to write about the experiences and general findings came upon during Saniaga Oral Genealogy Search, a spontaneous exercise that aims to have a deeper understanding of births, migrations and lives of vaSaniaga. It has been a rewarding exercise, informative and unmatched to the facilitation efforts to only access the elders who do not task for their willing dispositions.
At the start, blind but hopeful to the task ahead, I designed a questionnaire that captured all the main questions to ask, through the generations. With 8 generations a questionnaire, two A4 papers in print, back to back. I would learn that I needed more notes area. Each questionnaire is individually beautiful, with increased scribbles on the sides and anywhere there happened to be space. All about the stories accompanying the names in the blanks. Information that informed articles to several of the interviews with many others to be furthered on before writing in compilation.
For many of the elders, only a few had we earlier stoke acquintance. The rest were as new to me as I was to them. That did not affect the information nor the activity missed on credence when we talked. One Belerophone book about good grace and manners, lovable for any young mind seeking to rise, talks of the graces and how to please. Which, in its honesty, opens doors. Adding to it the fact that I was a Saniaga as they were, I was immediately welcomed into the 'inner circle of information' as an elder speaks to a grandchild. As if it was their responsibility to give this information, the elders themselves took to easiness through the questionnaire with honest remarks where light was little and needed more finding.
Unlike other research activities that I have engaged in before, the 60+ years target population has been of little questions to the motive behind the questioning and taking of the information that included contacts. Here I will comment that it is because that there is, among vaSaniaga, a general attitude to know one another and draw the relationships. Secondly, the presumed need for vaSaniaga to team up for greater identity related courses allows such freeness. And me, the collector, indemnified at the questionnaire and Saniaga CBO, should protect such information that it isn't misused or misinterpreted but to pursue the agreeable goals.
Now with 50+ and going, Saniaga elders have been of great help to understate. More than I would imagine. And this makes it interesting as we expect to go a little ahead. And interview more elders. The lessons from the search so far are not limited to the main two below;
First, the Saniaga Story in Vihiga County is more or less the Maragori story. This comes in when we speak about where people migrated to and reasons why. In some cases, migrations were towards maternal sides. If not, some scenarios had great maternal than paternal influence. Making Saniaga Oral Genealogy search add information about other clans, the places where maternal lands are/were. And brief histories about the clans. This is similar to scenarios where some of the informants were grandmothers whom by years ivuSaniaga have come to amass knowledge of the clan and its ways. With that, she also have knowledge about her clan which is equally important to inform the search.
Secondly, we live in an interlinked society that no one is far from the other. It is difficult to understand this when you have little knowledge of your extended family. Many people, due to careers or general limited exposition do not know more than their immediate nuclear families. Making them lose the picture outside, with people as close as his cousins counting as strangers. Because they have never met before. Neither had kin communication. A result of dynamics often related with parenthood. When a person has more strange than kinship knowledge it is in losing the mark. The effect may not be felt in the normal comfort of living for today and abit of a worry for tomorrow. It will be felt long after when we have nothing but our individual selves to draw inspiration from and work to fulfill. Which is an uphill and unassured endeavour than if one realized himself a closely knit society.
-/With Thanks
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