Seme Kamnara

With Augustine Mwalo, 94 years old, second from left and his family members at his home in Seme East

Found in Seme East Ward, Kamnara is one of the Luo clans in Central Nyanza with fresh tales of Sakwa origins. Sakwa is the first of Joka Jok group to arrive in Western Kenya from South Sudan in the 15th Century and settled around Ramogi hills. There were various further migrations and come backs, identities arising from sons that were born. Kamnara is from Sakwa. And the identified people are not only in Seme and Sakwa parts of Nyanza but also at Kano, Awendo and Ugenya. With others claimed to be in Maragori.

At Seme, non but Kit Mikayi (Kit means stone and Mikayi means  first wife) provided settlement as iDabongo on Maragori hills and also lead to psychological influence of these people migrating to Seme. With caves inside, the early migrants would settle there and with time come to identify the stones with supernatural powers, seeking favours from gods by using it as a shrine. A gathering of clans around to appease the gods. Kit Mikayi is in the land of Kakelo clan and presently it is a tourist attraction site. Inside, looking at the openings that would make rooms that would not be reliable till the early occupier, Jaduong Ngeso Kasanjo built a house below, it largely may have been a lookout place than a place to leave. 

Other clans must have settled but there were still bushes uncleared. For Kamunara at Seme, a later people to arrive, two ancestors are remembered as the founders of Kamnara identity carriers there. Obonyo wuodOpiyo and his brother, Abuor. Akumu nyar Kabar was the mother to them. Coming to Seme was after another backdated Kamnara who married a woman from Seme called Angweng'a of Koker clan. Ang'weng'a would convince 'Kamnara' to go East, her fatherland where there were still huge bush tracks. What he did, coming with Ang'weng'a to Seme.

A man does not live near his mother in law lest she goes naked and the son in law prospesterously and ashamedly look at her. It is by this that the mother clan people, the Koker decided to give Kamnara land to the boundary where they bordered Ja-kisumo. And Ja-kisumo were enemies to the Koker, they being of a second origin, Joka Owiny. What Kamnara was set for was war. Which he did not fail to fight. And acquired a rightful position among the neighboring clans - Koker, Kajulu and Kisumo. Those who feared did go back to ancestral Sakwa. Those that remained and won their land told their children never to go back that it was by struggle that they had gotten that land.

Augustine Mwalo born 1925, the informant to this alongside his younger  brother is the son of Alego Mbidha (by Odhiambo Kaila) son of Odongo (by NyarOmolo) son of Mwalo (by Ogango nyarOmbewa) son of Obonyo wuodOpiyo as mentioned above. He is a grandfather, seven to nine generations at Seme from Sakwa.

From Sakwa, Kamnara first stopped at Minara island on Lake Victoria, a place that may have given him the Kamnara name. The people of Minara. It is a small island on Lake Victoria. From there he had come to Seme and others went beyond. It is said that some people from North (Maragori) did return to Seme and live with the Luo because of ancestry just as some Luo people say they came from Maseno.

Kamnara village in Seme is a rich land with subsistence crops. Maize and beans, groundnuts and peas are grown. There is a school called Rodi and an upcoming dispensary at the place which are considered 'Kamnara' founded. They boarder the lake at Kaloka beach with Koker, the fishermen clan initially occupying most of the lake shore.

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