The Amiani

The Amiani

If Yida would still be alive, what a resource he would have been for Saniaga Oral Genealogy Documentation exercise! He died in February 2019, he is remembered as one man who loved speaking about ancestry, migration and settlements. It is hopefully said that Kereda wa Kivi may have documented his words, a need to confirm this. For sadly, a few months later, Kereda wa Kivi followed Yida in the misty world. Shaking the Busali Saniaga elder circle further. Most of our knowledgeable elders are gone, says the people we meet at homes.

Yida was the son of Mudogo. Mudogo the son of Amiani. Amiani the son of Musiyenze (Manono* suggestively). Musiyenze settled at eVohovore village, road to road, one that heads to Chatamilu and the other that heads to Bogerani, Vokoli-Lusui road. His land did not extend to the valley bottom, as normally ancestors preferred. VaSaniaga from Kidundu, likes of Orindo and Aruda would follow and have parts of land sold to them. And this land in eVohovore was second, for the second wife. Originally Amiani's father, Musiyenze was at Chekombero.

The brothers of Amiani would settle at Bogerani, having Ruguru, Agoi and Chinjiri there.

At Chekombero Amiani had Mudogo. Mudogo expanded land and family, before dying in 1933. A death that startled vaSaniaga who settled ivuSari. He started well, marrying his first wife, mukanana muGisemba by the name Mwaniga. It was by the love for the second woman, mwiDako, that fate sought him. Then, people had two main market centres, eSeremi and Kiboswa (iJivaswa). Her going to the market in eSeremi established relationship between her and a wealthy Tiriki butcherman. Who took her for wife, her already pregnant for Mudogo. And Mudogo sought for the interventions of a witchdoctor, taking with him such concoctions that he must have failed to use right, all in aim to win back this wife, coming back home with them. Bad. Him and wife would die successively by the following day. In Tiriki the child was born, Manono.

Mudogo's elder children are Gumaragani the eldest who died in World War II, he had a son that also died young. Elam Rumwagi was second. Chahare third. Kedode fourth and Yida fifth. They lived and died at Chekombero, eKenyenyi village.

Elam Amiani married twice, Mangurita Nyagai muMugoye and Dedan Musimbi, wu mwandu. Begetting Elphas Mudogo, Enos Amiani, Sabeti Asarika, Adika Reuben, Ephraim Kisia, Bainito Mbaresia, Mudogo, Bahati and Manono. It is Ephraim who recently left eKenyenyi to Migori due to unending wrangles with family members. Chahare begot Zablon Kayesa, Chahare (Kiko) and Gladys. Kedode had John Mudogo, Flora, Kivisi, Daudi and a girl. Yida's children are undocumented*.

The land at eKenyenyi was expanded by Elam Amiani. But Chahare would want an equally larger share as Amiani, taking generally the whole of Mudogo's, what he left. And Mudogo had not paid the vaMageza from whom he had bought the land from fully. When they came debting, Amiani paid. Such stories that honestly or dishonestly told would propel unnecessary cold war in the family. And of the said age group, pausing at Elphas Mudogo, only him and Kisia in Migori are alive, of the Amiani's. He is a grandfather, unaware of the whereabouts of his children, not able to say whom he recently conversed with.

A little back at the hierarchy is Mudogo's brothers by another wife of Amiani. They were Ndeda and Kiruhura, found in eVohovore. Ndeda begot Kemori Thomas, Daniel Amiani, Reuben Manono and Egenya who migrated to Lugare. Rebecca and Norah were his daughters. Their mother Debra, muMasero. Kiruhura begot Mudogo, Mufumbwa and Amiani.

It is Thomas Kemori who gave us the 'genius' musician, Dr. Arthur Kemori whose death in 2012 took him commemoratively unaccomplished. Arthur was the eldest, Joyce Kahombi, Eda Mwenywa, Emily Amai, Lornah Obiri, Kennedy Kemoli, Evans Aswani, Flora and Jane Okumu his siblings successively. Arthur was bright, giften a amusician and with a good job - University of Nairobi lecturer. He socially drunk, hit on beautiful choir singers and stain of the matter he betrothed Batroba Chang'eda, a stray woman from the near family of his mother, Ester Kareha, muMuritu. Ensnared, entrance of sharp at tongue sisters in the matter made it a circus. A game of words.  In the heated burial of Kemoli that was attended by politicians in the heat of campaigns there was little to speak about his house, children and acts, how to preserve his rich works.

-/With Thanks
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