 |
| With Mzee Orondo at his home in Muhuru Bay |
One would think that you are more likely to harvest more indigenous knowledge where a homogeneous group is clustered than in places of heterogeneous communities. It is often not so as little groups have always internally advocated, passionately held on to their past, most likely encouraged to do more by the threatening neighborhood to swallow them up. And homogeneous people, unaware of passive encroaches have done little to pass on key indigenous knowledge. This is as we shared with Mzee Ogada Orondo, muSuba from Muhuru Bay, Nyakondo village, Tanzania-Kenya boarder in Migori County.
The majority of Abasuba identified people presently found on Mfangano and Rusinga are likely to be the Bakunta kingdom clans that ran away in fear of similar fate of death for murder. Settling in what was said to be Suba Land, their Luganda language akin to the Suba there, they quickly adopted this new identity to wash off the blemish one - those who killed the king. And another identity that would also want to shed off the past completely - Luo Abasuba. Both did not circumcise. But can there be such an identity?
The Suba had their own culture, different from Luo. Why would there be will to get lost in another's identity? It only happens when you have too little knowledge of your history and little sense for future. Too ignorant to be easily swayed. This happened as most of Suba had long moved and remnants at Mfangano, Gwasi did welcome not only Luo who found them but also the abaKunta and following clans/people.
One case is of Kiboye, the runaway. His elder brother Witewe settled at Mfangano while he was taken in by a family at Gwassi. There he would end up with many descendants over time who even threatened the neighboring original hosts. And readers have account of Suba-Suba clan conflicts and betrayals whose cause is rooted such way.
And the Suba we would call earlier immigrants is a Bantu group of people who arrived at the present day Ramogi hills through Yimbo around 1200-1500CE. It was one group of people with abaLogoli, abaGusii, abaKuria and others who may have been unaccounted. This group had by year 1000CE arrived at Mt. Kenya from the North - Misri. If not, then they may have been earlier been at Rwanda and moved Eastwards.
And maybe to stress this point is the presence of clans that cut aboard. There is the vaSweta clan in Maragoli, Kuria, Kisii and Suba. Banchari in three save Maragoli. In the age-set system, there is the mantion of Maina, Chuma, Ngorongoro and Nyongi/Nyangi. What inspired these names? Then the circumcision of both boys and girls that only Maragoli seems to have no such history which may have been due to the interaction with communities far North where _he_ went. With back South migration later on, together with the befriended vaKisa, vaNyore and others. At the same time with the Nyakach and Sakwa Luo of Suna East and Awendo respectively.
For the better years of 1700'sCE the Luos did wage war on these tactless weak groups who preferred living away from one another than having a central tribal fort. Luo people moving in to the zones between these tribes and pressuring them further apart. There is no history of kings, but there was a council of elders and a chief priest. At worst of the times they resorted to magic to fight off enemies. For Suba case the enemy was Luo and Maasai. And to avoid more raids, a treaty was struck with the Luo. Where it was agreed that the two tribes would intermarry. And by virtue of numbers and neighborhood the Suba would marry more Luo women than the number Luos would marry from Suba. And Luo language would be spoken in Suba homes in the lake region unlike in Gusii, Maragoli and Kuria.
It was not the love of fishing that kept the Suba at the shores of the lake - inyanza/inyancha. There was enough fish at the shores, plenty to be subsistence. It was the hunt for the delicious hippopotamus meat. And the Suba hunters would merry with new catch. New settlements as the Muhuru Bay was where smooth meat drying rocks ashore were spotted by Suba hunters. They took the report back home and their father, Mwikoma agreed to migrate from Rwancha. These two sons were Wabigi and Gimanche. And another would be born at Muhuru, Kibuka. They would form the main clans as other clans came in including Luos. Mwikoma was the son of Mirobe. Mirobe the son of Sweta. Sweta of Suba. Suba of Girango. Where Girango is the link with Gusii.
Mzee Ogada of Orondo. Orondo of waRentho, of Omwaga, of Mathiko, of Nyavasurwa of Gimanche of Mwikoma who migrated to Muhuru. At then no one would think there would come an imaginary line as the pillars that now exist to mark Kenya-Tanzania boundary. Cutting off links with kins in the West. The areas of North and South Mara where more abaSuba and abaKuria had crossed. Giving them a new identity, vaTanzania. Just as there is no one called muKenya or vaKenya. Imaginary identities that have for two to three generations now kept individuals, clans and tribes calling for elusive nationhood identity.
With Thanks
Lung'afa Igunza
....
Hello
ReplyDelete