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The struggle with many a rigid Logooli cultural practices

  The Logooli community is one of the deeply cultured societies – with near everything supposed to have been done as per custom – to allow another custom to follow. One example is that for a mature man (with a child or more) to be buried, there must be a house structure at home. Another is that a boy must be circumcised and nursed in father land. If maternal family decides to, the boy will have a hard time reconnecting with father people - a dent on his masculinity. There were two children who got burnt to death in a house in Nairobi. The single mother had left for night work. Elders were told that one of the children was Logooli. The other, the woman had sired with someone else. The Logooli family wanted to burry their little one and long discussed the do’s and don’ts. Of a man who died childless and the grave was placed as if he had died as a man with children. It should have been dug on the sides, the grave. A real thorn should have been thrust in his buttocks, his name go...
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The Maragoli community is passive on LGBTQIA+



A man playing a puppet eagle during a 2022 circumcision ceremony of the Maragoli in Nandi

The Maragoli are not afraid to detest the queer agenda. Neither is it a minority issue locally. It is not known how many Maragolis are secretly queer, whether the community can curse, chastise attempters, disown and banish them to unknown lands. It is not in its power to be combative today.

With a history of suppressed queerness, the queer Maragoli folks today can hardly be silenced as they find brotherhood (and sisterhood and crosshood?) in the secular societies cropping up. The new societies are characterized by suffocative moderation, playing victim, individualism, money and anything that works for the moment. This is a good breeding ground for deviations, secret cultures and more harm than good for the society, reserved for the powers there be.

The limits do matter in Maragoli society. Does it have to be so open that an innocent/curious teen sees (and apes - for humans are good apes) what is happening? No. Here is a situation where grown ups are being deliberate. There is little self respect, as if it is dicriminating to be in order and disorder is freedom. Much as you may not run into a man wearing 'suggestively' on the street, they are flooding social media with insinuations. Sure there, a son is protected from the death blow of the father while the daughter from the teeth of the mother. 

To publicly disagree or defame the queer is not the best way. It is also not the Maragoli way today. It may have been when things that held Maragoli society were still together. To put an eye (two) and an ear (two) while speaking less (one mouth) is the way. Much as it is against the community ethos, minorities today are part of external communities. It is evident that those with nothing to lose would enjoy the mayhem that comes with disagreements and be more intentional in deriving unnecessary lifestyles around. 

As the Maragoli community snowballs in different times, it should not belittle its core, safety to those who have little or nothing to improve themselves by the acquired mass. It is in the core that we can learn how the community approached straight and queerness and how it protected both from the extremes of either; with intention to contribute on healthy sexuality from an indigenous best practice.

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