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 gone with him never to be named a new born.

All front doors (viamugizi) face the upper side of the ridges. The traditional land ownership allowed the old Logooli to share both high places and valley bottoms. And now that land is pressured, roads do not necessarily stem from the upper part of the ridge, yet it is still expected you face your house up ridge.

There are families that have over shared little perpendicular stretches that you cannot get a road in. Clever ones have forced themselves to divide horizontally, still with an insist of upper access road. Would not those on the lower side access from a nearby lower road? Do not main roads pass through valley bottoms?

Or a woman who has children with a now dead man. She cannot come to the funeral, no. She will die. She had lately remarried and her new husband died. The old husband, by which she has children with, and who made her a mother, she cannot dare go burry him alongside her children. Valogooli know none of a custom that can help her here.

Additionally, if my father never paid dowry for my mother, I can only pay for my wife by first doing something for my mother first. You see, my clan elders cannot come to deliberate my wife’s bride price if they never helped the brother (my father) to do something for my mother’s people.

And my father would not receive a thing from my sisters’ husbands for dowry if he has never paid for mom. A first give before taking custom.

You would suugest it is only a custom problem – no. It is a people’s problem. Valogooli, having for many years lived in homogeneity, and were close to each other, many of these customs happened at ease. With a scattered community now, you would hardly observe the tradition.

For instance how will a family name ever enter the birth certificate of a son whose mother ran away with before birth? Almost two years now. Can the clan chase up? Yet the customs claim that an elder son, no matter the surroundings of his birth has a blessing or curse over the succeeding children.

It would go on and on. Many a Valogooli have encountered one or another cultural custom dilemma without a way to mark the mega ritual in a small way. Many a times the custom have been left undone and put a bad customary mark on a person or family. Valogooli believe that a custom, like a debtor, debts. It will sooner catch up with you.

You disregard a custom and it comes to you indirectly. Of a man who refused to do luvego (bull killing anniversary) for his father. After some time, the wife had the function at their home and he attended alongside. It is believed that was the cause of his death for he died the very night after arriving home.

Temporary tents are replacing shanty houses when a family man dies without a house. Who places the tent, who prays it acts as a temporary house? Who will dare welcome the errant woman home to mourn the dead husband? This is as more needs to be put clear – for seamless custom marks.

It was an old man who does not fear death. Who would strike down ulusyoola (a case of breaking the stone tablets) and allow clans, previously unmarrying, to marry.  Someone who can call ancient spirits to attention of changed times. Though the ancient good ways purposed to preserve and uplift our being, there need a new testament to lighten the yolks that come with their observance today.

For divine elders, there are not many  alive in the villages - and those given clan lead responsibilities are either still young or too busy for life to ponder about any challenging matters in the company of many disorganized and dissenting community voices.