Mavi is the elder son of Logooli, not saali; Plot twist.

MetaAI creation of Mulaguli (Mulogooli) and his many sons. The 'ordained' one is Mavi, having inherited the office of sacrificial house through Nondi clan.

Introduction

Is it not hiding in plain sight that Mavi is the one running first-born office among the Logooli? This is besides what we have grown up knowing; that the houses of Mulogooli are four and the rest of the clans unsung.

Logooli Culture does not entertain impersonation acts. You take on a matter that you are ordained or seasoned for and you face the consequences soon after. But the culture does not punish verbal impersonation. You can be called the first born even when you are not. And nothing will happen. That is probably what we have as oral history today. 

Having attended several Logooli Elders Council sessions, I have not experienced of the priority to a Saali elder to pray or take lead. During key events as Logooli Cultural Festival, it is the elders of Mungoma who step forward. When elders sometimes get political and give statements, there has neither been the observance that a Musaali elder gives that direction same as an elder son would do at a family level. Why then has Musaali taken a follower than a leadership role (if so he is the elder)?

This article, drawing from cultural and historical ordeals, observes that there is proof that Saali was not Mulogooli’s first son as we have inherited a brief oral history at the expense of a diverse one that encompasses the numerous clans of Logooli. 

Discussion

Has oral literature been absolutely true? The answer is neither Yes or No, much as much has been sourced from it. Rather, the questions we pose to oral literature is not in the spirit of its purpose to human. And too, the exactness of things is too much a matter for what should be easy, less controversial and sometimes having the wrong people keep looking for truth in the wrong place. 

The courting of a vein theory in oral history that there was Mulogooli and he had one wife, Kaliyesa and four sons by her worked well when education and church needed a standard, less controversial community story. The preaching was ‘one man for one wife’ and the children to be of one bed too. 

As the ‘standard tales’ go into schools, scientists, the fourth arm, scheme otherwise. These includes community people who are infamous for what they say sometimes. And that is how we meet Gunter Wager, a German ethnographer of 1932 in Maragoli. Before him, on September 29th 1930 as H.K Kisia the educationist documents, Chief Paul Agoi had convened a meeting to document clans. The list that Batrumayo Jumba (Muguuga) and James M’mata (Muyonga) represented “Zivwanyi” (those who were not of Mulogooli’s progeny) would ‘disappear’. To later then converge 9 elders, Chief Paul Agoi still at the center of this and on request of a visiting scholar (Wagner), they were perhaps probed in a less hasty manner and no list got lost though there is believed to be more from Logooli that Wagner would have published had he not lived a short life. 

“Logooli, the tribal ancestor, had eight sons, two of them, Mavi and Kirima, by his first wife and the other six by ‘young wife’. They were Sali, the oldest one, Yonga, Kizungu, Muku, Ng’ang’a and Saniaga.” That is the opening line, page 59 of the most quoted books on African ethnography in academia: The Bantu of North Kavirondo (1958). By the time J Osogo (1967) was in post-independence taking too much for a student school project to write the history of Abaluhya in post-independence Kenya, the vein theory had established itself among the Logooli and other communities that he rode on to amass literature. 

Osogo is the one who draws the tree: ‘Muhindira gave birth to Andimi. Andimi to Mulogoli. And Mulogoli four sons; Saali, Kizungu, Kirima and Maabi’. Despite a brief bibliography on page 145, Osogo does not take time to compare and contrast his findings against Wagner (1958) that he lists as one of the books he referenced!

To have authors who have little time to compare and contrast is the reason why community members are hungry for an organized history. Even against today’s oral literature that the elder son of Saali is Sweta, Osogo writes that Sweta and Mageza are sons of ‘another wife’ of Sali. It makes one wonder how much of oral literature can change in a single generation or at the same-time be too mixed-up. 

That besides, there are oral undertones today in Busali that Sweta, though being the first son of Saali, is not his biological son (Saali married an already pregnant first wife). That Mageza is indeed the elder son of Saali, some quote. However then, can Vamageza organize themselves to lead Valogooli in events as paying homage to the cradle as well as offering sacrifices on behalf of the Logooli nation? On what alter, it will be asked. The public “shrine” in North Maragoli is perhaps the Mutembe tree standing at the Sabatia sub-county headquarters in the land of Kizungu, not Ivusaali. 

In a case where Mulogooli had two wives, one for Mavi and Kirima and ‘another’ for Saali, Kizungu et al, what does the custom say on their cradles? It states that if a man has more than one wife, he is buried at the first wife’s. If Mulogooli had wives (against the one-wife theory) then his burial at Mungoma was by the first wife (in her absence, the son). There however is no record that a matriarch was buried at Mungoma or any other place in Logooli land.

Matriarch Kaliyesa died and was burried at Kima, the legend says. Kima is a few kilometers walk before Mungoma in the South-East migration of Mulogooli. By noting that Kaliyesa was the ‘great wife’ of Mulogooli, Ndanyi (2010) cultivates in us the questions that if Mulogooli (or the leader of the tribe) had other wives, then they must be buried somewhere Ivulogooli. But Kaliyesa as a first may not be the case because Wagner further writes of a conflict (Pre-Kaliyesa) between Mavi and Saali courtesy of Yonga that made them cut ties and is probably in my view the source of supremacy battles between North and South Maragoli to date that will be outlined in a new article. Kaliyesa, if agreed as a last wife or one of the lasts, makes the other clans (numerous clans as Suba, Saniaga, Sanga etc) of Logooli elder and the known four all younger as she is their mother.

It is not said if Mulogooli walked these other areas of Kilima, Kizungu, Saali as it is of traditional custom that once a son finds ‘vugwe’ (new land), it is the father who goes ‘kumosyeenela kiani’ (to bless the place the son he will build a home). Arrrival and being interred at Mungoma is when Mulogooli was old, making Mungoma not the home of Mulogooli but the home of Mavi.

Mulogooli’s children were not born in what is today Maragoli land. They were born at the time he was migrating from the lake following the Kit-mikayi and Maseno former home places. Arrival at Mungoma was when some of the children were old enough to fend for themselves. And going by the extend, expanse and customs of Mavi clan (against the theory of only four sons), Mavi was old enough to curve a niche for himself, admit more clans and take a leadership role not usual for a “last son”. That the last son denote is not Mavi himself but perhaps the younger brothers (other children of Mulogooli) he housed.

Coming to the burying of Mulogooli, Mavi had established himself as a leader of the tribe and has since maintained the sacrificial office (Mulaguli) through the Nondi lineage. Saali on the other hand, has not had a tribal office, ironical to his name, Musaali (a priest); but a famous saying, ‘uma kisaali’ to mean ‘suffer’. 

Conclusion

This article only highlights the mixed-up oral history that coincidentally too found itself in literature and is in call for multi-approach at least amongst the teachers other than continued propagation of a one-sided view. 

Whereas the article recognizes that Mavi is the elder son, it may be missing on other key considerations because Nondi (the lead sacrificial house) is not the first house of Mavi but Logovo. Two, just as Mavi may have taken care of ‘other children of Mulogooli’ so could be Mavi himself was ‘cared’ by a relative, passing as one of the other clans of Logooli. Too, the presence of a few Saali pockets in Mavi can be attributed to such ends that the four settlement zones of Logooli are not confined to a one particular head of clan or descendant, but descendants.

What this article does not aim is, having seen how one-sided view can be argued to unaccommodative ends, appear to confuse or propagate an interest not in its spirit of putting to light ideas and information about ourselves.