I have been accused of having a morbid fascination for funerals, night runners and witches. Well, that’s true. Macabre as it may sound, every funeral I attend offers more mind-taxing lessons than I picked up in a philosophy class.
A funeral that I attended in western Kenyan last week was no exception for it was a showcase of the mishmash of comedies that make up Kenyan ethnic traditions and culture.
There was the usual drunkard, so inebriated he could hardly stay on his feet. He cracked ribald jokes, danced and wailed. No one knew whether to fling him off the premises or laugh at his antics.
We kept vigil at night and quickly discovered many divergent camps at the funeral. First, the local choir was hymning along when the sombre evening was shattered by the ‘real’ stakeholders. These were a band of inebriated villagers who arrived with a stampede under the surge of rippling isukuti drums.
African warrior
People who had been sitting gamely rushed to their feet, hips and shoulders rippling, demonstrating the age-old fact that an African warrior is only truly sent off in the song and dance of his forbearers. The church choir screamed "Riswa!" and tried to keep up to no avail. The little band of ‘sinners’ kept up the tempo till the wee hours of the morning when, I suspect, the illicit brew in their heads and whatever they had smoked evaporated.
Not far off, however, was another team of young men with a noisy stereo playing hip-hop and reggae music. They swayed and staggered clutching water bottles with very questionable contents.
Meanwhile, we, the city crowd, huddled in cars, sipping fiery liquids that are equally lethal, only that they are legally accepted because they are not — hopefully — brewed on the banks of a dirty river. In between the sips, we pontificated about what we knew of our culture and what we didn’t.
Ugali bolus
Sample this: Apparently, if you pass on without having established a homestead, your widow must spend the night beside your casket in a makeshift structure that your clan hurriedly puts up. But that’s only if she never cuckolded you in life. A wayward wife is never allowed to even approach her husband’s remains. Never. Typically, this rule doesn’t extend to men.
What’s more, she is expected to make a meal for your brothers and point an ugali bolus at your mouth as you lie in state to symbolise that you have truly ‘opened’ your house.
And here is the clincher. You are never buried with your shoes and your tie and the fly must be loosened. As for women, underwear is severely frowned upon and the little zipper at their waists must be undone. Not to do this is to invite barrenness in her progeny.
It is, however, most curious how this became part of our culture since shoes, zippers, ties and underwear are recent innovations that came when traditions were long established.
What’s however hilarious is that should anyone decide to be buried in a cowhide, the same traditionalists would say, "Never! He was a big man in Nairobi and must be buried properly — in a suit!"
