Where mourners attend burials to eat, show off fashion and look for spouses

When it comes to burials, none can be compared to our brothers from the lakeside and Luhya land where elaborate rituals are the name of the game. Also, to some, it’s ‘show time’. Women show off their designer dresses, sunglasses, hairstyles...others, especially young men and women, look for spouses. The funerals take forever, even weeks, creating an opportunity for gossiping, whiling away time, free breakfast, lunch and supper among others.

First, it has been the custom for ages here to bury a deceased person in their rural home regardless of any financial constraints. To refresh your memory, just go back to 1987 and learn about the protracted legal battle between one Wambui Otieno and the Umira Kager clan that swore on their dead bodies (pun intended) that their son who had married Wambui would never be buried in the urban Matasia area near Ngong Hills.

Needless to say, the clan won the fight and had their son interred in Luoland. Foremost among the rituals here is wailing at the top of your voice, wailing that can actually wake up the dead! Cows and other domestic animals will be chased around the boma while young men in traditional headdress, armed with spears jab the air to repel the evil hand of death.

So gregarious are Luo funeral customs that many international researchers and journals have made them their key areas of research when it comes to African funeral rites. A number of years ago, the Guardian reported on these rites that saw clans feasting, pouring libations and settling inheritance matters, including the wife of the deceased.

However, it is the lavish eating during funerals that is becoming a burden to locals. One lady who lost her father recounted her anguish to the UK paper as she had no means to feed the mourners when her other family members died.

“When my father died, my brother slaughtered a cow for him. But three weeks later he died in a road accident. Now my mother has died. People have asked if I can provide a cow to be slaughtered for her, but there is nothing left,” she said.

The nearby “shemejis” have not been left behind when it comes to funeral customs. Last year, a writer for this newspaper recounted how the Luhya community used to preserve a dead body before the establishment of mortuaries in the area. He said that the naked body would be put on top of either wet sand or charcoal with a 10 cent coin placed on the forehead for a week before burial.

The writer went on to explain how wailing is a communal activity and a test of loyalty and unity among clan members. So serious is this mourning that the region teems with ‘professional mourners’ without whom, a funeral is gossiped about as having been ‘boring’.

It is said that if you have a bad relationship with community members, then be prepared to weep alone as many would-be mourners will just keep off.

And as expected, eating is still is part of Luhya funeral customs. In fact, an elder told this writer that it was okay to eat a similar amount of food as the deceased would have eaten in his lifetime.

Shimanyi, who hails from Mumias, narrates a tale about his neighbour whom he says came home one day from a funeral nearby only to find his children cooking ugali in the house.

The two boys were heavily chastised for what the father termed as “kuharibu unga na kuna matanga kwa jirani.” He admonished  them to go eat at the funeral and stop ‘wasting flour’. We can only assume that the two rascals have not missed a funeral ever since. Unlike Kikuyu funerals where people scatter immediately they have buried the dead, Luos and Luhyas pitch tent; they hang around for rituals like shaving of the hair and cleansing. This can take weeks. Sigh!

—PETER MUIRURI