The recent Piny Luo Festival held in Siaya County to usher in the new year brought together the Luo communities from Ethiopia, DR Congo, South Sudan, Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania in a cultural celebration that was unique in its unity in diversity.
Many aspects of the Luo culture, including food, song and dance, economic activities, social life, marriage, general world view, attitude towards death and funerals, kinship ties, relationship with neighbours, among others, were celebrated.
One question that kept lingering in the minds of Kenyans, however, was why Luo funerals tend to be overtly extravagant. The answer to this question was the more urgent, given a recent newspaper article that referred to Luo and Abasuba funerals as “eating festivals.”
Part of the sentiments were attributed to the Cabinet Secretary for the National Treasury and Planning, John Mbadi, who sensationally said that his Suba South constituency spent a conservative amount of Sh200,000 per funeral. With 43 people buried each week in Suba South constituency, according to CS Mbadi, the total amount incurred in funeral costs is Sh8,600,000 per week, which translates to Sh34,400,000 monthly, and Sh412,000,000 per annum. Mind boggling, indeed.
The CS lamented that Suba South constituency, and by extension, all the other constituencies of the Luo/Abasuba region of Nyanza, spent more on funerals than what they received from the National Government in terms of the Constituency Development Fund (NG-CDF) per year.
Now, let’s interrogate these concerns. It is true that the Luo and their neighbours, Abasuba, believe that the dead are actually alive in another form. The spirits of the dead are always hovering over their loved ones, protecting them from whatever harm that might be designed against them by their enemies in the spiritual realm. The spirits can be appeased by making huge material sacrifices in their names. For example, a lavish funeral ceremony is said to appease the spirits of the departed.
More realistically, though, when loved ones die, there is a huge sense of loss, and a feeling that part of the family has gone ahead of them. It is only natural therefore, that the natural bond that existed between the departed and the living be demonstrated through what is commonly referred to as “decent send-off.” It gives a sense of pride that the departed is not “thrown away” like an outcast.
It is believed that if the dead go to the next world in a huff, their spirits might come back to haunt the living. In any case, kinship ties don’t just die because a kin has died. That is why the Luo and Abasuba communities name their children for their departed respected relatives.
Thieves, witches, murderers, rapists, and other social misfits do not get the luxury of having children named after them.
Those who believe that human spirits do not die, but only transition to the celestial world upon death of the body, view eating at funerals not as feasting but rather showing love to a departed soul.
A few years ago, the world was amazed at how the British sent off the departed Queen Elizabeth II in lavish and memorable funeral ceremonies. In fact, so traditional were the ceremonies preceding the monarch’s burial that at one point the Arch-bishop of Canterbury stunned the mourners when he told them that the Queen was now going back to her maker as Elizabeth and not the Queen of England. At that point, the Christian burial ceremony gave way to the traditional English burial rites and customs.
The main message here is that all communities draw their belief systems from their personal experiences with nature (or deity). As the example of Queen Elizabeth II teaches us, religion might superimpose itself on an existing belief system, but cannot totally replace it.
The basic culture of a people does not change by virtue of the community embracing another culture or religion. Granted, individuals from a community might get completely drawn to foreign cultures, and in the process, forget their own identities, but that doesn’t completely transform them into their new identities. At best, they will remain “foreigners amongst us.”
However, as communities grow and interact with others, cultural purification begins to take place. Each culture picks from the others what they consider to be an improvement of their own culture, and domesticate it.
Established cultures are difficult to uproot unless superior alternatives are presented to them. Cultures are embodiments of people’s worldviews.
Regarding the Luo and Abasuba spending lots of money in organising funerals, a number of things need to be noted. First, funerals are a reflection of cultural beliefs and stature of the departed. Traditionally, the Luo and Abasuba showed love to the departed kin. This love for the dead was shown by neighbours, relatives, friends and well wishers thronging the homesteads to donate foodstuffs to feed mourners who had travelled from far and wide to attend the funeral.
The bereaved did not feed mourners from their family resources. This practice has persisted to date in the form of funeral fundraisers. Those who do not understand the genesis of this practice portray it in very bad light. The subject communities have elaborate kinship ties in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and South Sudan.
More specifically, those communities are dispersed throughout the former Nyanza and western provinces. A few examples should suffice. There’s a community that goes by different names, Komenya (Siaya), Abamenya (Busia), Kamenya (Kisumu, Homa Bay, Migori). Some of them are Luhya, while others are Luo. But they are the same people, connected by blood and kinship ties.
The Abamuli (Busia), Mur (Siaya), Abamuri (Abanyore, Vihiga) and Alego Mur (Migori) is one elaborate clan. Abamachieni (Matungu, Kakamega) and Kachien (Karachuonyo, Homa Bay). Abawanga (Kakamega), Jo-Kawango in Siaya and Kisumu is one clan.
Examples abound of clans that are distributed across the entire Western Kenya including Busia, Siaya, Kakamega, Kisumu, Vihiga, Homa Bay, and Migori counties. Whenever their kins die, mourners travel from all these places to go and witness their send-off.
Some mourners spend up to Sh5,000 for a round trip and accommodation so that they can participate in burial rites of their kins. As the mourners keep vigil, they are served some tea and food to keep them warm. This is what educated people call feasting at funerals.
The other thing that the commentators don’t seem to remember is that funeral expenses are typically not borne by immediate family members; it is usually drawn from a kitty contributed into by well-wishers.
The same happens for birthday parties and wedding ceremonies. Surprisingly, nobody criticizes the huge expenditures incurred for organizing birthdays and weddings.
On the flip side, there are a number of pertinent cultural issues that arise from this discussion. First, it is of great concern to me that most people contribute more readily to underwrite funeral expenses than to support the sick while they are still alive and require medical treatment. So, who between the living and the dead should be given preference?
Second, it is very rare for members of these communities to raise funds to support one another to start up a business. Third, the culture of coming together to support community initiatives is yet to be fully embraced, although there has been tremendous improvement in this respect over the last two or so decades.
In all this gloomy picture that has been painted, what warms my heart is that the houses that have sprouted up in Nyanza over the last two decades are subjects of debate. For many decades, the Luo were particularly chastised for living large in the cities without anything to show for it in their rural homes. In recent times, the story has since changed to the colossal amounts of “dead capital” that the Luo are spending on putting up their rural homes.
In conclusion, I think the debate on feasting at funerals should continue so that the costs are rationalized to the essentials only. Besides, the cultural practices around funerals should be opened up to constant revisions and improvements in order to make them relevant to the younger generations.
As has been noticed with the issue of building decent rural homes, this issue of “feasting” at funerals will also be responded to at the appropriate time.
