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Funeral rituals among the Luos in Kenya

There are more than thirty tribal ethnic groups in Kenya. The two main ones are Luos and Kikuyus. The Luos are generally known in Kenya as a people who are seriously concerned about their burial site, far more than any other ethnic group. Growing up, I witnessed many burials, including my own father’s. The details of the rituals differ for all the deceased, depending on the sex and status of the deceased in society. A ritual is performed in determined and fixed ways to reflect how a particular death occurred, the good and bad deeds of the deceased, and the way the deceased and the ancestors performed the same rituals. There are some differences that reflect different areas.

For example, an unmarried girl cannot be buried in her parents’ house. The Luo believe that her maiden spirit will follow other girls alive in the village and make them not get married as well. This is changing with people who believe or practice Christianity. The attitude of the Luos towards their burial place evidently shows how they fear and respect deceased ancestors. They perform more than ten different types of rituals for the deceased, mostly carried out in their rural homeland in the face of the ongoing modernization and urbanization in Kenya in general. People are still buried on the farm. Cemeteries are for people who don’t have family or people who don’t live there.

There was a long court fight in 1986 by a prominent lawyer SM Otieno who was married to a Kikuyu lady and lived in the center of the city. After his death, his clan insisted that his body be transported to Nyanza, his birthplace, to be buried. His widow fought for several months to have his body buried in Nairobi, where they had lived most of his life. The clan won, and the judge ruled in his favor after six months. SM Otieno was transported to the town for his burial. His widow did not attend the funeral due to some Luo rituals that she was not prepared to perform. It was largely through this brief case that many Kenyans came to recognize and realize how deeply concerned the Luo people were about his burial place. This is not a myth but a reality among the Luo tribe in Kenya.

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