The next major episode in Opiyo’s life was his marriage. Every member of the Luo community is expected to marry, and anybody who remains unwed is viewed with suspicion. Usually Luo men take their first wife in their late twenties, and very few men are unmarried by the time they reach thirty-five. As with all Luo ceremonies, Opiyo’s marriage followed a strict protocol that was designed to strengthen family ties. A suitable girl was selected by an aunt or a marriage maker, called a jagam or “pathfinder.” The Luo are strict about this selection and do not allow marriage with any relative, however distant. Opiyo’s first wife, who was called Auko Nyakadiang’a, came from the Kardiang’ clan several miles away. Opiyo visited the family and met the chosen girl; either one of them could refuse the union at this stage. Traditionally the girl is coy about the approach and is expected to play hard to get. After several refusals, she eventually agrees to the marriage.
The lineage of a prospective partner is keenly scrutinized by both the family and the village elders. If, for example, the prospective bride’s father was a known liar or practitioner of witchcraft, then a marriage into that family would be considered unwise. Likewise, any hereditary conditions such as epilepsy would have negative connotations for the union. As with all Luo betrothals, final approval for Opiyo and Auko’s union rested with the village elders.
The next stage is the negotiation of the bride-price, which would have been paid by Opiyo’s father to Auko’s family, and which can take up to three years to organize. It is often paid in installments, but the total typically involves twelve cows or more, and at least one goat (for ceremonial purposes). Once the bride-price was paid, Opiyo could claim his bride in yet another elaborate ritual. One day he stole off to Auko’s village with his two brothers, Obama and Aguk; their intention was to kidnap his intended in a ritual known as “pulling the bride.” Having moved out of her mother’s hut when she reached puberty, Auko was now living in her grandmother’s siwindhe in preparation for her marriage. Opiyo most likely bribed Auko’s grandmother to be conveniently away from her hut when the crucial time came for him to claim his bride. As part of the ritual the girl must always resist the attempt to be taken, and there is every chance that her screams will be heard by her brothers, in which case a fight will ensue. This was no token skirmish—the young men in the girl’s village are determined to prove their mettle by putting up a serious resistance to the kidnapping, and in return, the kidnappers are expected to show their determination to take the girl.
Opiyo was successful in “pulling” his bride, and he took Auko back to his simba, inside his father’s compound. That night they consummated their marriage, again according to ritual, as Aloyce Achayo explained:
The very day the lady is brought back, they are married. What will happen now is that a group of girls [from the bride’s village] will come at night, maybe forty or fifty girls, following this girl who was pulled. And that is called omo wer. If those girls don’t come, there is no sex.
The bride and the bridegroom come into the house for their first experience, and the consummation has to be witnessed by two or three girls who are almost the same age as the one who is being married. Outside, the other girls are singing all night. They don’t sleep. If this particular girl is found to be a virgin, there is very big joy from the girl’s side. A big, big joy.
Very early in the morning, these girls will go back [to their village] with the news that she was or wasn’t a virgin. During our olden times the majority used to be virgins. On their first meeting, the blood will show. She will sit on a stool, which will then be carried back to the girl’s home to be shown to the mother.
The third stage of the wedding ceremony occurs on the morning after the consummation. As the omo wer girls return to the village, they meet the older women coming in the opposite direction to celebrate the marriage. This is called the diero, the wedding celebration of the women. The next day the men—including those who forcibly resisted the pulling of the bride—have a diero of their own at the husband’s home.
The final ceremony occurs a few weeks after the wedding day. After the marriage has been consummated, the bride asks a handful of her friends to remain behind in the village to keep her company in her new home; they stay for as long as a month. Then the bride’s girlfriends return to their village for a final celebration, the jodong. Opiyo and Auko returned to her home to visit her family, with Auko leading a goat behind her. Once they reached her parents’ home, the animal was slaughtered, its neck cut from behind in the traditional Luo manner, to mark the beginning of the jodong. As many as sixty people would have gathered for much eating, drinking, dancing, and singing.
The homestead where Opiyo grew up in Kendu Bay was laid out in exactly the same way as that of all the neighboring clans. The huts were ringed with a thick euphorbia thorn hedge to keep out enemies and wild animals. A typical Luo compound had two entrances through the hedge: a formal, main gate that was always used by visitors, and a smaller gap at the rear of the compound that allowed people to take a shortcut to their fields. The largest hut in the compound, perhaps fifteen feet in diameter, belonged to Opiyo’s father’s first wife, and the door to this hut faced the main entrance to the compound. Any visitors to the homestead were directed to introduce themselves at this hut, for it was the first wife who always ran the compound. To the left of the big hut was the house of Obong’o’s second wife, identical in every way to that of his first wife, but slightly smaller. To the right of the big hut was the home of Obong’o’s third wife, again slightly smaller still. In this way, the huts of all the wives were built on alternate sides of the first wife’s hut, each slightly smaller in size. Each wife also had her own granary or dero next to her hut, but generally they would work together to cook meals for the whole family.
Obong’o’s hut was smaller even than that of his youngest wife, but as he spent most nights elsewhere, there was little point in having anything too grand. As head of the homestead, he used his hut for holding council with his fellow elders and for discussing family business with his three sons. Women never came to Obong’o’s hut unless they were summoned or to bring food to the men.
Once Obong’o’s sons reached puberty, they moved out of their mother’s hut and built their own shelter inside the compound. Obama was Obong’o’s eldest son, and he built his simba first, close to the main gate to the compound and just to the left of the entrance. When Opiyo came of age, he too built his own simba, but this time to the right of the main gate; his younger brother Aguk built his simba to the left of the entrance to the homestead, thus following the same pattern as the women’s huts. In this way, the young men of the family guarded the entrance to the family compound. The wives’ huts in the upper part of the compound and the sons’ houses near the entrance to the compound were deliberately arranged to be a respectable distance apart.
Before he was married, Opiyo enticed local girls into his simba. This was expected of him, and periodically Obong’o would pass quietly by his son’s simba at night to check that his son’s social (and sexual) development was on course. Although both boy and girl gained sexual experience in this way, the girl would almost always draw the line at full penetrative sex, for virginity was, and still is today, expected of all brides.
The sons also had to get married in order of seniority, and once Obama took a wife, she moved into his simba. In time, each of the sons would marry, and their respective wives would move in to start a family of their own. Only when Opiyo had a son could he leave his father’s compound and establish a homestead of his own.
Opiyo’s hut, just like all the others in the compound, was circular, with thick mud walls and a pointed, thatched roof. Visitors had to stoop low to enter the doorway, and the inside was cool and very dark, as the huts had no windows. There was no furniture to speak of: a raised mud platform served as a bed, and scattered animal skins and blankets gave a little comfort for sleeping. A small fire gave some warmth, and the smoke rose into the rafters and helped to fumigate the thatch.
The reaction to an article in one of Kenya’s leading national papers in early 2008 shows the lasting significance of the simba among the Luo. At the time, Barack Obama was running against Hillary Clinton for the Democratic Party nomination. The Standard ran a front-page special, with the headline “Exclusive: Obama’s One-Day Visit to Kenya”:
Senator Barack Obama, the man who has caused a sensation in the presidential nomination race in the U.S., is in Kenya for a one-day visit.… Obama will make a public appearance at KICC [Kenya International Conference Centre] where he will sign autographs and speak on peace.
He is later scheduled to leave for his father’s home in Kogelo, Siaya District shortly after midday.
Within minutes of the paper hitting the news stands, crowds were flocking to the conference center in Nairobi to hear the great man speak, and hundreds of callers jammed the switchboards of the local radio talk shows. The rumor soon spread that Obama had been advised that he could greatly increase his chances of success in the election by returning to Kenya and building himself a simba. This, people claimed, would show that he was a true Luo, and somehow impress the American voters. What nobody seemed to notice was the date on the top of the paper: April 1.
For almost every young male Luo, there comes a time when he moves out of his father’s homestead and establishes his own compound. The young men leave their father’s compound in strict order of seniority, so Obama had to move out first before Opiyo could do the same. The youngest son in the family, in this case Aguk, never leaves. Instead, he stays behind to look after his aging parents, and in time he inherits his father’s compound.
Certain other young men also did not qualify to start their own compounds. A man without a family of his own could never move out; nor could he if he had only daughters, as some of the complex rituals involved in establishing a new homestead require both a son and a wife. Nor can a left-handed person set up his own home; the Luo believe that if a left-hander were to establish his own compound, it would lead to the death of his siblings. (Traditionally, left-handed people were also thought to be easy prey for their enemies, and they were vulnerable to magic and witchcraft. According to strict Luo tradition, then, President Obama would never be allowed to establish his own homestead in Luoland on two accounts: he has only daughters, and he is left-handed.)
For several weeks before setting out to build his own compound in Kendu Bay, Opiyo surreptitiously looked around for a suitable location, but he had to be careful not to be seen to be too interested, in case others moved there first or put a curse on the site. The area to the south of Winam Gulf was still relatively sparsely populated in the mid-nineteenth century. In those days, thick tropical forest still covered most of the land; wild animals too were common, and encounters with leopards, cheetahs, and hyenas were frequent.
On the eve before he set out to build his new home, Opiyo had ritual sex with Auko, his first wife. The next morning, he rose before dawn and walked out of the family compound, accompanied by his father, Obong’o; his uncle Ogola; his wife, Auko; and Obilo, his eldest son. Everyone had his or her own specific roles to play that day. Opiyo carried a large cockerel; Obilo a new axe; Auko had a small fire smoldering in an earthenware pot. Upon arriving at the chosen place, his uncle Ogola selected the precise location for the new home, then drove a forked pole into the ground where the very center of Opiyo’s hut would be. Ogola hung a birdcage on one branch of the forked pole, and at the base of the post he carefully placed a piece of soil taken from an anthill they had passed on the way. The bird cage contained a selection of items to bring good fortune to the homestead: a rotten egg to dispel sorcery, stargrass for prosperity, and stalks of millet and maize to attract wealth. Finally, Opiyo’s uncle took blades of modhno grass, tied them into a knot, and cast them down on to the ground; the grass symbolizes a blessing for a new home, and protects against evil forces.
Now the real work could begin on the new hut. First Obilo, Opiyo’s eldest son, cut a pole using his father’s new axe. Opiyo then cleared the site of undergrowth and dug the first hole, into which he placed the pole which his young son had cut; this first hole in the ground always coincides with the sleeping side of the house. Next, Opiyo marked out the outline of his circular duol, and the rest of the party joined in to dig holes for the remaining poles; these would form the main reinforcement for the mud walls. Opiyo took care to put cow dung, modhno, and bware (a medicinal plant) into the holes for the door poles. For the door post, he cut down a powo tree and removed the bark, leaving a smooth surface that would protect the family from the evil effects of witchcraft; negative forces would simply roll off the post to the ground and never enter the house.
With the door pillars in place, the rest of the family and the neighbors joined in to help Opiyo complete his house before nightfall. All day there was a steady supply of help. Women carried water and cooked food for the men, and they also helped carry some of the lighter building materials, such as reeds. The men did all the heavy construction work, such as softening mud to build the walls; they also climbed up and thatched the roof. The house had to be finished by the end of the first day, and when it was completed, Opiyo lit a fire and placed the cockerel inside the duol to crow the next morning. Meanwhile, the family returned to the old home, leaving Opiyo and his son to spend the first night together in their new hut. Opiyo spent four nights in his new duol with his young son, Obilo, which gave him time to build a grander hut for Auko. On the fifth day, his wife moved in and the couple consummated the new hut by having sex that night.
In time, Opiyo took a second wife; her name was Saoke from the Wasake clan and she came from a village fifty-five miles away, on the border between Kenya and Tanzania. Saoke’s home was a long way from Kendu Bay, which suggests not only that Opiyo was wealthy enough to take a second wife but also that his good reputation must have been widespread throughout south Nyanza. When Opiyo married Saoke, he built a hut for her in the family compound. In time, Opiyo fathered three sons, Obilo, Obama, and Agina, and at least two daughters. His middle son, Obama, was born around 1860 and he became the great-grandfather of President Obama.
Living as we do in the twenty-first century, it is difficult to fully appreciate just how independent and self-sufficient Opiyo and his family had to be to survive. They lived in a remote part of western Kenya during the middle and latter part of the nineteenth century, a full fifty years before white colonists introduced any form of modern technology. Opiyo and his family grew all their own food, built their own houses, and made their own clothes (such as they were), as well as many of their farming implements and weapons.
Opiyo’s family cultivated two plots of land. The kitchen garden or orundu was usually located behind the family compound and was accessible through the secondary opening in the hedge. The orundu was fenced off to keep animals away from the produce, and Opiyo’s two wives, Auko and Saoke, grew vegetables here, as well as legumes (peas and beans), peanuts, simsim (the Arabic word for sesame), maize, millet, cassava, and African sweet potatoes. The food grown here was usually for immediate consumption. Further away from the compound was their main farm. This was the preserve of Opiyo himself, and here he grew cereals and pulses for long-term storage, creating a strategic reserve for his family to use during times of drought and famine.
In addition to the crops, the family reared cattle, goats, sheep, and chickens. Cattle were, and still are, considered to be the most important livestock for an East African and the main measure of a man’s wealth. The head of the family has to accumulate cattle to pay the bride-price for his sons, although he also receives animals when his daughters are married off. The importance of cattle to an East African can never be underestimated; apart from their prestige value, they also represent an invaluable resource for the family, for they provide milk, meat, skins, and fuel. Sheep are also prized by the Luo and are used mostly as food or as gifts for friends. Responsibility for looking after the livestock falls on the young males in the family, and Opiyo’s
sons took turns caring for the animals, usually for three days at a time. (President Obama’s father, Barack senior, is often referred to as having been a “goatherd” during his youth. In fact, he looked after all of his father’s livestock.) The women always looked after the chickens and other fowl, and they would take cone-shaped fishing baskets down to the nearest river to catch what they could.
Opiyo traded surplus food for items he could not produce himself, such as knives and salt. Money would not be introduced until the early twentieth century (by the British); instead, the Luo economy functioned on a sophisticated system of bartering. Not only were there specific exchange rates between commodities such as grain and meat, but when an owner slaughtered a bull to exchange for cereals, each part of the animal was valued differently. The Luo also had a special form of barter called singo, which was a form of promissory note. If a man needed to slaughter a bull for a specific ceremony such as a funeral but did not have one of his own available, he would strike a deal with a neighbor to exchange one of his cows for a bull. Under the singo system the neighbor would keep the cow until it produced a calf, which the neighbor then kept for himself.
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