The Tiriki of Vihiga County can teach us how to finish tribalism

                                             Tiriki circumcision dance- vukhulu

I had decided to quit blogging on social issues but the backfired anthropologist in me won’t allow. I am not a historian so my hypothesis is a result of my interest in people and their well being. When the writing bug bites, it gets too itchy to brush aside.

 I have been commenting on issues in the social media to quench my writing thirst. The vitriol targeted at Mr. Ngunjiri Wambugu from his kith and kin kept me busy. Though it could not quell it all together so I come back stuttistically to express my new found (but adopted) slogan of LIVE and LET LIVE.

wambugu

I grew up among the Luhya in Western Kenya. I first learned the Idakho dialect in lower primary class at Musingu Primary but grasped Tiriki from my interactions out of school as Kaimosi Friends Primary was as cosmopolitan as any urban primary school. I spent ten good years among the Tiriki including four high school years in Maragoli land. Vihiga County is made up of three Luhya sub-tribes of Banyore, Tiriki and the populous Maragoli.

Watching Ikolomani MP Boni Khalwale go through his motions in and out of parliament brings memories of my time among the idakho. The walks to Khayega for bull fighting and the passionate isikuti dance thereafter. The song ‘mkangala’ was a toast of the only Luhya sub-tribe that according to me is spoke with passion and zest. Listening to Kimaragoli is cool, while the Tiriki to me are a balanced lot of passion with restraint.

The Tiriki speak Lutirichi (or Ludiliji) and occupy the West of Vihiga County bordering Nandi County. There is a Kalenjin sub tribe of Nandi called Terik which has sometimes led to comments that Tirikis are not Luhyas or Teriks are not Kalenjins. That is a point to note but I will hold the Teriks constant (to do justice to my Mathematics lecturers now that I am a self confessed admirer of Anthropology) and differentiate the Tiriki.

Tiriki is sub divided into several clans which include; Balukhoba, Bajisinde, Baumbo, Bashisungu Bamabi, Bamiluha, Balukhombe, Badura, Bamuli, Barimuli, Baguga, Basianiga and Basuba. Thanks to my former school mates- I am a ‘Musuva.’ I write this as an adopted Tiriki in the order of the clan of Basuba (Basuva). Don’t take offense when I used ‘b’ and ‘v’ confusingly in Luhya words. I have never understood the use of the two but my own definition is that idakho use ‘b’ while Tiriki use ‘v’ in written and sometimes a gliding ‘b’ in spoken.

I chose Basuva because I am a Suba and it is believed that the Basuva are originally from the Luo sub-tribe of Suba. According to a Tiriki, Mr. Lusasi- it is believed that only two clans- Baumbo and Balukhoba are the original Tiriki clans. Baumbo are believed to have come from Luos as the word ‘Bambo’- is Tiriki for Luo. The rest were adopted from Kalenjin and other Luhya sub-tribes.

Another point to note is that all these clans regardless of their ‘origin’ have adopted the Tiriki culture most of it picked from their Terik grandfather. Like the five year boys’ initiation cycle called itumi. Then a circumcised Tiriki man cannot eat food that has fallen to the ground and many others. 

Here comes my point, if our forefathers could adopt and integrate people from different social origins why do we find it hard to integrate? Has development and education eroded our social side and taken us back to the olden times as prehistoric (before the written word) judgment finds us with no defense.

This is the case with almost every African tribe. I believe the prisoners who escaped from the colonial Mageta Island prison may have found a home in current Bondo district. My workmate who hails from Murang’a is a proud Kikuyu but accepts that his grandfather was a Maasai whose nickname Abaiya (Maa for a man with a family) evolved to his current name Kibaiya. 

The late political activist Oulu G.P.O who died fighting for the rights of Kikuyu young men- mungiki was a Luo descendant of a Luhya grandfather. His grandfather had a bone to pick with his Luo neighbours. He went to follow up and in the settlement he got land and he chose to live among his ‘former’ enemies. His children and grandchildren are as Luo as Jakoyo Midiwo and the Suba in me.

Education and the recent global village initiatives have left us more closed than open minded. We have failed where education is meant to replace a closed mind with an open one. In terms of social integration, our ancestors beat us. Negative ethnicity is not only primitive nor even prehistoric but primeval.

We are getting into the election mode and the best we shall do is to appoint some people tribal elders as we demonize the Ngunjiri Wambugu’s of our times. These are people who have decided to fight the tribal prejudice associated with our country even if it means standing alone. The problem is to fight tribalism you have to associate with it, you cannot do it in a vacuum. This may bring some backlash but focus will sift the chuff from the grain. If we do not do something- the next ‘presidential referendum’ will end up in Pyrrhic victory for whoever wins.

To push my agenda further I will write about the Kikuyu like- Kasiemba clan from my ‘cosmopolitan’ home of Uyoma Naya in Siaya County. The development and social growth of someone else does not necessarily mean a depreciation of the same on your side. Live and let live, there are lessons to learn and an opportunity to build each other by bridging our weaknesses with our strength in diversity. LIVE and LET LIVE.