Traditions are rarely disputed in much of the world and this particular ethnic group in Kenya is at the very center of a very controversial tradition which sees members of the community bury their dead in a sitting position.
The custom of burying people seated is believed to have originated from the precolonial King of the Wanga community, Nabongo Mumia.
The Wanga kings are wrapped in animal skin; and a stool, the symbol of power, placed on their head.
Not only do they believe that burying the dead the ‘proper’ way will ward off evil spirits but also show respect to the elders as they go to the other world. It is also a way of connecting the community with the king, who they believe is watching over his family even in death.
Even in modern days, the tradition is still observed but with various modifications. When King Nabongo Japheth Wambani Rapando died in 2012, his coffin was constructed to look like a reclining chair. It was designed and built before the king passed on.
The first Wanga king, Nabongo Shiundu was buried in one of his wives’ house. Wamanya was the mother of King Mumia. His bones were later removed and buried at Matungu, the traditional site for the Nabongos.
Before the burial, the next king must be selected. Unlike in “Wakanda”, where mortal combat was the way to determine the ruler, in the Wanga community, the elders anoint a successor from the late king’s sons.
The chosen son will then spear an animal, which must fall next to the king’s body to indicate the king’s approval of the elders’ choice. Anything less, the process has to be repeated.
The skin from the bull is usually wrapped around the dead king.
The climax of the funeral ceremony is the coronation of the next king. The elders give him the omukasa (copper bracelet symbolising the Nabongoship) and dress him in a colobus monkey skin.
The Wanga are not the only ones with such a tradition. The Bukusu, Idakho, Tachoni and Kabras also conduct the burial of their elders this way.
The Balunda clan of the Bukusu tribe in Bungoma district also buries its deceased in an upright sitting position. They say it is their tradition. But a group of people from the same clan ? as well as some critics across the country — call the practice ?cult-like?.
One of the reasons used to explain the practice is that being propped up in a sitting posture enables the deceased to rise up instantly on the day he or she is summoned by God.
Questions have been raised on how possible it would be to sit a dead person up after rigor mortis has set in. Michael Masinde, the cousin to the deceased says that one has to ?convince? the dead because they listen.
“We have to speak to the deceased in a low tone to make them understand that we still love them and should agree with our requests and cultural practices, otherwise it would be difficult to make them sit in the coffin because of the hard bones and joints,” he says.
Vincent Khamala, a 70-year-old who belongs to the same clan and has lived in the area all his life, says that the quaint custom is just a matter of fulfilling what the forefathers introduced.
“The reason we bury our people in a sitting position,” he says,” is because the first man to die many years ago in the clan was found dead in a sitting position and we just thought the whole clan should follow suit.
We cannot break the cycle just because we are in the modern world.”
However, not all the clan members fancy the practice as they see it as old-fashioned and cult-like. Those who go against it are considered outcasts and become isolated. Jairus Khaemba is one of the clan members who despise it.
“We are part of the clan but we don’t engage in that kind of practice because our grand parents and parents were very devout Christians and found it backward and ungodly so we will always be buried lying stretched out as we have previously been doing.”
Some proud clan members want the clan to popularise the practice throughout Kenya and use it as an identity. They say the extraordinary way of burial could be a tourist attraction and a heritage to be envied by the rest of the world.
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