The Associated Press - Tuesday, April 6, 1999
Ravi Nessman, Associated Press

But many members of the Luo, the third-largest ethnic group in Kenya, refuse to turn away from their history.

"According to how we see it, we cannot erode our culture," says Jane Osege, a resident of Kanyuto.

A group of Luo leaders sparked the controversy recently when they condemned funeral rituals that soak up large amounts of cash that could be better spent on alleviating problems of impoverished Kenyans.

The leaders also suggested changes in the custom of a dead man's wife being "inherited" by a male relative as an additional wife. The practice is blamed for helping speed the spread of AIDS through the community.

The debate made its way into the national press, with academics and politicians trading verbal blows with those defending traditional culture.

In an open letter, Court of Appeals Judge Richard Kwach, a Luo traditionalist, harshly criticized the leadership group, calling it a collection of "self-styled intellectuals and elites" with little connection to the average Luo.

But it is in places like Kanyuto, a grassy village of 160 families three miles from Kenya's third-largest city, Kisumu, where the battle over traditions will be won or lost.

A half dozen people sat in chairs in the shade of a tree mourning the recent death of Samuel Oyaro, the chief's brother.

In the darkness of a nearby mud hut, the controversy over his widow's fate began. Would she follow the Luo tradition and marry one of her husband's brothers or cousins, or would she remain single -- at least for the time being?

"We want to follow the customary tradition. She will marry again," said Jane Osege, 24.

Jane's husband, Simon, the 36-year-old chief of Kanyuto, is working to end wife inheritance.

"We are trying to discourage that," he said. "You cannot force them to change their ways of living overnight."

Wife inheritance is blamed for spreading AIDS from widows to their new husbands and their other wives. Nearly one of every four people in the Kisumu area is infected with HIV, and about 9 percent of Kenya's 29 million people are HIV-positive.

The Luo Council of Elders, a recently formed organization, said in February that wife inheritance should be reserved for widows who are not infected with the AIDS virus.

After that suggestion, some Luo politicians demanded the practice be scrapped altogether in favor of "symbolic inheritance" -- a brother-in-law accepting responsibility for a widow's welfare, but not marrying her.

Jane Osege argues wife inheritance slows the spread of AIDS by keeping women in stable relationships.

"If this culture is gone, it will encourage prostitution, because a woman cannot go without a man," she said.

She said perhaps widows infected with HIV could be inherited by men already infected with the virus.

The Council of Elders reserved their strongest criticism for the Luo tradition of burying people at their birthplaces. The custom has become increasingly burdensome as more Luo move from "Luoland" in western Kenya to the big cities of Nairobi and Mombasa in the east and even the United States.

One powerful Luo politician, Raila Odinga, estimated Luo welfare organizations spend $500,000 a month bringing bodies home. That money would be better spent helping the grieving family, he said.

"We need to change our value system. Now we love the dead body more than we love the live person," he said.

Odinga recommended Luos from poor families be buried where they die, and the family "bring back the shadow" by returning some personal effects to Luoland for a symbolic burial.

In Kanyuto, the residents regularly hold fund-raisers to rent buses or pay for plane transportation so that bodies can be buried where the deceased first established a connection with the land. This allows their eternal spirit to rest, Jane Osege said.

"If a person is buried outside the home, the spirit will keep haunting us," she added.

These traditions are not simply spiritual customs, but arose for practical reasons, said Ochieng' Odhiambo, a Luo professor of philosophy at the University of Nairobi.

In the time before land deeds, which are still uncommon in Kenyan villages, Luos proved property claims by showing ancestors' graves on their land.

And, in an agrarian society where children were valued as farm workers, Luos inherited wives to ensure that the priceless labor remained within the family, he said.

"In the countryside those beliefs are really deeply rooted," he said.
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