James Wuod Maggero, whose real name was also “Otieno”, was a good story teller. He could glue his listener for hours with titillating tales, be they about his escapes in Kenya or his excursions in Sweden when he first came to this country.
When, one day, he went with Dagmar to his home village in Siranga, Aoko Nyar Bamba, Maggero’s late mother, was surprised that Dagmar was collecting snails which she wanted to cook and eat. Surprised, Aoko told Dagmar that she would have to cook the snails at the gunda (an abandoned home) and not at the home stead.
Dagmar got very angry and retorted that the home people were also eating ngwen (termites) and that she also had a right to cook and eat the snails. She could not understand why she could not be allowed to cook snails which she had picked up when eating of termites was allowed.
When my mother visited me in Sweden in May 2001, Wuod Maggero was the first person she visited at his house in Hellenelund because, for a long time, Maggero had been a very close family friend. Dagmar cooked chicken and rice for us. To be honest, Dagmar is a really nice cook and many Kenyans who attended Maggero’s ceremonies will attest to this.
On many occasions when Maggero visited Kenya, he used to call me to check if I had a message for Mom. He took his time and went to Kisumu to deliver my messages. When Maggero lost his son Owino, he spent a night at Geneva Guest House in Kisumu (which my family owns) together with his first wife, Nyar Ugenya, arguing that there was nowhere else he could sleep while in Kisumu. I have been contemplating publishing a picture my Mom took with Woud Maggero in Stockholm but I have to ask her first. But when Maggero started getting really sick, he stopped going to Kisumu while in Kenya and my info line to my family was also cut off.
When Maggero organized the duoko nyako (returning the girl) ceremony at Hellenulund (I can’t remember the girl who was being duokod), I was one of the impromptu speakers and a key point I made in my speech was that I did not know about the “duoko nyako” ceremony until I attended the function. I was later informed by some elderly Luos that they too did not know about it while some Luo women admitted that they were never duokod themselves. Maggero was a cultural person.
We arrived at the function with Mr. Mark Gaya and I remember congratulating Wuod Maggero for upholding the African culture and helping the younger generation to understand the meaning and value of African cultures which were on their way to extinction.
When Dagmar accused me of never having attended their functions and being a total stranger when she had actually cooked a meal for my mother and myself in her own house, I went to the archive to look at some of the nice pictures we took during the “life and times” of Wuod Maggero to reminisce and wondered why Dagmar was telling such horrible lies at a time when Maggero had just departed. The brutality of my articles as a result of concerns about what had happened to “Our elder” had expunged the good memories. But let’s get back to business.
WHY MAGGERO’S SOUL MIGHT NEVER “REST IN PEACE”
Culture is not static. It is true that today, Luos do not remove their six lower teeth because the exigencies of this practice has been overtaken by both science and technology that can facilitate the feeding of a sick person through intra-venous means if the patient is unable to eat food through the mouth.
In Stockholm, many members of the Kikuyu community have not circumcised their sons and daughters although this is what could have happened if their children were born in Kenya. Luos and other African communities no longer pay dowry in terms of goats and cows but accept hard cash as an alternative. Wife inheritance among the Luo is on the wane while the practice of Luos marrying outside the tribe is acceptable with more focus having shifted to whether the basic Luo marriage customs have been followed. Within the Luo culture, no marriage is valid unless dowry has been paid. Tero buru ( a ritual for the dead) among the Luo is facing extinction. In short, the law of cultural dynamism states that progressive cultures survive while retrogressive cultures diminish over time and this is a widely accepted rule in many cultures.
Africans stopped wearing skins long time ago because cultures are dynamic. Luo culture does not demand that a Luo man must be buried in his ancestral home as long as the man set up a new home elsewhere according to Luo traditions. In fact, some Luo males have been reported to have been circumcised for their own personal reasons although nyange (circumscision) is not widely practiced within the community ie there is even room to borrow from other cultures at the individual level.
In the current case of Woud Maggero, the question which could be posed is whether Luo culture (just like many African cultures) has evolved in a way that cremation could be accepted as a “normal practice”.
The hoopla around Maggero’s cremation is strongly linked to the novelty of the event among the Luo (and many Africans), the speed with which it was conducted without family participation in Kenya, the secrecy which surrounded Maggero’s death announcement, the failure of Maggero’s Swedish family to compromise on certain basic demands and, most importantly, the failure of Mr. Maggero himself to prepare his Luo and African counter parts for the event in case it was his wish to be cremated.
Maggero should have understood that his cremation had the potential of exploding into a controversy and, under the circumstances, it was his responsibility to “diffuse the bomb”, not just by informing his wife but also preparing his people especially his closest friends like Dr. Otieno Wariaro who could have acted as a “cultural front” in favor of Dagmar and her daughters to explain events to other Kenyans. This did not happen.
The Kikuyu do not cremate. But when former Arch Bishop Manases Kuria was cremated in Kenya a few years ago, there was no commotion because the Bishop had prepared his people properly for the event when he was still alive. For many Kenyans who are now planning an alternative Memorial for Maggero, the Mzee’s cremation was the climax of a terrible clash between the Swedish/Jewish culture and Luo culture. The general view is that the white culture prevailed while the African culture was trampled upon with impunity.
The fireworks being witnessed in the Maggero case could be dismissed by the “culturally dislocated” as the product of interference of a private family affair but in reality, the persistent sparks are the product of deep dilemma which has struck some Kenyans in the wake of news about Maggero’s cremation and the expected consequences within the context of both Luo and African culture.
For many Luos who understand the culture, the call that Maggero’s soul should be left to “rest in peace” is anathema because since his body was never buried, Luo culture dictate that his soul will never rest in peace because his spirit will wonder “for ever” upon the surface of the earth.
The point of impact between this Luo culture and Swedish/Jewish culture is that for Maggero’s Swedish family, the status of Maggero’s soul is not affected by his cremation while for the Luo, whoever supported or contributed to Maggero’s cremation will have to pay by being haunted by Maggero’s spirit which will hold these people responsible for its inability to join the ancestors because his body is “at large”.
BURIAL OF ASHES NEXT TO MOTHER IN LAW WILL BE REPUGNANT
Luos who have been “making noise” over the issue have simply been trying to wash their hands from responsibility because after Maggero’s family failed to travel to Sweden to deal with the crisis, there was nothing else Luos in Stockholm could do because non of them was related to Maggero by blood. It was for this reason that the fundamental demand to Maggero’s Swedish family was for a family member from Kenya to travel to Sweden “to be part of the funeral process”.
The fear of the dead coming back to haunt the living within the Luo culture has, on several occasions, led to the clan “dumping Wills in dustbins” on grounds that the dead did not understand the real implications of their Wills when they were alive with the hope that the dead would realize their mistakes once they joined the ancestors, time when the living would also be vindicated. It is also for this reason that funeral arrangements within the Luo are the preserve of clan members whose leaders are expected to understand every minute detail in the situation. SM Otieno (for Kenyans who know about the historic case) wrote a Will but it was dumped, not by clan members but by the Court system in the Republic of Kenya which ruled in favour of the Luo culture.
If Mr. Maggero had died at war or drowned so that his body could not be found, a yago (the pod of an oak tree) could be buried (at the designated location of Maggero’s burial site) to represent his body in order to appease his spirit so that his soul could rest in peace.
The dilemma in the Maggero case is that although his body existed, it was deliberately converted into ashes by people who did not understand the implications so a yago cannot be buried to replace it. The consequence is that Maggero’s spirit will have to wonder “for ever” and those who will rest in earthly peace (free from Maggero’s haunting spirit) are those who had nothing to do with the disappearance of his body. If he had left a Will that he wanted to be cremated and convinced people in life, his spirit would not be in a position to haunt anybody because there would be nobody to take responsibility. This might sound a bit of “Latin” to white readers although it is what the culture says.
The “Jewish element” of the analysis above hinges on the fact that Dagmar is a “Swedish Jew” whose Jewish mother relocated to Sweden after the second world war. Real Jews don’t cremate although the practice is normal among “Liberal Jews”.
Dagmar’s mother was herself cremated and, according to Maggero’s Swedish family which made revelations at the Continental Hotel, Maggero’s ashes will be buried next to his mother in law’s ashes thereby provoking new and intensive cultural fireworks which Dagmar and her daughters might never understand.
The fact that Maggero’s mother in law was herself cremated also raises questions as to whether the cremation of Maggero was his wish or whether it is a family practice from the point of view of Dagmar’s Jewish heritage. Nobody has seen the will where Maggero says that he wanted to be cremated and what is available is hear-say.
If Maggero’s ashes are buried next to her mother in law as was planned, it will probably be the first time that a Luo has been “buried” next to his mother in law since the genesis of the “Luo nation”. There is simply no way of capturing the repugnancy in the situation.
COULD “NYAR UGENYA” THREATEN DAGMAR’S MATRIMONIAL STATUS?
Another point of cultural conflict is that Dagmar is Maggero’s second wife although she and her daughters took all the decisions about Maggero’s cremation. According to Luo culture, Nyar Ugenys should have taken the lead as Dagmar followed in her foot-steps. Nyar Ugenya could herself have been taking instructions from the clan. But that is irrelevant now.
Coming back to Sweden, the possibility of a second legal wife is “unthinkable” in Sweden and when we raised the issue, the key boards of many white Swedish contacts who have been sending private mails to KSB to try and discuss the matter simply went dead.
To get back to the point, Nyar Ugenya, Maggero’s first wife, did not even feature in the funeral process probably because if her profile had been lifted, it could have complicated the situation for Dagmar who stands as the sole inheritor of Maggero’s estate on grounds that she is the sole “next of kin”.
We don’t have to mention Maggero’s children, some of whom are unknown but who have a legal right to claim part of his estate. A typical case is that of Beatrice, Maggero’s unknown twenty year old daughter who studies at Stockholm university in Sweden and whose Finish mother was blocked from getting entangled into the “Maggero quagmire” by some Kenyans who did not want her to disturb the waters further and at a time when many pleas were being drafted to be presented to Maggero’s Swedish family.
If the issue of Nyar Ugenya came up forcefully, another issue which could have popped up is the marital status of Dagmar because if evidence could be produced that Maggero was in deed married at the time he married Dagmar and that he never divorced Nyar Ugenya, then Dagmar’s marriage to Maggero could be rendered null and void according to Swedish law which does not permit two or more wives at the same time.
To be precise, the status of Dagmar in relation to the law could be reduced to that of a “Sambo” (Cohabitant). The Swedish law dictates that Maggero had to officially divorce Nyar Ugenya before Marrying Dagmar and since this did not happen, Nyar Ugenya was in a position to claim Maggero’s estate if she could produce a marriage certificate that she was legally married to Wuod Maggero at the time Maggero married Dagmar.
We urge the “Liberated Young Kenyans” and other “disco critics” to join the debate at another level instead of engaging in personal and unrealistic attacks against those who are trying to honestly shed new light on the Maggero crisis.
TO BE CONTINUED IN PART THREE
Okoth Osewe
