Disowned for marrying from forbidden clan

Mzee Nyaga M’Rwingo. [PHOTO: FILEX MURIITHI

When his daughter got married six years ago, he utterly disowned her in front of clan elders. He told his biological spawn never to refer to him as her father nor name any of her children after him. He, until now, he is still angry with her.

“As you can see, my daughter married a man from my clan. Our clan, Gitiri, does not allow its members to intermarry. Ever since she married that man, I have considered them (the couple) and their family as outcasts. They are not mine in anyway,” Nyaga M’Rwingo, 73, says bitterly.

Gitiri clan, according to its Secretary General Eliud Fundi, 65, is the largest in Embu County as it covers more than 10 per cent of the Embu population. Embu has more than 20 clans including Mukiria, Igandu, Igamatau, Igamuturi, Irimba, Iruma and Marigu, among others.

“Our clan covers most parts in the entire county and it is referred to, as ‘a clan with a strong binding marriage rule’. Just from the beginning, we have never allowed our members to intermarry because our people are understood to have come from Mukwamwana (son’s wife). Several other clans intermarry but ours doesn’t,” he explains.

Gitiri is a woman’s name in Embu land. “Clans in Embu County were named after women because, the families of the Embu people were long ago governed by women. The name of a woman who was so concerned, however, was identified as the clan name,” Fundi says.

“Gitiri, according, to the ancestors who left the information through generations until it reached us, was married to a man known as Muciru and they got many children; both sons and daughters. The one who was widely known, was named Njiru,” he says.

The secretary general tells us that Njiru married a woman known as Mbiro. Gitiri clan and also the Aembu community people refer to a woman married to their homesteads as Mukwamwana (son’s wife).

He says that one day, the Gitiri family was invaded by Muiko (raiders) - people thought to be Okabi/Maasai.

“On their way, the Muiko found a man (Muciru) who had drank a honey swill lying on a grass where his flock was feeding, few meters from his home place,” Fundi says. “Since there was a prophecy that warned them against touching or interfering with anybody they found sleeping on their way, they did not touch the drunk Muciru as calamity would befall them. Instead, they covered him with tree branches to keep him safe,” Fundi explains to County Life.

They, however, arrived in Muciru’s homestead and eliminated every existing soul apart from his son Njiru’s wife (Mbiro) who had miraculously hidden in a calf’s pen.
“Muciru woke up after he heard screams of his perishing family. He rushed to his home to find devastation. Everyone had been killed. The realisation of his loss left Muciru in a situation of confusion and desperation,” Ndatua Maria, 105, says. But when Muciru’s daughter-in-law Mbiro emerged from her hiding place in the calf pen, he felt like he had a little hope. 

“Vava tiga kurira nivo, (Dad don’t cry anymore, I am alive),” Mbiro told Muciru. The predicament of losing all his ancestry found him cohabiting with his Mukwamwana and they were blessed with a son whom they named Mataka.

“Following the sexual engagement of Muciru and Mbiro, Muciru left a curse to those-from his ‘second’ ancestry who would dare intermarry,” Ndatua says.

According to the old woman, Muciru said, “Nyomba ino yakwa ndikaguranira wari wari… (My people will never intermarry).”

For those who flout the warning and intermarry, the elders say, their families face internal conflicts amidst other misfortunes.

“Some don’t get children while some others get abnormal ones and others die,” Anisia Mbeere, 85, says.

When the County Life visited several elders to establish the reason Nyaga disowned his daughter, they revealed that the old man did so to avoid the ancestral curse. This curse would befall him if he dared ask for anything in form of dowry from his in-laws.

“Members of other clans can marry among themselves but Gitiri do not and will never. Our members have pressed us to call meetings to resolve whether we can start intermarrying but the elders, I being one of them, always decline. It would just be like marrying from the same womb - a thing that is taboo, not only in our clan but in the entire Aembu community,” the secretary general said.

To ensure they don’t intermarry, the leaders call meetings regularly and prepare gruel (ukie) among other healthy African dishes. Fundi says, “Though our members are across the county, they know each other.”

The clan elders say they are aware that we are living in a digital era and that is why they have contemplated publishing the history of the clan online. They hope to reach youthful members and others abroad in the shortest time possible so as to curb the vice of intermarrying.

According to the elders, Gitiri clan parents Muciru and Mbiro lived between 800 and 1000 AD.

The elders say their parents, who are said to have come from Meru, settled near a pool of water, a place known today as Riagitiri in Kigumo village where most of their people still dwell. Muciru and Mbiro’s son Mataka got three boys; Njagi, Njeru and Itumu at the place and they later dispersed in between 1200 to 1300 AD.

The kinfolk were registered as Gitiri Selfhelp Group back in 1984 with the aim of home improvement.