Inside story of how Luos and Luhyas 'purify' and remarry their dead relatives' wives

Losing a husband to death, no matter how often you hissed, “I wish you were dead” in a spate of range whenever he came home late and drunk is no mean feat. The trauma of leading the rest of your life as a widow is incommensurable, or so it seems.

The agony occasioned by this sad state of affairs is, perhaps, the reason elders in most parts of Western and Luo Nyanza came up with the concept of wife inheritance. However, before this happens, widow cleansing has to take place. This, elders believe, is done so as to exorcise the dead husband’s spirit through sex with an in-law. Strange as it sounds, the culture is still widely practiced in the rural areas.

Ker Nyandiko Ongadi, an anthropologist and elder in the South Nyanza faction of Luo Council of Elders starts explaining the culture by stating that according to Luo tradition, a wife belongs to the entire village.

Thus, when a woman loses her husband, family members and relatives meet and decide on who will take care of the widow and her children.

“Traditional brew would be served to the men as they deliberate not only on the burial program, but also on who was best suited to take care of the widow and her children,” says the culture enthusiast.

Once they settle on the best candidate for the job, all the nominee has to do is hang his coat in the widow’s house to symbolise he is the new man in charge. Hanging the coat is symbolic in sending a strong message to male visitors who harbour intention of inheriting the widow that the territory is already marked.

Interestingly, the woman has no say in the process and has to accept whoever the elders and family had chosen for her.

How family chooses wife inheritor

A number of factors are considered when choosing the inheritor, from the age of the widow to the wealth the deceased has left behind.

“A young widow will require an energetic man who would help her around the home and also meet her conjugal needs. If the man left vast land and cattle, the inheritor has to be picked from among his real blood brothers or a very close family member so that the wealth is retained in the family,” Ker explains.

It doesn’t matter if the chosen inheritor is married, the wife is not expected to throw tantrums but to accept the widow and live together as “Nyieke (Co-wives)”.

Strangely, before a woman is officially inherited, she has to get permission from her dead husband. She has to spend a night with the corpse before she is ‘freed’ to marry another man. Ker says the ‘sleeping together’ doesn’t necessarily have to be intercourse per se, one just has to lay next to the corpse and dream about making love to it, which symbolises permission from the deceased for her to move on to another man.

Seeking permission from dead hubby

If the ‘mandatory dream’ doesn’t come to her, the elders have to sweet-talk the corpse, begging it to ‘set free’ the widow. Only then, says Ker, would she get inherited. So serious is this culture in some areas that women who refuse to be cleansed and inherited get chased away or cursed by elders.

 

Why widows are inherited

So why exactly is it paramount for a woman to be inherited? One may wonder. “Well, having a man to replace her husband is aimed at curbing promiscuity and bad omen brought by widowhood. So it is better to have a man that the family and village know well to avoid embarrassment and bad luck. Also, if the deceased dies while still living in a “simba” in his father’s homestead, the new husband was to build a home for the woman, away from her in-laws homestead known as ‘goyo dala’,” says the elder.

Importance of sex in luo culture

According to Ker, other reasons as to why it’s necessary for a woman to be inherited in, for instance, Nyanza is because in Luo culture, most things are preceded by sex. “Before the start of the planting season, the man and woman of the house must hit the sack. Before weeding and harvesting of crops and many others seasons, the couple has to have good sex. So if the widow wants to continue farming, which is almost mandatory anyway, she has no choice but to get a man,” says Ker.

Professional widow cleansers

But like a healthy maize cob invaded by weevils, the elder observes that even though the cultural practice is still much alive, the new generation has turned it into a lust and greed-filled adventure.

It is no longer how elders of yore intended it to be. We also now have an emerging trend of randy men who masquerade as “professional widow cleansers”, commonly known as ‘jater’. They sniff around villages, looking for widows whom they cleanse at a fee.

Take Ken Omollo, for instance. Despite being married, he is among the many proud and self-confessed professional widow cleansers. Just like the now popular professional mourners, Omollo and his colleagues are professional cleansers who perform the ritual for a fee.

“The amount we charge depends on the widows financial muscles. In some instances we do it after taking oath of secrecy. In some cases, especially for those widows who are not interested in being inherited, it’s them who look for us so as to exorcise their dead husbands’ spirits and make them be at peace with ancestors,” says Omollo.

The cleansing is very important because it’s only after a widow is ‘purified’ that she can do certain things.

“When one’s husband dies, she is traditionally ‘unclean’ and cannot, among other things, ‘touch’ another woman’s baby or young child, lest the baby dies. She is said to be with ‘chola’ thus has to be cleansed through sex by ‘jater’ for her to be able to move about with her normal life.

Like an experienced farmer who has mastered the art of getting the best out of his crop, Omollo claims he knows just the right cords to strike to get widows, strumming like the proverbial Spanish Guitar.

“Some of the widows I have offered my services to, end up pestering me for more and regular doses of my toe-curling treats,” laughs Omollo.

Some of the inheritors are now accused of being nothing but randy men, out to satiate their greedy fascination for the forbidden fruit.

Man who has inherited six widows

A story is, for example, told of a secondary school teacher in Migori County has inherited six widows, including his two wives bringing the total women in his life to eight.

He is believed to have a timetable of how he spends in their houses, which is subject to change whenever any of the women has urgent demand.

Fights over widows, too, is quite common in parts of Nyanza. A while back in Siaya County, a tale is told of Casanovas who were so smitten with a pretty, younger widow that they had to consult witchdoctors in their bid to win over her.

Elsewhere in Kigoto village, Gwasi, Homa Bay County elders had to recently be summoned to bring peace and order in a family where two brothers of a deceased were physically fighting over who between them should inherit the widow.

So bad was the fight that their father threatened to curse and disown them, the widow ran away with her kids and has never set foot in the home again.

MP who inherited a widow

Meanwhile, wife inheritance knows no social class. When a renowned Luo Benga Maestro died in 2011, his wife was inherited by a former MP right after the musician’s burial.

What’s more, in-laws have immensely contributed towards this practice, with some parents-in-law even using threats and intimidation to get their daughters-in-law accept being inherited. When, for example, a certain Amondi lost her husband, her father-in-law gave her an ultimatum to either get inherited or leave his compound pronto.

“He told me to pick a man of my choice in the home to inherit me as not doing so would bring bad omen to the family since I’ll remain unclean. Considering my religious background, I declined he threatened to throw me out of the home. I still get pressure from him, demanding that I get inherited to one of my husband’s kin,” she agonises.

Dr. Patrick of FACES-Kenya (Family AIDS Care and Education), however, says this practise is partly responsible for fueling HIV in most Counties in Nyanza.

He says some of the inheritors are so reckless that they sleep with women who lost their husbands to HIV /Aids without protection. In the process, they spread the disease.

On his part, Ker Ongadi defends the culture, saying the whole concept was mooted in good faith, plus there was no prevalence of deadly sexually transmitted diseases back in the day and that’s why the culture thrived.

Most inheritors, Ker says, were also disciplined. He, however, moans the rapancy of casanovas who are in it to satisfy their sexual needs and spreading diseases.

Religious leaders on the other hand term the culture retrogressive and demonic. Pastor Ken Ojung’a of Christ Restoration Centre, for instance, says dreaming of having sex with a dead person is inappropriate and one must pray against such. He adds that wife inheritance is against the teachings of Christ.

“People revere culture more than religion and that is why even Christians sometimes bow to cultural pressure because of the so called consequences attached to them,” he says, urging Christians to shun retrogressive cultures.

The jury is still out on whether this is one of the cultures that must be done away with.