Abstract
This article presents narrative accounts which illustrate ways that modernization and social change have transformed the daily lives of Abaluyia, especially older people, in rural western Kenya since the late nineteenth century. The narratives reveal history as lived experience, as observed and recorded by an anthropologist who has been doing research among Abaluyia in Bunyala and Samia over the past 25 years. The story involves continuity of cultural beliefs and practices, and it involves change—change imposed by the macro-events of globalizing processes, from colonialism to Structural Adjustment Programs, and change as people’s adaptive responses to those processes, particularly how changing cultural practices have impacted elders. The grand narrative is historical, the overarching story of the incorporation of Kenya and Kenyans into the global political economy from the colonial period to the present. Other narratives are biographical, case studies of individuals from two extended families and their personal experiences of social change over the past century. The background narrative is autobiographical, the anthropologist’s story of the practice of anthropological fieldwork and her own experiences and observations of social change in western Kenya. Since anthropological data over time become history, the approach here is both anthropological and historical.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
Luyia has several variant spellings including Luhya. Most scholars, including Luyia scholars such as John Osogo, Priscilla Shilaro, Simiyu Wandibba and Gideon Were, use “Luyia.”
The District Socio-cultural Profile (Soper 1986:12) states that there are four Luyia subgroups in Busia District and that they “are relatively homogeneous linguistically and culturally, but influenced to varying degrees by their neighbors.” The report consistently refers to Luyia, not to the subgroups. I concur with their assessment in regard to Samia and Abanyala, both of whom have had many cultural interchanges with neighboring Luo.
When I first saw these figures, I thought they had to be wrong! For many years Kenya had the highest population growth rate in the world. It was demographers’ prime example of growth gone wild. But in the 1990s total fertility rate in Kenya dropped from 8.4 to just a little over 3 children per woman. Bradley (1997), whose research was carried out in Maragoli, another Luyia area, suggests that declining fertility there is the result of women’s education and empowerment, economic and otherwise.
Since 1982 a number of changes have been made in government administrative units, including the division of Busia District into Busia and Teso Districts. The new Busia District was divided into Busia and Samia Districts just prior to the December 27, 2007 elections. Because of the post-election violence and confusion, the new district boundaries are not clear as of this writing in February 2008, though it seems that what was Samia Location in 1982 and later became Funyula Divison has now become Samia District.
Elsewhere in precolonial Luyialand, circumcisers were among the traveling experts (Wagner 1949), but Samia and Banyala never circumcised, having adopted instead the Nilotic (Luo) custom of tooth removal.
For more on the precolonial era, see Cattell (1989a), Osogo (1965), Seitz (1978), Soper (1986), Wandibba (1985), Were (1967). Wagner’s (1949, 1956) work on two northern Luyia subgroups, Bukusu and Maragoli, cannot be assumed to apply to southern Abaluyia. So far as I can tell, Wagner never got as far south as Samia and Bunyala, and northern Luyia beliefs and customs diverge in important ways from those of southern Luyia, who have had significant cultural interchanges with their Luo neighbors.
Cotton remained the main cash crop through the 20th century but by the 1990s cotton farmers were discouraged because the Cotton Board was so slow in paying them. In the mid-1990s some farmers began growing sunflowers in response to East African Industries promotion of sunflowers (used in products such as cooking fat). Now in Samia you see some fields of sunflowers and also some cotton, which the government is again encouraging. The main crops are various grains plus cassava.
Unlike many parts of Africa, British settlers were attracted to Kenya by the pleasant climate and the possibility of prosperity and a comfortable lifestyle.
In precolonial Samia, land was communally held and use rights were granted to individuals. In 1955 the British instituted individual land registration, registering land only to men. Thereafter land was inherited by sons, eventually leading to serious pressures on land as the population grew and ever-smaller plots were inherited by successive generations of sons. Though land can be registered to women, in fact few women have legal ownership of land and the resource control and access to credit that land ownership provides. In 1986, about 40% of Samia farms had three acres or less (Nangina Hospital 1986).
Similar trends are found in many sub-Saharan African countries (Monasch and Boerwa 2004).
Unemployment and underemployment have been high in Kenya for several decades. In 2001 the estimated unemployment rate in Kenya was 40% (http://worldfacts.us/Kenya.htm; accessed June 9, 2006).
If the child’s father accepts paternity and pays a cow to the mother’s family, the child may eventually go to live with the father, though this is not assured (unless the parents marry). Many men refuse paternity, which complicates matters. In any case, the “rules” of kinship (in this case, patrilineal descent) may not be followed if individuals see reason to do something different. Kinship, like ethnicity, has some flexibility, as with Fabiano’s making himself over into a Muluyia (a Luyia person).
References
Bradley, C. (1997). Why fertility is going down in Maragoli. In T. S. Weisner, C. Bradley, & P. L. Kilbride (Eds.) African families and the crisis of social change (pp. 227–252). Westport, CT, USA: Bergin & Garvey.
Cattell, M. G. (1989a). Old age in rural Kenya: Gender, the life course and social change. Bryn Mawr College: Ph.D. dissertation.
Cattell, M. G. (1989b). Knowledge and social change in Samia, western Kenya. Journal of Cross-Cultural Gerontology, 4(3), 225–244.
Cattell, M. G. (1992). Praise the Lord and say no to men: Older Samia women empowering themselves. Journal of Cross-Cultural Gerontology, 7(4), 307–330.
Cattell, M. G. (1997a). The discourse of neglect: Family support for the elderly in Samia. In T. S. Weisner, C. Bradley, & P. L. Kilbride (Eds.) African families and the crisis of social change (pp. 157–183). Westport, CT, USA: Bergin & Garvey.
Cattell, M. G. (1997b). Ubuntu, African elderly and the African family crisis. Southern African Journal of Gerontology, 6(2), 37–39.
Cattell, M. G. (2000). The impact and meaning of migration in the lives of older rural Kenyans. Paper presented in invited symposium, “The impact of urbanization on aging: A global challenge.” First International Conference on Rural Aging: A Global Challenge, Charleston WV.
Cattell, M. G. (2001). Wild resonances: Intersections of human and animal worlds among Samia, western Kenya. Paper at African Studies Association annual meeting, Houston.
Cattell, M. G. (2002). Holding up the sky: Gender, age and work among the Abaluyia of Kenya. In S. Makoni, & K. Stroeken (Eds.) Ageing in Africa: Sociolinguistic and anthropological approaches (pp. 155–175). Burlington, VT, USA: Ashgate.
Cattell, M. G. (2005). African reinventions: Home, place and kinship among Abaluyia of Kenya. In G. D. Rowles, & H. Chaudhury (Eds.) Home and identity in late life: International perspectives (pp. 219–235). New York: Springer.
Ferreira, M. (1999). Building and advancing African gerontology. Southern African Journal of Gerontology, 8(1), 1–3.
Hay, M. J. (1976). Luo women and economic change during the colonial period. In N. J. Hafkin, & E. G. Bay (Eds.) Women in Africa: Studies in social and economic change pp. 87–109. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Hobley, C. W. (1970 [1929]). Kenya from chartered company to Crown colony. London: Frank Cass.
Iliffe, J. (1987). The African poor: A history. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Monasch, R., & Boerwa, J. T. (2004). Orphanhood and childcare patterns in sub-Saharan Africa: An analysis of national surveys from 40 countries. AIDS, 18(Supplement 2), S55–S65.
Nangina Hospital (1986). Survey of client population. Unpublished report in author’s possession.
Nyambedha, E. O., Wandibba, S., & Aagaard-Hansen, J. (2003). “Retirement lost”—the new role of the elderly as caretakers for orphans in Western Kenya. Journal of Cross-Cultural Gerontology, 18(1), 33–52.
Ochieng’, W. R. (Ed.). (2002). Historical studies and social change in western Kenya: Essays in memory of Professor Gideon S. Were. Nairobi: East African Educational Publishers.
Osogo, J. (1965). Life in Kenya in the olden days: The Baluyia. Nairobi: Oxford University Press.
Republic of Kenya (2000). 1999 Population and housing census: Counting our people for development, Vol. I. Nairobi: Central Bureau of Statistics, Ministry of Finance and Planning.
Seitz, J. R. (1978). A history of the Samia Location in western Kenya, 1890–1930. West Virginia University: PhD dissertation.
Soper, R., (Ed.). (1986). Kenya socio-cultural profiles: Busia District. Nairobi: The Ministry of Planning and National Development & The Institute of African Studies, University of Nairobi.
Thomson, J. (1885). Through Masai land. London: Edward Arnold.
Wagner, G. (1949). The Bantu of North Kavirondo. Volume I. London: Oxford University Press.
Wagner, G. (1956). In L. P. Mair (Ed.) The Bantu of North Kavirondo. Volume II: Economic Life. London: Oxford University Press.
Wandibba, S. (Ed.). (1985). History and culture in western Kenya: The people of Bungoma District through time. Nairobi: Gideon S. Were Press.
Were, G. S. (1967). A history of the Abaluyia of western Kenya, c. 1500–1930. Nairobi: East African Publishing House.
Weisner, T. S., Bradley, C., & Kilbride, P. L. (Eds.). (1997). African families and the crisis of social change. Westport, CT: Bergin & Garvey.
Acknowledgements
I am most grateful for the invaluable help of my Luyia co-researchers, especially John Barasa “JB” Owiti of Siwongo village in Samia and Frankline Mahaga of Port Victoria and Nairobi. Special thanks to Frankie and JB and their families for their love and hospitality over the past quarter century. Let me especially recognize three of my longtime friends, JB’s father, Clement Owiti, who died shortly after my last visit with him in February 2004, JB’s mother, Nabwire, who died in October 2007, and Imelda Makokha, who always welcomed me into her home. She died in July 2007. Thanks also to Medical Mission Sisters, former administrators of Holy Family Hospital at Nangina, and especially Sr. Marianna Hulshof; the many pupils and staff at Nangina Girls Primary School (now St. Catherine’s) who have welcomed me over the years; and Samia officials who supported my research, particularly my old friend, Fred Wandera Oseno, once a teacher at Nangina Girls Primary School and, since 1997, Chief of Funyula Divison. Above all, mutio muno to the many people in the Luyia areas known as Samia, Bunyala and Bungoma who have let me share their lives in various ways. And many thanks to Aaron Chu for putting the genealogies into digital format. I also thank two anonymous reviewers whose comments helped improve this article. The research has been funded by the National Science Foundation (grant BNS-8306802), the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research (grant 4506), a Frederica de Laguna Fund grant from Bryn Mawr College, and from private sources, including my late husband, Bob Moss. I was a Research Associate at the University of Nairobi’s Institute of African Studies in 1984 and 1985.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Cattell, M.G. Aging and Social Change Among Abaluyia in Western Kenya: Anthropological and Historical Perspectives. J Cross Cult Gerontol 23, 181–197 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10823-008-9062-x
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10823-008-9062-x