Members of the Baganda community in Stockholm are in crisis after a Ugandan of Baganda origin committed suicide in Stockholm about two weeks ago. The problem is that the late Ugandan allegedly left a suicide note saying that his body should be cremated because transporting it to Uganda will only ” increase grief” among his close relatives.
The crisis has come up because according to Baganda culture, a person who commits suicide does not deserve a funeral and the Baganda Committee handling the matter is divided as to whether to continue being involved in funeral arrangements or whether they should just keep off. The late Ugandan was married to a Finnish woman who is reported to be having no problem with funeral arrangements.
According to a contact who spoke to KSB, the Baganda culture dictates that if a person commits suicide by hanging himself/herself say on a tree branch, a deep hole is dug under the tree in line with where the body hangs after which the rope is cut and the dead person’s body left on a free-fall into the hole. The body is then buried “the way it falls into the hole” and without mourning or funeral rites.
The problem with the case in Stockholm is that the late Ugandan is reported to have committed suicide by suffocating himself using a polythene bag after which the body was transported to the morgue and so the situation where a hole could be dug does not arise.
The division within the Baganda Committee is that there is a group which thinks that the stringent Baganda traditions on the treatment of a suicide victim through “non-funeral position” should be discarded because of modernity and advancements in civilization while another wing has maintained that the Baganda traditions must be respected under the circumstances to prevent ancestral spirits from coming down to haunt those involved in decision making to disrespect Baganda traditions.
Although there appears to be no plans to transport the body to Uganda for burial, the Committee is said to be tight-lipped as to whether the Will left behind by the deceased to the effect that his body be cremated will be respected.
Tension is rising because the deceased was the Treasurer of the Executive Committee of the Baganda Association in Sweden (Ebika Committee) also at the core of funeral arrangements. In conjunction with the family, the Committee has announced that funeral arrangements for the late Ugandan will take place on April 1st at Hökarängen Church at 13.00hrs. The Church is located at Lingvägen 149 at Hökarängen Tube Station.
“We don’t know whether the cremation will take place after the Funeral service and much is a matter of wait and see”, a contact close to the Committee told KSB. The silence of the Committee as to whether or not the “funeral” means that there will be cremation has increased speculation among the Baganda people that the Committee seems to be hiding something.
Abrogation of the Constitution
A section of the Ebika Committee opposed to the involvement of the Association in the funeral arrangements say that the Committee is supposed to be protecting Baganda culture and that its involvement in the funeral arrangements is an abrogation of the Association’s constitution which compels its leadership to protect Baganda culture without fear or favour.
Another problem is that the Baganda culture does not allow for cremation of bodies and the dissenting members of the Committee say that it is unthinkable that a Committee entrusted with protecting Baganda culture could get involved in a funeral arrangement where the deceased committed suicide contrary to fundamental values of the Baganda culture.
The general view of the Baganda traditionalists is that in as much as the deceased was a respected member of the Association and community alike, “he has committed a taboo” by taking his own life and that under the circumstances, the Association ought to have excommunicated him posthumously from Baganda community instead of being involved in his funeral arrangements.
“What should have happened is that the family should have been left to conduct the funeral in peace and cremate if they wanted without dragging the Baganda Association into the matter”, a Ugandan who has also been following the case told KSB.
He said that the family should not be bogged down with the cultural complications which they may not understand but that the Baganda Association should live up to expectation because its leadership ought to understand the consequences. He added that the Baganda Association risked losing members because of its involvement in the funeral. “They will have themselves to blame if the ancestral spirits come back to revenge”, he concluded.
The late Ugandan was a respected member of the Baganda community and is said to have been happily married with a loving wife, wonderful children and a well-paying job which guaranteed him economic stability.
Many Ugandans cannot therefore understand why their brother decided to take his life although a Ugandan agent who obtained a leak of the Will told KSB that the late wrote that he took his life because of problems related to huge debts he could not re-pay and other personal problems. “It was a very long Will which was later seized by the Association”, he said without further elaboration.
Okoth Osewe
About the Author
The Ugandans people should not be in any crisis after the suicide of their colleague.They should know that death can meet any one of us in the air, sea, bush or normal death but there is no Court of Appeal one can claim once it has happened.It is only mourning and sorrowful mood which will prevail to the family and friends. To be born
is real and death is also real but in between the two no one knows what will take place. You can only identify one end of the two whether being born or dying.
I know there are so many traditional customaries in any society Worldwide which are strictly followed but has not in any circumstances stopped death to come, only God knows.Doctors, Bishops, Evangelists, Pastors,Magicians all dies, then you ask what else one can say? Nothing.(Ecclesiastes 3:2-13).
The Ugandans should honor the “Will” of the deceased because the death found him where he is now and he knew why he wanted death to come to himself,but it was not in Uganda where they would have dug a hole and drop him in.If he was a Christian Jesus’ blood can clean the family and clan according to their believes, and if not then they can clean themselves in their traditional way they know.No condemnation in any.I express my Condolences to the family and friends. May God place his soul in eternal peace.Amen!
IS UHURU GOING TO KILL MP FOR GATANGA PETER KENNETH AND THE MP FOR GICHUGU MARTHA KARUA?
Uhuru warns leaders who divide Kikuyu Skip to content.Uhuru warns leaders who divide Kikuyu .
Wednesday, 30 March 2011 00:00 BY FRANCIS MUREITHI . THE organisers of the Muranga ceremony where Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta was installed as Kikuyu leader on Sunday say they they did not make him a king.
Before the installation Uhuru had warned that leaders who divide the Kikuyu that they will be flushed out and dealt with.“We should not be afraid to be called Kikuyus. All of us should follow our muthamaki (great leader) Kibaki. None of these leaders here would have made it to Parliament in 2007 if they did not support Kibaki. Now they pretend they made it to Parliament on their own. When Kibaki says something or shows the direction to follow, they are the first ones to contradict him. The first person to betray us to others is one of us. I want to tell all the leaders here that if any one of them fails to toe the line, they should know that their politics is over.” “If Kibaki tells us to go to the left, we should do so, just like Ruto tells his people to go one way and they all do so. We will now allow ourselves to be killed just because we are not following our leaders. Those who fail to do this, we will follow them to their homes and expose them as the ones who are betraying us. We will say ‘See, this person is the one who is failing to work with us’.” “We have one disease, and that disease is the disease of loving ourselves, that we leaders do not listen to each other. When we vied in 2007, we stood by many parties. I even don’t know how many they were,” he said. “And that is why the ones we were competing with had the chance to claim that we stole the votes, because when votes were counted, Kibaki’s party did not have people because they had been scattered in other parties.”
Speaking in Kikuyu, Fr Gitonga who presided over the ceremony told the rally, “Now we are going to make Uhuru the King of the Kikuyu community and King of the entire country. We are going to give him this stick which has nine levels which signify the clans of the Kikuyu community.” He used both the words muthamaki and kingi.
Yesterday Fr Gitonga told the Star, “I know I mentioned the word king during the ceremony but that was a mistake. Traditionally we did not have a king in the Kikuyu community but we made him an elder.” Retired priest Fr Joachim Gitonga is the chairman of the Kikuyu council of elders in Murang’a East district.
Murang’a is the home ground of Planning assistant minister Peter Kenneth, considered a potential rival to Uhuru. He was not at the ceremony because he was in Ikolomani campaigning for Bonny Khalwale in the upcoming by-election. Gitonga told the Star why Murang’a was chosen.“It is here in Murang’a that Jomo Kenyatta was chosen by the Kikuyu Association, who were Kikuyu elders then, to go to send the memorandum of independence, the land and education to Colonial Secretary and to the Prime Minister in 1929,” said Fr Gitonga.
Fr Gitonga said in 1962 when Kenyatta was released from prison, the then MP Kariuki wa Njiri stepped down in favour of Kenyatta who was declared MP for Kigumo which covered the entire Murang’a.“People had come all the way from all parts of Central including Meru to see Kenyatta declared the MP for Kigumo,” he said. “That is the history I am disclosing to Uhuru so that he remembers where President Kenyatta started,” he added.
Speaking in Kikuyu, Fr Gitonga told the rally, “We will also give him a stool, which is for sitting when he is presiding over cases, guiding the people and showing them what to do in the country.”
Fr Gitonga was the founding Principal of the Murang’a College of Technology.Fr Gitonga said the elders picked Uhuru for his leadership qualities.“By giving him muthigi (long stick), it was very significant to the Kikuyu, I will compare it with the mace in Parliament,” said Fr Gitonga.“We gave him the cloth made from wild animal hide. This was worn by all Kikuyu elders and it is also a symbol of authority,” he said. He said the flywhisk handed to Uhuru was a traditional symbol of authority for keeping peace.
The man committed suicide to escape from the problems he was facing that proved beyond his ability to solve. Now, please respect his dead body by adhering to his wishes in the will. If he decided to take his own life, then he can indicate how his body should be disposed of, as well. The Baganda custom of suicide victims being buried near the tree on which the body was hanging is enough proof that hanging was the sole method of suicide among the Baganda in old times. That’s why no other options for the body to be disposed of is given. I hope I am not being over rude in asking the Baganda community there whether some desperate people among the Baganda commit suicide these days, for example in Uganda? How are the dead bodies disposed of in such cases? Just follow that.
Bull ****. So the stool this padre Gitonga gave Uhuru is to sit on while passing judgements! How far fetched an imagination! The long stick has 9 levels, so it’s said. Indeed rest assured Bw. retired principal (so he is educated, eh!)that Uhuru has reached the very bottom stage from his ‘royal ancestry’. The wildlife skin he was given to wear must attract the attention of none but Mr. Kipn’getich, the KWS boss. Uhuru himself gave the assessment of probably his people, and I quote: “…we have one disease……. disease of loving ourselves….”. Aptly said in that, if Uhuru loves anything, it’s not the family, the country, his friends, none. He loves himself more than anything else true to the genetic character of his people. But, wait; there is something loved more than onself – money in any form be it land or currency. This has led to the widespread assumption that the Kikuyu has no word for gratitude.
Love yourself more and more, especially when you sit on the traditional stool to lord us over. Love yourself to the extent that try to betray your brothers at the ICC if it can help you. Don’t fear because the Muthamaki is with you. Or is it that you arm-twisted him to be with you as you may have hinted to him that the bean sacks you are carrying to the Hague will be spilled there.
For the time being forget the stool, the staff and the robe and have a nice trip to the Hague. Forget Peter and Martha. They will be dealt with (unlike JM and Pinto, I hope)you promised, and I believe you will.You have nothing to lose but the credibility, a prerequisite to the presidency.
Sorry for what happened to our fellow Ugandans. It happened for a reason but left sadness to the close pals, family and the whole friends in Sweden, not only them but also us who are in Uganda. For those who had some grief with him, forgive and u will be forgiven too.