- Gusii elders and church leaders are calling for simpler, dignified funerals across Kisii and Nyamira.
- They say costly burial practices are leaving bereaved families burdened with unnecessary expenses and debt.
- Leaders want resources redirected towards supporting widows, orphans and other needs left after burial.
The culture of investing heavily in funerals in the Gusii community should come to an end, elders and church leaders have said.
Speaking at different funeral ceremonies across Kisii and Nyamira counties, the leaders said funerals have increasingly been turned into a competition to demonstrate wealth and generosity, depending on how much individuals contribute towards burial expenses.
They also said politicians have turned some burial venues into political battlegrounds where they compete for supremacy instead of focusing on comforting bereaved families.
The leaders decried the rising cost of escorting bodies from mortuaries, where families hire numerous vehicles to ferry mourners, describing the practice as expensive and unnecessary.
Other costly practices weighing down families include buying uniforms for bereaved family members, labelling water bottles, decorating vehicles carrying caskets with expensive graphics, cementing graves and printing large portraits of the deceased.
In some areas, mourners have also been seen cutting fresh sugarcane and banana plants from farms and mounting them on boda bodas to demonstrate grief, yet the produce could have been sold to support the affected families.
The leaders, speaking at Endereti village in Bomachoge Borabu, also called for an end to the habit of boda boda riders hanging precariously on motorcycles during funeral convoys, sometimes while drunk.
They warned that the practice has at times contributed to additional tragedy during mourning processions.
“Our youths have turned the funeral convoys into a thing of fun and this is a deviation from the past where our people were given a decent and dignified send-off rather than portraying personal pride,” said Zablon Orwaru.
Elders call for return to simpler traditions
Some elders also criticised a recently introduced mourning practice in which women dress in expensive clothes and take part in digging graves for departed relatives.
They said this conflicts with traditional Gusii customs in which women and children were generally restricted from digging graves.
Leaders also questioned the habit of buying expensive suits for the deceased and hiring professional caterers to provide meals during funerals.
They said such practices have weakened the traditional communal approach in which families and neighbours prepared food and ate together during mourning.
According to the leaders, the extravagance leaves some families in debt after burials, with others forced to sell land or take loans to meet funeral expenses.
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They urged the Gusii community to embrace simple and dignified funerals and redirect money that would otherwise be spent on costly ceremonies towards educating orphans and supporting widows left behind.
By Enock Okong’o
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