The Luo are in Kenya, eastern Uganda, and northern Tanzania spread out along the eastern coast of Lake Victoria. Like all Nilotic-speakers, they were originally cattle herders but developed agriculture and, in this case, fishing. At the core of the society are family homesteads, built by the husband for his family.8 The administrative and formal aspect of the homestead takes place in a special hut—a duol or abila—that is a kind of office where the homestead owner confers with his peers, takes his meals, educates the men folk, gives audience to his wives, and entertains visitors. It is constructed between the hut of the eldest wife and that of the second with its back to the gate. Each homestead will also have a simba, a hut built by the oldest son but used by all the boys. When that son marries, his simba is demolished and the next son builds his simba and so forth.
New homesteads are established by the sons, with the youngest one inheriting his father’s homestead. The establishment of a homestead is a ceremonious activity, which follows elaborate procedures. It is the pinnacle of a man’s life when he has to move from his father’s homestead and establish his own. The sons will do this in order of their seniority. On the eve of construction, a man sleeps in his eldest wife’s hut from where he emerges in the morning to establish the new home. Accompanying him are his father, if alive, his eldest wife, his eldest son, and a paternal uncle. The man lays claim to what would until then had been communal land. First the uncle ties a knot of grass, which is an act of laying claim to the site. The man cuts a tree at the site and his father hands from it a cage that contains an assortment of items that attract luck and prosperity, a rotten egg to dispel sorcery, star grass for expansion and prosperity, and stalks of maize and millet to ask for wealth. Building then begins. The first hut is a makeshift: one-room structure made of poles, sticks, and grass. It is built on the first day. A cock is tethered inside the hut to crow in the next morning. The man then builds huts for his wives, the eldest wife receiving the biggest and most central one.
The houses are built and thatched by men, although women assist in plastering the walls and the floor. The roof is supported by a central post, but the form of roof varies from the conical to the domed. The vertical poles of the walls are placed about 30 centimeters deep into the soil tied with horizontal branches and plastered after which a special smooth plastering is made, which improves the longevity of the wall. The area close to the door is a sitting room. To the left is the sleeping room, in comparison with the Acholi, where the sleeping room is to the right. The winds and storms require that the roof be tightly built. The cattle corral is sited to the right of the duol.
Before setting up a home, a diviner is called to make sure that the man would be at peace with his people and to see if there would be any children born in the new house. To measure the house a peg is secured in the ground by a father or elder and a string is extended the proper length. As the man walks around, he plants pegs that are the post holes of the wall. Granaries, which are basically huge woven baskets raised on stones or wooden platforms, are placed to the side of the married man’s house for millet and sorghum. Grain is obtained by removing the lids of the roofs.
Fishing played a large part of the ceremonial and economic culture of the Lou. Before a net can be made, a shaman decides that a good catch is imminent. Men go to gather papyrus, which are tied into bundles and floated to shore, where they are made into traps and nets. Buoys are also made. One is fashioned as a headpiece that the owner wears and brings to the house of his first wife. Nets are weighed down by stones, brought by women and wrapped in banana leaves. There are rules that the fishermen have to follow, such as not to eat vegetables with salt, not to eat cold food or mutton, not to sleep with a woman, and to make sure that no menstruating women touch anything to do with the net or fish.
World History
