The pride of a people: Barack Obama, the Luo

• For a patriarchal people like the Luo, the 44th President of the United States is their own, and his feat has boosted his people’s pride to the utmost

On Tuesday, a “Luo” individual will become the most powerful man in the world. A Luo? Of course. Why else would Kenya’s lakeland community which goes by that name be so electrified by Barack Obama’s impending anointment as the commander-in-chief of the world’s only superpower?

Yet the question is stark: Is Obama a Luo? To answer “yes” or “no”, one would first have to define a Luo. There are at least two possibilities. There is, first, what the Luo themselves may imagine as their blood heritage.

There is, secondly, what Paul Mboya called Luo Kitgi Gi Timbegi, a book in Dholuo which describes the character and customs of “Jokowiny”. For the character and customs of a tribal community need not coincide with its blood composition.

Language and culture

We should stress the term ‘‘Jokowiny’’ because, although it is almost forgotten now, that is the correct name of the Luo of Kenya and Tanzania, a people whose language and culture are almost uniform from the Luhya border to Tanzania’s Mara.

The attitude by Jokowiny that we are the Luo alienates many pedigree Luo communities, such as the Padhola, Lang’o, Kumam, Acholi and Karamojong of Uganda, the Alur of Congo, and the Nuer, Anuak Nuer, Dinka and Shilluk of the Sudan.

Indeed, the Sudanese and northern Ugandan Luo are more genuinely Luo than we because they are less removed from the original home of dispersal and, therefore, less influenced by non-Nilotic elements.

But yes, by a certain definition, the 44th President of the United States is JAKOWINY – JAKOWINY (with an “A”) being the singular form of JOKOWINY (with an “O”). It means “descendant of Owiny”.

Owiny was a brother of Adhola, the eponymous ancestor of Charles Onyango Obbo’s Jopadhola. The PA in “JOPADHOLA” and in other Ugandan and Sudanese Luo languages is their equivalent of KA among Jokowiny (and means “of”, or “offspring of” or “homestead of”).

The celebrated name OKOT P’BITEK is really “Okot PA Bitek” (“Okot of Bitek” or “Okot son of Bitek”). In both pronunciation and writing, the “a” in PA and KA is usually dropped when the next word begins with a vowel. That is why we say JAKOWINY, and not JA-KA-OWINY.

The PA in Padhola means the same thing as the KA in such Kowiny place names as KARACHUONYO (“home of Rachuonyo”), KAMAGAMBO (“land of Magambo”) and KANYIDOTO (“where the daughters of Doto are married”).

The word element KA was common to all Nilotes, including the ancient Egyptians. The word “EGYPT” itself is only a European corruption of HEKAPTAH (“home of the god Ptah”). The KAPTAH part of HEKAPTAH is what has come down to us as “COPT”.

The same word appears in such place-names among the Kalenjin – a Nilotic people – as Kabartonjo (“land of Bartonjo”), Kabianga (“dwelling place of Bianga”) and Kabarnet (“Barnet’s base” – named after a colonial Anglo-Saxon missionary).

For the Luo belong to the culturo-linguistic super-community that anthropologists call Nilotic or Nilo-Saharan – which includes the Maasai, Kalenjin and Teso – and who now spread from Tanzania to Egypt and from Ethiopia and Eritrea to Darfur and Nigeria.

Barack Obama Senior belonged to KOGELO (“homestead of Ogelo”). He was Jakogelo (“offspring of Ogelo’s home”). Jokogelo (“people of Ogelo”) are a clan of the Alego. That is significant.