The Bukusu culture is one of the few cultures that make sense to me.Though educated and learned, I have come to appreciate some of the Bukusu culture.
Take for example We are not supposed to shake hands or make contacts with our in-laws that is a daughter in-law with father in-law and vice versa.Moral, you maintain the respect between the two parties without infringing in one another's privacy.It also makes it easier not to make blunder like being intimately involved with your in-law which is taboo!
Another culture I would have loved that stays is the whole male-circumcision ceremony! Traditionally, its done well the celebrations and the cultural practices that follow would make an interesting documentary! If only they could make if safer by using safer instruments then it would make sense to have it go on.
Being a Bukusu am also proud to mention the traditional wedding which takes place when a couple is marrying. The wedding takes place as the sun sets and prior to this, the bride has to go back to her maternal home to be cleansed! She comes back in new clothes just like in a white wedding though its not necessarily white just new clothes. The bride with the setting of the sun with some firewood, cutlery-dishes, spoons, cooking stick, for the purposes of cooking for her groom. The children in this case are usually kept away, they do not witness the ceremony due to the fact that its usually a g rown up affair.
Traditional Bukusu "wedding" ceremony takes place even when the couple is old so that the woman may be allowed to view the body of her husband when he dies and even cook for her father in-law in case he visits! The father in- law cannot eat food served from her cooking pot unless the traditional ceremony is performed to the couple
Anyway the ceremony takes place in from dusk to dawn and the old men who perform it come and leave discreetly without anybody except the attendants seeing them. A meal made of millet is usually prepared by the efforts of the couple and they feed each other this can be simulated to the cake cutting and eating in the white wedding ceremony!They are advised and cautioned on the ways of marriage and how they should live respecting and protecting each other.
Generally this is a nice practice that I would support that it stay as it would save us a lot of divorces in marriages.
Other cultures include not beating your children with a sweeping broom and especially boys of which I have no slight idea why it had to be specifically boys! Also not hitting somebody with a cooking stick and not whistling in the night as you will be known to be a witch! To sum it up, we believe in equal rights for the girl child and we advocate for equal share in the land matters! This is something most older Bukusu men do not really agree with but currently that is what is being done and especially to the girls that are married to unstable husbands or whose husbands are not capable of providing for them well.
The Bukusu widows would also be recognized and are respected.When their husbands die, the roof top of their outside kitchen is broken down, that is the stick that protrudes on top of the thatched outside kitchen.This is a trademark in most Bukusu homesteads the thatched outside kitchen!
The Bukusu are generally learned people most of who achieve the most out of the resources given and are availed to them. They are creative and brilliant!
Their culture is not contradicting, hence the need to support part of it if not all.
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