When asked to imagine an Englishman many of us will think of
a man dressed in pyjamas drinking a cup of tea. An Irishman would typically
play the fiddle after completing a meal of potatoes. In Kenya, a traditional thing
to do is eat ugali and chapattis. However, none of these activities would have
been possible a few centuries ago. Tea only arrived in England in the 1660’s
and pyjamas even later; violins were invented in Mongolia and potatoes came
from America; and ugali is made from maize which has been in Africa for no more
than 500 years and even less in Kenya, while chapattis (which many Kenyans
believe are their own invention) came from India. Lonely Planet makes its money
by giving you the tips on how to live like a local while a lot of the time
these 'cultures' are simply a result of globalisation.
Food, clothing and musical instruments were only able to
move around because people moved around with them. The migrant Walter Raleigh
was responsible for bringing the potato to Europe (and incidentally the cassava
which eventually ended up in Africa as an ‘indigenous’ crop) and King Charles
II claimed responsibility for the tea landing in England. The Arab traders no
doubt introduced chapattis to Kenya and I have no clue how the Mongolians
managed to get their violins to Ireland but somehow it happened and in the
right hands it is a quintessentially Irish instrument.
This was not through pre-historic migration of peoples, but
all that happened in the last 500 years, and within the same time frame the
movement of people had a large impact on language, culture and even genetic
make-up of ethnic groups. When the potato crop failed in Ireland in 1848 (why
haven’t more people blamed Walter Raleigh for the Irish famine?) and millions
of people fled the country as ‘economic migrants’ they were received with mixed
reactions all over the world but eventually managed to integrate with almost no
lasting exceptions. 165 years later that migration crisis has been largely
forgotten, even by those directly descended from them – a good proportion of
the members of racist organisations in England have indisputably Irish names.
The Luo tribe in Kenya have names and a language identical
to Nilotic tribes in northern Uganda, and can compare names and words with
tribes as far away as Sudan and Ethiopia. They arrived in Kenya in the 1500’s
having negotiated the Nile and Lake Victoria and they finally settled on the
shores of the lake near land that was already populated by other Bantu tribes,
now known as Luhya and Kisii. It is not known how they were received at first
but tradition and folklore in the area documents co-operation between the Nilots and the Bantu,
especially in terms of shared skills, resources and wives. The Luo were good
fishermen and herdsmen while the Bantus were agriculturalists so there was an
obvious trade-off, and though politicians have tried divide and rule tactics
no-one has succeeded in turning Luo and Luhya against each other to this day.
Meanwhile many of their traditions have merged together as for several hundred
years Luo have been farming and the Luhya herding and fishing.
When I walk around rural Luo lands in Kenya I am made to
feel quite foreign – not in an aggressive way but very superficially - simply
in the sense that I am a topic of interest just because of the colour of my
skin. Some people make (very repetitive) jokes as I walk past, others stare at
me with wide-eyed fascination and some pester me for money. Under the surface I
feel very welcomed though and never feel threatened or that I am a threat. I
wonder how easy it would be to integrate a culture as a foreign as mine into a
community like that nowadays in the way they integrated over the last 500 years
with the Bantu tribes. Certainly, while I am more unusual, it must be a far
better experience for me to walk around Western Kenya, than for a western
Kenyan to wander around Europe not knowing whether the stares he or she is
receiving are welcoming, interested or threatening, because the chances are
they could be any of those. Through this
experience I believe it would be much easier for cultural diversity to spread
in a place like Western Kenya if the conditions were right, and I don’t foresee
the same defensiveness over cultures that we see in other parts of the world. I
also think that just as cultural integration between the Nilots and Bantus in
the past few centuries was good for both parties, more diversity would benefit
everyone (and I’m talking globally now) because we all have positive aspects of
our heritage to share with others. Along the way we may lose a few quirks like
drinking tea or playing the fiddle, but chances are they were borrowed in the
first place.
