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OLD MAN�S CORNER
By F.D.R. Gureme |
Where bride price is but send-off gift
March 9, 2004
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Bride Price (BP) is currently a hot topic. On February 20, I attended a talk, to the Fathers� Union, about the Domestic Relations Bill, at the All Saints Cathedral Hall. The speaker, it turned out, was my daughter Robina, Principal State Attorney. It is not proposed that BP be discontinued or banned. It may be offered as a non-refundable gift. According to Hima custom, in Nkore and Mpororo, it is purely symbolic. Significantly, the Tutsi of Rwanda, Kisoro and Ntungamo, require only one cow. Listen! In 1930, my cousin Christopher Kafureka, son of Yeremiya Kabarime, then county chief, married Muriel Kebikaari, daugher of Erinesti Katungi, another county chief. Mr Katungi asked for ten cows: a lot at the time. The Katungis gave 20 healthy cows, some of them in-calf, as send-off gifts, Our side? Yes, in 1940, Alfred Mutashwera, lately Chief Judge of Ankole, wedded Hilda Kamatondo, Kafureka�s sister. Papa Yeremiya had seemingly little avidity for cows. He wanted six. But Hilda must not depart slave-girl style. He released ten, as parting gifts. The dramatics? Usually the groom�s father�s entire herd is exposed: to the selectors. The ten would almost certainly approach twenty in a few months: being heavily in calf, except those aesthetically valued. The bride�s side would have spied to ensure that no good cows are hidden. In case they are, selectors would demand their return, or angrily abandon the process pending return of the choicest. Former Auditor General, James Kahoza, proceeded in style, giving his daughter, Linda, to Aronda, son of Nyakairima, in April 1996. Having accepted fifteen head, he sent his selectors towards the Nyakairima herds. After the selection, his team, noting individual cows, left them where they were for collection later. At the kuhingira (send off) ceremony at the Kahoza�s Mutungo home, James declared that the fifteen now belonged to Linda, among other precious gifts, including a house under construction. This is not to say BP is nominal everywhere. Among the Easterners, a wife means extra labour, at any rate to the Bagwere of Pallisa: where I worked for some years. When a couple accumulated wealth, a good wife assisted her husband to get other wives, to share her work. She became kind of �works supervisor:� issuing assignments to the junior wives. A Mugwere friend (call him Daka) once told me he had been authorised to go to Busoga, to fetch his missing �wife and children.� It turned out that she had disappeared on the wedding night. Daka could not recover his BP from the parents without returning their daughter. The woman had remarried. Two sons and seven daughters later, a friend tipped Daka about where the �wife was hiding.� Daka finally recovered seven �daughters� and herded them back to Budaka to great financial advantage in BP from the seven girls. That the �wife and sons� refused to �return home� did not upset his calculation. In Gulu, as ADC, I read a letter copy, signed by the British DC, revising a case. It read something like: �Although you are the natural father of the children, since you took over the wife before Okello�s bride price was fully refunded, the children belong to Okello, and must be to given him.� Assuming there were girls, Okello was in business! In Buganda payment was purely nominal: often comprising omutwalo gwa taaba or a bundle of tobacco; although currently, the well-to-do appear to have copied the Banyankore: delivering considerable value, including a Friesian cow, to the in-laws at introduction, When my beloved Christine (bless her soul) introduced me, her parents charged no katwalo (BP). I only provided ekanzu ya Tata, n�eyomuko; as well as olubugo lwa Mama n�olwa Ssenga meaning suitable vestments for father, brother, mother and aunt. I reciprocated it when I handed Robina over to Sam Rwakoojo in July 1992: taking no bride price, although my family and clan freely offered cows and a few millions in materials as Robina�s send off gifts, some still to be fetched. How wise if other Ugandans, and our legislators, took the cue while discussing the Domestic Relations Bill! Contact: 077 401173 |
� 2004 The Monitor Publications
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