ABAKHOONE FOUNDATION: THE PEOPLE OF BUNAMBO KINGDOM

BUNAMBO KINGDOM Bunambo Kingdom was located largely in today's Southern and Western Bunyala. The immediate neighbour of Bunambo the East was Buongo. To the South was Yimbo location. To the West was Lake Victoria and to the North was Samia. Part of Bunyala south is drained by four major rivers, namely, Nzoia, Ndekwe, Namukhongo and Obaro. Rivers Nzoia and Yala formed swamps which are extensively irrigated agricultural areas with rice as the most ideal cash crop. Other important physical features in Bunambo are hills, valleys and plains. The most significant hills are Mwita Fubu, Singwe, Nanjuku, Nzalagobe hill, Wanga, Munjogo and Namenya hill. Bunambo also has a number of Islands namel Sumba, Sigulu (today it is in Uganda), Nabuduma and Khanete. The Abanyala are Bantu-speaking people of northern Bantu group/cluster commonly referred to as the Luhya. The term Luhya has been claimed to mean 'fellow clansman'. Osogo (1966:7) in the entitled The History of Buluhy

Throughout the history of abakhone, one narrative has remained consistent. This is the narrative of the bravery and fearlessness of abakhoone people. I always wondered how this trait become ingrained among abakhoone to the extent that even their enemies acknowledged this quality by nicknaming abakhoone, Abaofu, meaning blind men. My research on the origin of this quality too me to the situation in the west. It has largely been acknowledged that white men in the West are largely fearless the things that other groups of people are fearful of. Research by Kahan (1994) on cultural differences when it comes to risk perception could be used to explain the abakhoone fearlessness. Kahan (1994) has identified a phenomenon called "the white male effect". This phenomenon is such that white men tend to be less fearful of the things that other races find scary. A similar observation was made by Flynn, Slovic and Mertz (1994).  Kahan says that "Perhaps white males see less ris

After fighting wars with the tesos, by the way wars with the tesos were so vicious that our abakhoone forefathers had decreed that there should never be intermarriage between the two tribes. It is only recently that intermarriage between abakhoone and tesos started getting popular. Anyway, after the status quo had been established, abakhoone settled in their areas around Elwero. Sieke Okado and his brother established his home where the Busia airstrip stands. Khabunga the son of Akhudu Mbaye, was the uncle to Sieki Wamaya and Okunya lived at the present day Khung'ungu village nears where trailer tourist inn hotel currently stands. Wamaya lived in Esiteko.. Ong'eesa and Obayi lived at Elwero. At around 1860, there was a vicious raid by Basoga. From the narative I got from Olwande son of Sieke (he died 1990 aged about 125 years), the Basoga raiders arrived at Sieke's just about midday. In old tradition of abakhoone, one person had always to climb the tallest tree while ot

Despite abakhoone having only settled in Matayos constituency in 1800 onwards, the above are currently the most populous clan in Matayos even more than the original inhabitants such as Abaguuri, Abachimo, Abamenya, Abamaani and the likes. The following are the settlements of abakhoone in Matayos. I am going to present each settlements with the abakhoone elders whose descendants currently occupy. By the way for each elder I am mentioning here, there very very many descendants of theirs who now occupy these villages in hundreds. Most of these elders are people who were born in 1880s and most of them are now late. 1.Esirisia village: Makadia and Mbingi 2. Emujuru village: Omoto 3. Emurumba: Sirili Kunguru, Antony Adiedo, Paulo Sikeraki, Achong'a,  Amboko 4. Nabisiongo: Juma Ware and Egessa 5. Busende: Ambrose Amollo and Oluba 6. Matayos village: Walusala, Akotse and Odaba 7. Buyende: Wabidonge 8. Egero: Israeli King 9. Ebwicha: Khaseke 10. Sigwata: Okunya 11. Namwichula: