HOW THE BUSOGA SLAVE AND CATTLE RUSTLERS DESTABILISED ABAKHOONE IN BUSIA

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 others grazed cattle on the ground. The person on the tree acted as a sentry to warn others of on coming danger.

The sentry warned his friends of the oncoming group of armed raiders. Since the group of Sieke had not prepared for war, his brother Okunya ran home to evacuate women and children while Sieke drove th cattle deep into the forest to link with Okunya who was herding women and children deep into the forest too.

Once they were safely inside the forest, Sieke climbed a tall tree to watch out on the movement of the raiders. When the raiders found no one in the homestead, yet they were very hungry, they decided to eat the mud mixed with cattle urine that stagnates in the cattle kraal.

After ravaging urine soaked mud, the proceed to search in the nearby forest where Sieke and Okunya had hid with their families. When Sieke saw the raiders heading to where their families were hiding, he shouted at his wives and children to run in different directions. This distracted the riders. So they turned and went towards where Sieke was hiding and women and children ran further away to safety.

The raiders finally accessed some cattle although other cattle ran away too. It is from this experience of persistent raids from Basoga that some of the abakhone relocated from where the current Busia GK prison is further away into Matayos, Eliliba, Esiribale, Sigwata, Elwanya, Namwichula, Igero etc.

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