Chingayu it is among the Bukusu and Tachoni. Among the Maragoli and Wanga, it is known as Imbasi. We continue our journey through plants with cultural value among the Luhya with the story of this food plant told in three stories. One from my childhood; another by way of a prophesy from the times of our great great grandfathers; and another from our ancestors passed on through folktale.
Chingayu (Lubukusu) is the plural of engayu. It is a fruit that comes from kumukayu tree. Like the Sinani shrub, Kumukayu is a spineless, shameless climber. Therefore, it is commonly found tangled in shrubs. Thus, to identify Kumukayu tree one has to look for its broad leaves which slightly bigger than those of cow peas.
In bloom, Kumukayu brings forth beautiful yellow flowers. These flowers fade to yield wallet shaped fruits known as Kamachayu (Lubukusu). At first the fruits are green, soft and tender. Easy to snap easily between fingers. However as they age, they assume a deeper green hue. Fully aged, the fruits become almost dusty. One can easily think someone could have smeared flour on the fruits. Mature chingayu turn yellow then dark brown when dry.
Quick Facts About Chingayu/Imbasa and Kumukayu Tree
| Scientific Name | Tylosema fassoglensis |
| Common Names | Creeping bauhinia (English). Fruits often simply referred to as a variety of sesame. |
| Local Names | Chingaayu (Tachoni); Imbasa (Luwanga and Lulogooli); |
| Key Characteristics | Extensive climber with ‘ropey’ stems that grows out of a tuber up to one meter long, with bright yellow flowers and flattened pod as fruit. Common in dry areas. It’s an important fodder for cattle. |
A Beautiful Childhood Full Of Our Version of Marshmallows, Roasted Chingayu
Back when I would woke up with several streams of dried saliva etched on my cheeks, my role in the family entailed taking care of the animals. I hated going to the farm and my mother being a good man manager of the nine of us had exclusively made this my task. She often said that I had the hands for animal husbandry but was a pathetic cultivator. What I loved most about heading out to the grazing fields was the immediate returns it offered. Moreover, the time I spent out in the wild made me fall in love with nature.
With time, I came to know all the edible fruits and roots. This was mostly because there was nothing like a packed lunch for the herder. Lunch was for the cultivators who broke the backs on the field. So I lived like my ancestors from the abundance of nature. Everyday was an adventure as I knew not what I’d be gifted by nature. Will a stick cut through my bare feet necessitating some first aid using herbs? Or will I chance upon Chifutu (wild black plum, Lubukusu)? Maybe it would be a day of feasting on my personal favorite, Chingayu?
A Delicacy Oft Not Shared
Mature Chingayu were hard to come by. Purely because predators, us the herders, were many. Occasionally when we came across them, it was not smooth sailing we struggled to open the pods. The dry pods were so strong we needed help from adults or used knives or pangas to open. For the green pods, one meets a slimy mucoid fluid that complicated the process. We would feast on the green ones raw and save the dry pods for later.
By ‘later’ I talk of the days when a buddy and I had shot down a bird or had a loot of sweet potatoes gotten in exchange a singular pod of Chingayu from our cultivator siblings. On those days, we would lit a fire in the wild an placed the seeds on the hot coal. We would enjoy a balanced meal of our loot/hunted prey and the well roasted seeds after removing the top husks. What a beautiful childhood!
How Chingayu Helps Visualize The Prophesy Of Mutonyi Wa Nabukelembe On The Coming Of The White Man
In the year 1820, Nabukelembe a kindhearted, cheerful energetic Mbukusu woman gave birth to a son. Her son’s people, the Butiya clan of the Bukusu, named the child Walubengo. Walubengo was no ordinary boy as he grew to become a dreamer. I would classify his kamaroro (dreams, Lubukusu) as kamaroro ke bungosi. This is because Walubengo’s dreams gave direction to his people during war. This is to say that I see little difference between Walubengo’s dreams and those of, say, freedom fighter Elijah Masinde.
Take for instance the prophecy that earned Walubengo the nickname Mutonyi. In this visualization, Mutonyi prophesied to much detail a war between the Bukusu and Barwa Bakoyonjo (Kalenjin raiders). This war over cattle was fought at Mutonyi (Malakisi) and was won by the Bukusu. Not only did his prophesy honor his mother’s breasts by giving him the nickname Mutonyi Wa Nabukelembe, but it also ensured that Mutonyi would be consulted in all matters war.
Mutonyi’s Prophecy and Chinagayu: Symbol Of Modern Forms Of Money
Wartime prophet was a position of esteem that Mutonyi held with dignity. But just like it comes to be with most prophets, sometime just before Mutonyi’s death in 1890, a series of prophecies he made irked the people. In these prophecies he talked of the arrival of pink man whose magic will subdue Mbukusu. In particular, when Mutonyi talked of circumcised men cooking for the pink man, the people dismissed him as madman.
They well dominate us, we will work for them, till our land for them and even cook for them. They come with colored white articles (chingayu or sesame to mean European money) that will swallow our cattle.
A Historian relives Mutonyi’s prophesy that led him to be rejected by his people. In this account, Chingayu is symbolic of modern money.
When one considers the shape, color and hardness of dry Chingayu, one is tempted to see why Mutonyi saw coins in his dreams and could only find Chingayu in his lived environment as best representative of them. Thinking about it, my childhood experience of Chingayu being so scarce elevated them to being some sort of means of exchange. Frequently, I would exchange one pod of Chingayu for several tubers of sweet potatoes from my cultivator siblings.
More importantly, as the story of the freedom fighter Wakoli Khwa Mukisu, who organised the Bukusu resistance of 1895 reveals, Mutonyi’s prophesy did come to pass. Notably when Wakoli himself took up work as a cook so that he could prepare for the resistance by spying on the white man and his accomplices. Also later, when Babukusu men served as slaves for their colonial masters.
Mutonyi’s Prophecy and Chingayu: Symbol Of Modern Telecommunication Technology
Picking on this prophesy by Mutonyi where he also spoke of the pink man’s magic as enabling “one speak at ebukwe (sunrise) and the other hear in mumbo (sunset)“. This prophesy has been widely interpreted as Mutonyi visualization of the telegram, fixed telephone and other forms of communication technology that relayed messages across distances faster than a messenger on foot. The historian in a blog post on how modern telecommunications will thrive where modern Luhya politicians have failed in uniting the Luhya, re-imagines Mutonyi’s prophesy as follows:
The pink man’s magic is here with us. We carry alongside chingayu-like objects. We place them on our ears and hear people’s voices very clearly without them shouting. These chingayu are connected from person to person. …..
A Historian relives Mutonyi’s prophesy
On the epitome of modern telecommunications technology, the internet, the author writes: “The pink man’s chingayu have changed the way we think, act, learn and most importantly how we reason.”
The Boy, His Father, Ogres and Chingayu: A Bukusu Folktale
However, even devoid of Mutonyi’s visions, a Bukusu folktale tells of how a boy used Chingayu to communicate doom to ogres who had eaten up his kinship. In the folktale simply titled “A Father and His Son“, we find the following passage:
The ogre decided to go and consult a diviner about the mysterious explosions in the house. When he related his story to him the diviner advised that he should brew a lot of beer and invite all ogres to come and witness the exorcising of the bad ghosts. So the ogre returned home and brewed beer as had been advised. He invited all the ogres in the neighbourhood to come and drink.
On the day when the ogres assembled at the beer party, the boy changed his hiding position fearing that the ogres might use all the firewood from the rack. He hid himself in the darkest corner of the roof where he felt safe. When drinking started the diviner instructed that the firewood rack be checked thoroughly but the ogres found nobody there. So they drank and danced merrily thinking that the menace had been removed from the house. However, when they were all getting drunk including the diviner, the boy showered into the fire handfulls of chingayu which instantly exploded successively, tulia-tulia-tulia-tuliaaa!! sending up clouds of ashes and smoke right into the roof.
The ogres got so confused that they stampeded for the door and fled from the house in different directions never to return to that country again.
