The owl in Bukusu is Esikhikhi: A lick at curious associations and myths about the owl in Bukusu culture

Drawing from my experience growing up Luhya in the village, I recall curious associations and myths about the owl in Bukusu culture.

As you know, the owl is much feared in Luhya culture. The sighting of an owl is considered a bad omen. It tells of death stalking the community where it is sighted. And it’s just not any death. As my people say, some deaths are as if a big tree has fallen taking with it it’s protective shade; and throwing into chaos the life it supports in its limbs and leaves.

Such deaths, like most deaths, were unwelcome. Especially so because, the person whose transition to the world of the ancestors is announced by the sighting of esikhikhi, is often a libongobongo or omwami one way or another. A patriarch, matriarch, an intangible asset, a pillar of society. A big loss.

Given this mystic around the owl, our young curious minds wondered where esikhikhi came from. Maybe it because we wished it flew away as it made the grownups so nervous and angry. Angry and nervous grownups meant lukhendu would fly about for the slightest of our indiscretions.

Anytime an ‘unusual’ animal such as esikhikhi was sighted, to our queries, the grownups would offer that the animal had wandered lost from Mt. Masaba. Such was the vitality of life of the forest that nests up Mt. Elgon; a wonder of nature that present generations may never appreciate as the combined efforts of human devastation of nature’s gifts and climate change steal our heritage.

As a result, today, one is more likely to sight the owl, esikhikhi’s, distant cousin: the domestics cat.

Distant cousins: The cat and owl in Bukusu culture

Yes, in my childhood, for some curious reason, we did believe that the docile domestic cat – stupid enough to be domesticated – was indeed the owl’s closest cousin. The fact that one is a bird and other a feline mammal not withstanding.

Now, the owl is a majestic creature hard enough to sight, let alone domesticate! Looking back, I am at loss at where this association came from. Could it be that we ‘sensed’ the predator in them? Or maybe its because both the cat and owl appeared to be at home in the dark? Maybe, it was a much simpler reason: both have their eyes glowing in the dark. In truth, they do kinda look alike – eyes and ears.

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