Cradle and culture:In traditional Taita, virtually every name means something

William Shakespeare, the renowned  bard of all times once intimated that “a rose would still smell as a rose even if it was called by another name”. 

The poet was attempting to answer the hackneyed question: “What’s in a name?” 

However, Shakespeare’s line of argument would have had very few supporters-if any- in traditional Taita society where each name meant something and sometimes everything. 

The prefix “Mwa” is instructive and carries the weight of character, objects, space and time. 

In fact  in my own case, it has been a fruitless journey of self discovery after  fighting so hard to know the meaning of my name but to no avail. This  is quite ironical in a community like the Taita where virtually every name means something. 

The genesis of this traditional  nomenclature stems from the strong belief in someone “being born again”. 

“Every person in traditional  Taita society wanted their names to remain alive in the future generations so once a child was born, he/she would be named after a certain close relative,” says Mzee  Mkilo, a Taita elder.

He says the failure to name an elder when his/her time to “be born again” was due could result in serious consequences in the future such as curses that would give the family untold suffering. 

 A child who was given a different name from the one they were supposed to inherit could become barren, go crazy or even die before adulthood, according to this elder. 

                                                       reincarnation

Such an honour was it to be born again that every parent would pray earnestly that they lived long enough to see the day when they would be “born again”. 

According to Taita traditions, the first child would be named after a person from the paternal side. In most cases, the father “would give birth” to his father or mother depending on the sex of the child. 

In a situation where a wife begat twins (masa) the parent to whom the turn to name one’s  relatives after had come could decide to name both children by his kin’s names or if one was “generous” enough, they could decide to share out the two slots . 

The second child would be the mother’s turn .This would go on in alterations until the “woman’s womb was closed”.

                                                      celebration time

It was usually a moment of great joy and celebrations when a child came, more so for the person who was about to be “born again”. 

For a prominent person such as a chief, the celebrations were elaborate and thorough, in the hope that the child would be as wise, brave and hardworking like the person he was being named after. 

A bull was usually slaughtered and people would feast, while a local brew m’bangara would  be taken by the elders who poured libations to the ancestors to bless the new born baby. 

The ceremony would be capped with the performance of the kishawi dance(see picture). 

However, it was taboo to name a child after a youth, mrika, who had not found a family. It was believed that a person “who was born” before founding a family would never do so and would die single, a status traditional Taita society did not accept. 

It was also taboo to name a child after a relative who was insane or one who had died of an incurable disease.  

But the flipside was when a child had to inherit the name of someone of dubious character. 

Granted, whether the person to be born again was good or bad, smart or ugly, tall or short; that never mattered: he/she had the right “to be born again”. 

So here is the catch-22. For instance, there was one great-grandfather who had such a voracious appetite for meat and could not spare anything remotely resembling meat. 

He was reported to eat flesh from newly born calves and even placentas from freshly delivered animals. 

For this somehow uncouth and socially unacceptable habit, he was called “Mwa-mbisi”, meaning someone with the character similar to a hyena .At times the “Mwa” was deliberately left out and he would be chided as “Mbisi”- a hyena. 

This did not at any rate mean that those in future generations who inherited the name would have such repulsive social characteristics. But the name itself was the problem. 

It was the kind of name that one would cringe if it was called out in a public function or even in class at school, where one was likely to become the butt of other pupils’ depraved jokes. 

In fact, truly speaking, and you can take this to the bank, some of my relatives have even gone to court to swear affidavits in order to have the name ‘Mwambisi” or “Mbisi” expunged from their certificates and national identification documents. That’s how much a name  can mean in Taita traditional society.

As a matter of fact, most members of this clan would hardly accept to be referred to as “Weni-Mwambisi”, meaning the clan of Mwambisi. 

Sometimes it was ironical , disturbing and even irritating  when you inherited a name which meant the exact opposite of your character or appearance. 

For instance, imagine a very dark person, who should, by conventional wisdom, be called “Mwanyungu” for a black pot inheriting the name “Mwaela,” which means a very light person, or a very silent person who should ideally be called “Mwakima” inheriting the name “Mwakudeda” or “Mwakuewa”. 

Or think of a child who was born in broad daylight who should be named “Mwadime” inheriting the name “ Mwakio” or “Mwakira”. 

It can even be a trifle embarrassing when a teetotaler who could be a pastor inherits a name such as “Mwachofi” meaning “a drunkard”.  

Other examples abound, but the bottom-line in this naming system  was to inculcate certain values and characters which could either be positive or negative. 

                                                         negative traits

“People always shunned negative personal traits that would lead to them being nick named likewise, since in most cases nicknames ended up sticking permanently on some people and eventually adopted as their real names” says Mkilo. 

Nicknames, also known as sare, were in fact used in Taita community as a weapon of correcting some unacceptable social traits in some people. 

These were done mainly in songs and one who was chided and sang about in a song usually felt remorseful and even bitter and would shun the habit forthwith. 

This is similar to satire in oral literature where laughter(  being laughed at) or being ridiculed can have a greater corrective impact than a direct assault on a person’s character.

 “People always shunned negative personal traits that would lead to them being nick named likewise, since in most cases nicknames ended up sticking permanently on some people and eventually adopted as their real names”- Mkilo.