by Apa Mwambeo*
Editorial: This is the fourth essay in the inaugural issue of The Nairobi Reader, a literary and cultural magazine. The Introduction to the special issue is available here.
Beginnings
Though I am a man of one life and infinite possibilities, I want a name whose pronunciation or meaning is so seductive that I can simply bask in its uniqueness. A name is the shortest yet deepest biography you will ever read or write. As I attempt to show in this essay, our names are our evolution, our deeds, our (in)abilities and our traits in the journey of life. I want to incite people to cherish names that mirror their struggles. Names that are alive to bestow esteem on people or irk others. In fact, even the poorest whose names are bad and have nothing else to give should dare give those in their territory names that sting. The rhythm created by the syllables of your name determines whether the world will consider you worthy of life. It is a fact that few-lettered names like Apa, Mao and Moi have a strong presence in our memories while long ones disadvantage their bearers. Sample this: football’s living legend Pele was born Edson Arantes do Nascimento; the initials V.S. in the writer Naipaul’s name stand for Vidiadhar Surajprasad; the musician Akon’s name is actually Aliaune Damala Badara Akon Thiam. It is names more than people that live on the lips, even in the hearts, of those who bless and curse. Names establish presence. Names secure lives, even livelihoods.
Names as Journeys of Life
For the more than a decade I was a hawker in Voi town, I was called Mbeng’o, meaning forceful. Mbeng’o was also a poetic attempt by the hawker folk to invert the ‘ng’ombe’ in my name Mwang’ombe. The other name by which I am known in Voi is Kidasi cha Mbeo (Kikapu cha Baridi), Basket of Cold, which is also a name of a place in Taita Taveta, or Chambeo. The person who coined the name was a street boy in Voi. I have tried to recall his actual name to no avail. I have since lost hope on my memory ever retrieving his name. I respond ‘Chambeo’ to anyone who calls me Chambeo. The response kills the name of whoever addresses me so. Though that name is derived from my name Mwambeo, my friends use it to mean I am as dominant as mbeo, the wind. My other hawker name which ranked highest is Nyambeo. It was coined by Mwadime Paka. Whoever calls me Nyambeo brings back strong memories of Paka and our hawking days at the Voi bus stage. The name was created in an environment of heavy drug use. Its coinage was a result of either the sheer creativity from drug use or a slackening of lips due to the drowsiness caused by substance abuse. Mwadime had become Paka, the cat, owing to his style of fighting and bullying. He, like members of the cat family, fought using claws. He had the bravery and grip of a lion, leopard, jaguar or the domestic cat; and there is no victim of his wrath who successfully concluded a war with him. Mwadime Paka fought to death. He would later die in police custody.
The name Angasi reigned my Mwanyambo Primary School days. I was in Standard Four when I mentioned a cattle meat breed called Aberdeen Angus. While a handful tried calling me Aberdeen Angus for over a month, it proved unworkable, especially on account of its mouthfulness. My classmates chose Angus. However, in the Bantu fashion of always itching to add a vowel to every consonant sound, the name became Angasi. I became Angasi immediately the teacher and my classmates marvelled at my grasp of issues. It was not long before Peter Mghalu, a motorcyclist friend in Voi, enriched Angasi to Angastus Anjola alliance Baba Ziro. I later learned that he thought I was cheeky as a character he had been watching on a television programme. Those who had television sets in their homes claim it was the name of an actor and comedian called Angastus Anjola alliance Baba Ziro. I suspect the ‘alliance’ in the name was a result of the inability of Mwanyambo Primary School pupils to pronounce ‘alias’. There are people who call me Angasi to date. Mwandagha Michigan, one of my friends most fond of this name, always smiles as he uses it whenever we meet. In addition to the nostalgia of my childhood days at Mwanyambo, a mention of Angasi carries me to River Voi, where we would swim after dodging Mr. Narcissus Mwakio’s classes. I know it sounds like a joke to tell you that what now looks like a dry gulley was a once a huge, flooding river which swept vehicles, carried cattle away and drowned people. It was the source of both life and death to the animals of Tsavo. I was called pastor and mtumishi during my heyday as a Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) apologist. I fell out of favour with the SDA church by marrying without following church protocol. I must have also hesitated for long at the feet of literature. Kichuku, a word that means ‘kin’ but used on me to mean ‘clan of big heads’, is also a name others use on me to date. There is a barber who is always tempted to charge me double because he thinks I carry the equivalent of two heads.
Names as Inciters for War and Peace
The name Mwamburi has brought me the war and peace I am sure it denied the grandfather I am named after. The war started when my paternal family relations thought that I was using the name to immortalise Mwamburi, my father’s brother and a long-distance truck driver who died in an accident in Uganda. His death and the arrival of his badly damaged remains caused a stir in Taita Taveta because many people, including his parents, could not recognise him when his remains were eventually brought to Mombasa. It is my dad, Mwang’ombe Mwakitau, who stepped into the mortuary and picked his brother. He recognised him by a scar from an injury his brother had had in childhood. The name Mwamburi died when my namesake was renamed Mwambeo. Mwambeo is the name of my mother’s father. He was born Mwamburi. He kept complaining of cold, mbeo, until her mother remarked, “Uhu ni mwa-mbeo wa mwana,” which translates to, “This is a cold of a child”. There are other circumstances which make one a mwa-mbeo. Being raised without the biological mother is one—the child grows cold. The breast of a mother is the only true source of warmth. Orphanhood is cold. Calling me Mwamburi brings back memories of my dead namesake, my mother’s father.
There was a conflict some days before the dawn of 8th September 2013, over seven years ago. My first living progeny was being born. My wife was giving birth to my mum who has given her all to nurture me. I had wanted to embody in my little girl all that my mother has gone through to make us, her children, who we are. If my wife had agreed with me to call our daughter Mao, the Taita word for mother, we would have helped to incarnate the travails of my mother under the sun, for us. My sense of the name Mao is the imagery of a hen watching over its chicks. Thus, Mao is not just a mother to eight children, seven alive and one asleep. It is refuge from the hawks of life and a warmth in the cold we lived in. I failed to bestow upon my first daughter the name I desired her to carry. I have never forgiven my wife’s inability to trap the investment I was willing to make in our daughter through naming. And I have never recovered from my apparent failure to convince her. More ominously, I feel I failed my daughter and, by extension, mother. My daughter’s mother insisted on another name for my girl. Though I lost the battle, I call my daughter Mao, a name which she now carries as a nickname. Mao is powerful. It has stuck. And it is the most used of all her names. Mao has marginalised the names on her civil registration documents. The name is a spirit. This name constantly reminds me of the spirit of my mother. It insists to reign forever. It is my girl’s name.
My wife devised a way to assuage my angst. Each of our daughters exclusively bears either a Taita name or a Luo name. She says this allows the daughters to carry only one ethnic identity, at least in their names, so that they are not confused or stigmatised should they have to explain why their names speak of different ethnicities. The other name which has caused conflict amongst my relatives is Machocho, the name of my third daughter. Apparently, my wife simply liked the Taita word. She did not know that a number of my relatives are called Machocho. My relatives who bear the name constantly question who among them donated her name to my daughter. With all the attendant bias, my mother weighed in and settled the matter. She chose the person she thought is fit to share a name with her granddaughter.
Names as Bedrocks of Affection and Hope
Apa, as my mother calls me, means ‘father’. I am named Mwambeo, her father. When she says Apa Mwambeo, it is a cry-call like beckoning Father Mwambeo. As the Bible affirms:
Kwa kuwa hamkupokea tena roho wa utumwa iletayo hofu: bali mlipokea roho ya kufanywa wana, ambayo kwa hiyo twalia ‘Abba’, yaani Baba.
—Warumi 8:15.
Mum utters ‘Apa’ through a tremble of affection and trust to make me immortal. She says it to fill me with the caress of infantile longings and the panoramic feeling of maturity. I am cuddled and lulled down to my childhood. It is the name of highest potential. I appropriate it with confidence for I know it stings and tickles with my mother’s blessings. With the one-word name, she admonishes me to guide others, because ‘Apa’ also means a leader or the domineering one. If she is called to the heavens ahead of me, I am confident that my mother will take refuge in the belief that I will finish the race she started. Apa Mwambeo not only links my mother to her departed father but it is also her hope for posterity.
“Apa wavika na mbande rake”, which translates to ‘father has arrived with his firewood’, is what my mother would say every time I came home, just after 10am, to ask for porridge. She would then boast, “Mwanangu huyu amejaa huruma na bidii. Tangu akiwa wa miaka mitatu, yeye huonyesha njaa yake kwa kuokota kuni na kuzileta nyumbani huku akisema, ‘Mao, saa sita ra uji ravika,’ kisha akae hapo akisubiri nimpikie uji”. The child in me believed that every mealtime is called ‘saa sita’, noon. So my mental dictionary had ‘noon of porridge’, ‘noon of tea’, ‘noon of lunch’, and ‘noon of supper’. I see the same affection and respect from my mother when she addresses one of my brothers as Jomba, the Kiswahili word for uncle. She claims Jomba, my brother, is as quick as his namesake. Mwacheru is the actual name of my mother’s uncle.
Mkabili, our second born, is named after my eldest sister, who lives in Kisauni. She mothered us whenever our mother was away wrestling the world for our daily bread. She bathed us, prepared supper, saved us from the snares of the village, divided labour amongst us, and took charge of other domestic tasks. Whenever the young Mkabili approaches me, I address her as ‘dadangu wa Kisauni’. Her sight almost brings me to tears, for I am reminded of the good and the bad things the Kisauni Mkabili, my sister, goes through. These names are a refuge of our mother. Though poverty has loved our homestead, we abound in the hope and wealth of the names she gave us. We live in the names. Just one wrong turn at naming and ‘all the voyage of our life is bound in shallows and miseries’. A name can sustain a sinking man.
Names as Trademarks
Mwamburi, attached to Mwang’ombe, my father’s name, has had what several people, from both my community and other communities, have called “a lasting poetic effect”. One clear fortune was when the name propelled me to victory as chairman of the Moi University Student Council, almost a decade ago. Chants of ‘Mwamburi Mwang’ombe!’ by comrades took the university by storm. My competitors could not believe the magic and poetry of the two names in one. I am forever indebted to Nyamweya Bw’Omari and Kiziah Philbert Ochieng’, who insisted we use the twin names in my campaigns. The brand proved unique. The brand won. When students resorted to calling me Baba, father, after our victory, little did they understand the meaning and memory the name evoked in me. And I believe my mother must have felt a tinge of victory in her heart wherever she was. Later when I used Apa Mwambeo while contesting an elective post in Taita Taveta, many people were awed. Some people would meet me for the first time and wonder how I was Apa, given my relatively young age. Ordinarily, Apa is the name of a person seasoned in age and endowed in wealth. The name ran ahead of me and won me disciples. Never mind the supporters I lost when they eventually met me and felt that I was not as big as my name suggested. Apa makes me the namesake of Tata Mandela. Tata is Xhosa for Baba. Names plant greatness where an ordinary village identity would have reigned. Names incubate in a person the warrior who feels local and global as need may be.
Superstition, Sacrifice, Tradition: Seducing God through Names
My mother is Mkawesu, named after Wesu Hospital. Her living two siblings are named after nobody. Their mother, my grandmother, lost all children she named after people who had died or who were nearing death due to their advanced ages. It is rare that names of young, healthy and living people will be used on the newlyborn. My grandmother, thus, used naming as a way to cheat or circumvent the gods of death. Hence the foundation of what my mother thinks of names. She believes that names cannot fail to influence and mould the character traits of their bearers.
How did our first-born sister become Mkabili and not Mkang’ombe, the name of my father’s mother, as it should have been? Among the Taita community, the first-born girl takes the name of her father’s mother. Why, then, did my father’s mother, present when sister Mkabili was born, refuse the right to bequeath her name to the little one? It is because misfortune had befallen her first granddaughter, named Mkang’ombe, at birth. Mkang’ombe would not grow in the compound of my grandmother because her mother fell out with her father. So, it was believed that Mkabili would inherit the same curse if she were named Mkang’ombe. And, perhaps, my mother would have run away from my father, determined not to suffer the same misfortune a second time. Mkabili is an elder sister to my paternal grandmother. She is more than 100 years old now. Interestingly, I have named my second daughter after this elder sister of mine, who was named after an elder sister of our grandmother. Therefore, in addition to the good feeling I have in calling my second-born daughter dadangu wa Kisauni, the name Mkabili raises superstitious undertones from generations of yore. My Mkabili is thus both my grandmother and my sister.
I have a brother called Mwakitau, named after the father-in-law of my mother. However, it is taboo for people to mention names of fathers-in-law or mothersin-law without any sound reason. It is for this fear and a show of respect that our mother calls this brother ‘Mzee’. None of us has ever called him Mwakitau. If I address a child named after my father-in-law by his actual name in the presence of the senior owner of the name, the father-in-law is likely to answer to the call, kicking off a long process of cultural cleansing. The Taita culture will have already charged you and “kuajhighwa ng’ombe” (you will be eaten a cow). The elders can consider this case of disrespect to sacred names only after eating a cow from the offender. In the same measure, those named after these patriarchs are expected to carry themselves in a manner that measures up to the status of those they are named after.
The gods have chosen names to wage war for posterity or peril. Some names are poorly positioned in the gaze of fate and have to die to give way to those with a brighter future. Just as the names Mzee and Mkabili have succeeded in killing the names Mwakitau and Mkang’ombe, respectively, Mwambeo succeeded in killing Mwamburi, as I have shown elsewhere in this essay. Some names like Mwamburi may be lucky enough to reincarnate elsewhere. Names in my community are a sheathed battle of husband versus wife, the living versus the dead, the poor versus the rich, and so on. They are alternately shared along the favourites of husband and wife, and the final number of names adopted from one end tells of the weaker person in a matrimony. My mother usually brags that names from her family dominate our homestead. It is a tacit way of declaring her victory over my father, at least insofar as this naming battle goes. It is her way of making clear her success in silencing the family of her husband.
Names as Anchors for Conquest, Hatred and Disdain
Another area in which my mother has flaunted her depth at life and is worth a mention is the art of coining nicknames. You have seen how our mother has named and renamed us to prove names are a mine of battle, hope, defeat, character and eternity. My siblings can talk about anybody and anything without mentioning known names of people or things. We have nicknames for ourselves, relatives, others and tribes. Names and nicknames display the attitude and creativity of those who craft them. They subdue the named and define limits. Mwachia once beat my eldest sister who had been sent to borrow sugar from a neighbour. My mother instantly composed a name and song to which she sang and danced whenever Mwachia passed near our home:
Mwainda gololia, mwainda gololia…
(Shameful man of lice…)
Kashurulwa ni kitumbe gololia…
(May you be scratched by shame…)
This song did more than relive the story of a schoolmate of my mum, who was infested with lice and poverty. It helps Mwainda (Mwachia) remember the poverty of his home, the habitat of lice. Here, a name carries us into the past and also turns a would-be perpetrator into a victim, a waging of bloodless war. The song painted a picture of the poverty in his home while lessening the gravity of the situation in our home, which was by all standards equally worse. Mwainda would never again touch or joke with any one of us. He actually found ways of passing the farthest from us and our home.
May your name not miss when the roll is called up yonder, once this journey is over. Next time I will narrate to you why I am quick to anger when people think that they can do without the apostrophe in Mwang’ombe (of cows). You earn my contempt by calling or writing my name as Mwangombe (of claws/nails). I am in the apostrophe. Failure to include the apostrophe in my name, both in writing and in pronunciation, is a greater sin than spelling all its letters in small letters. Whether you will retain ‘Cassius Marcellus Clay’, the name bestowed upon you by your parents or religion, or drop it in favour of ‘Muhammad Ali’ and pave your path to greatness is a matter that lies right in the path of your intention in life.
* Apa Mwambeo is a writer and consultant editor (mwambeo@gmail.com).
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To read the first three essays in the collection, click here. You may download the inaugural special issue of The Nairobi Reader. Tomorrow, read about the personal, cultural and political considerations in naming public spaces.
To join the discourse on the cultural significance of names and the politics of naming, share your comments below or write to editor@nairobibookshelf.com.
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