As modernity submerges rural settings, the youth in western Kenya are losing touch with the traditional cultures that were once the ties saved their ancestors from misfortune, elders in Vihiga County warn.

In traditional Luhya, where culture provides the template and foundation of economic and social conduct, there are concerns that the younger generation – especially in urban settlements – regard these longstanding and enduring norms as backward. To them, the customs are just a nuisance that should be discarded.

An outright offshoot of the break with the ancestral norms is a phenomenal rise in incidence of “in-breeding” or incest as the codes of conduct that once governed relationships such as marriage and kinship fade, broken or simply defied.

“Nowadays, young men and women meet in towns and marry out of romance without checking their family or clan backgrounds,” says Laban Lusaga Ayio, a respected elder of Vafunami clan. “Some end up marrying from the same clan or bloodline. That is how misfortune strikes a family.”

The misfortune may be in the form of hereditary diseases, physical deformities or negative behaviour.

In Luhyia culture kinship is revered and marriage or even a sexual relationship between people with the same bloodline is regarded as an abomination. Such relationships are believed to carry curses that can cause untold suffering that is laden with sorrow. Kinship is sacred.

 “The curse from incest is real,” Laban explains. “Our forefathers warned us that it brings death, barrenness or endless tragedy. Those who defied the taboos in the past paid a heavy price.”

The birth of a child from such a union is considered a bad omen. Customs dictate that the infant be stripped away from its mother and raised by a barren woman, believed to absorb the burden of the curse. Even then, the shadow of misfortune was said to hover over the family for years.

Laban recalls tales of families struck by strange illnesses, mysterious deaths or what they describe as “red thighs” – a metaphor for infidelity and promiscuousness. These customs passed down through oral traditions served as training for future generations about the dangers of ignoring counsel received from ancestors.

But with the rise of ‘modern’ value systems and population mobility such traditions are fading fast. Some so-called Gen Z couples, unbothered of their clans, are unknowingly crossing these sacred barriers lines.

“Times change,” Laban cautions, “but taboos do not. Tradition remains constant. When we forget where we came from, we invite problems that our ancestors worked hard to shield us from.”

While the modern world changes, the roots of tradition must not be dumped. The stories, taboos and sacred codes of conduct that have bound communities together for centuries are not relics of the past – they are reminders of identity, unity and respect for ancestry.

• A Tell Media / KNA report / By Sylvester Muhadi