Pokot culture in focus in Baringo's battle over unclaimed bodies

The Baringo County government is grappling with the tendency of Pokot families not to pick up the bodies of their loved ones from hospital mortuaries.

Most people in the community refuse to bury the dead, with elders saying family members are reluctant to touch lifeless bodies for fear of being declared unclean.

The archaic cultural belief also explains why people who are severely injured or in dire need of first aid are left to die, because if they succumb to illness, the person who tried to help them will be seen as unclean and will have to undergo a cleansing ritual.

Such people are also not allowed to mingle freely with others for a while.

Health workers in the region say that most severely ill Pokot patients are abandoned when their condition worsens, because their caregiver fears taking responsibility for them if they succumb to their illnesses.

“We have had many cases of sick people from the Pokot community being abandoned in hospital, especially if their conditions worsen, thinking that if they die, they will be told to take the bodies home for burial,” said a health worker, who spoke anonymously because they are not allowed to speak to the media.

“The situation has led to unclaimed bodies in the morgues because after the caretakers leave, they will not come back and they do not even want to associate with their dead relative.”

This has prompted the devolved unit to take responsibility for burying the bodies, which pile pressure on the affected facilities because they remain in mortuaries unclaimed for months.

County officials have obtained a court order to dispose of bodies at the Baringo County Referral Hospital morgue in Kabarnet that had been unclaimed for months.

According to the hospital’s medical superintendent, Charles Maswai, the eight bodies from Tiaty sub-county had been at the morgue for months, overstretching the facility.

The mortuary, with a capacity to preserve 48 bodies, was full, he said, and the county had to remove the unclaimed bodies to create more space.

Left in the battlefields

Julius Akeno, an elder in Tiaty, said that in Pokot culture, when someone dies, he or she is supposed to be buried right there and not be ferried to their homes as in other communities.

Most of those killed, especially during raids, are left in the battlefields for hyenas to feed on, he said.

“This is still being practised in remote villages, especially where there are no churches,” said Mr Akeno, who has written about the community, banditry and insecurity in the region.

The Pokot fear coming near the dead, Mr Akeno said, because they think they will be perceived as unclean if they do and will have to live in seclusion for days and require cleansing.

The cleansing ceremony, referred to as “kakirelit” in the local language, involves slaughtering a black goat and smearing its intestines on the affected person before they are allowed to freely interact with other people.

“That is why in the community, you may find people whose relative dies in the house and they desert the homestead and start a new life elsewhere, leaving the body there because they also believe that if they stay, the spirit of the dead will trail them and kill more people,” Mr Akeno said.

“That is why many sick people are abandoned in hospitals by their caregivers for fears that the patients would die and the relatives will be termed unclean by the community for being in contact with a dead person.”

Judah Losutan, a former councillor from Nginyang’, said that in the community, when someone dies, the hair of immediate relatives is shaved and they are not allowed to mingle with villagers for a month.

“If a woman loses her husband, for instance, her hair is shaved completely and she is not supposed to go to the stream or even interact with other villagers for more than six months. Such situations have made people flee from the village instead of being subjected to such predicaments,” he said.

So perverse are the beliefs, he said, that the Pokot believe that if a person gets close to where someone’s body was buried, their body will swell.

Abandoned by his parents

Mr Losutan said that his father, a prominent chief in Nginyang’ in the early 1970s, died at the then Baringo district hospital in Kabarnet while undergoing treatment and his caregivers, including his elder brother and mother, fled the facility.

“He was later buried by the government at a public cemetery in Kabarnet as no one went to claim his body. This still happens in remote villages, especially where there are high illiteracy levels and no churches. People in the community dread the dead and may even disown their relatives when their health deteriorates,” he said.

Early last year, a seriously ill four-year-old boy was abandoned by his parents at Baringo County Referral Hospital in Kabarnet under unclear circumstances.

It was suspected that his father, who hails from the remote Napukut village in Tiaty sub-county, more than 100km away, sneaked out of the hospital after he saw that his health had deteriorated.

Nursing officer in charge Rosinah Kiptarus said the boy, who had been referred from Chemolingot Sub-County Hospital, was brought by his father with severe anaemia.

“We transfused him immediately so as to stabilise him but some more tests like blood leukemia and bone marrow were needed to be carried out at Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital in Eldoret to ascertain what was ailing him,” she said.

When the boy’s father was informed of the new developments, she said, he abandoned the critically ill child in the paediatric ward.

In May 2015, more than 54 people, including women and children who had been killed in a bandit attack in Nadome, on the boundary of Tiaty and Turkana East, were not buried.

They were left to be devoured by hyenas in the battlefield while those who survived deserted the area to start a new life in Napukut, Nasorot and Akwichatis villages.

The villagers were killed when assailants from a neighbouring community raided the area and stole hundreds of livestock and a fight between the two communities ensued.

Naudo Location Chief David Arupe said there is no mortuary in the entire sub-county except in Kabarnet, the county headquarters, more than 400km away.

“Even if we had chosen to ferry the more than 50 bodies to the morgue, how could we do it with the poor roads? The facility could not accommodate such a number, and again who will come for the burial? Whenever someone dies in such areas, they are just left there and people move away,” he said.

There are only three morgues in the vast region – at the referral hospital in Kabarnet, as Eldama Ravine Sub-County Hospital and at Mercy Catholic Mission Hospital.