Preservation Traditions in the Somali Bantu Community
By Famo Musa
“A people without the knowledge of their history, origin, and culture is like a tree without roots.”
~Marcus Garvey.
The Somali Bantu people were enslaved during the Arab Slave Trade from 1800 to 1890 and some even longer because of their farming abilities. Many of them fled and they were displaced and lived as refugees since 1991 because of the Somali Civil War and hunger. Because of the increased hardship they faced at the camps, from 2001 to 2004, the majority of the Somali Bantu people became qualified for asylum in an ongoing United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) resettlement program.
In 1999, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the United States agreed to resettle the remaining 12,000 Somali Bantu from the Kenyan refugee camps in the United States. In 2002, the Somali Bantu who were in the refugee camps in Dadaab had to be relocated once again to the more secure Kakuma refugee camp, in northwest Kenya, to be processed and interviewed by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service. In 2003, groups of Somali Bantus were placed in 50 cities in 38 states.
Over 10,000 Somali Bantu refugees settled in America between 200 and 2006, over 800 of them in Houston Texas, and yet not many people know of their existence.
My family and I settled in San Diego California. During my youth, I got into organizing and went to many conferences where I learned about other struggling communities. When it was my turn to talk about my community, I realized that many people didn’t know the Somali Bantu people existed and lived all over the United States. Today, I make it my mission to show awareness and help tell the story of the Somali Bantu people.
I was born in Somalia in 1991, In the early days of when the Civil War started, people were in survival mode, some fleeing in search of safety, so no one was celebrating anything. My family was part of the people that ran away to neighboring countries and we ended up at the refugee camp in Kenya in 1996. Six years later, once again we were living with hunger and famine. People tried to keep everything normal and keep the traditions, but it was eclipsed by the environment and the consent search for safety, so I don’t remember celebrating much. We were fortunate enough to be included in the resettlement program in 2001 and my family and I came to America in 2004.
Through it all, no one I knew was either getting married or going through puberty and if they were, they were not celebrating it. I didn’t go through puberty until 2006 when I was 15 years old, it was during summer so, they put me in isolation for a month, and they did a mini Mviko where I got to dance with three to four elderly women from the community, I didn’t know what was happening and no one told me about it.
In our community, we don’t talk about anything, especially to the younger generation, we don’t know why we do half of the things that go on in the community. This project gave me the chance to get some of those answers and I know it is something the youth want to know too.
I chose to interview three people based on their level of experience. I wanted to know how the importance of traditions affects them in their lives today after being in Houston for over 20 years.
Batula is an elder in the community, and her memories are of her time in Somalia, where she lived all her life. I learned about the multiple Mvikos celebrated in the Somali Bantu Community from her. The three popular ones are, the rite of passage, when becoming a woman, the elders in the community host a coming out event where they would dance for the girl, bringing her out to society. The second one is when couples get married, they would do a similar dance for them, where both genders are invited to prepare them for married life. The last one is dancing and praying for something, such as for rainy days when there is drought. That’s when the whole community would come out and meet at the field and sing and dance all day and all night until it rains.
Hawa lived half of her life in Somalia where she got married and had her kids, but she raised them in Kenya, so she has memories from both locations. The celebration that stood out to her is Eidi ya Pempe, their version of New Year’s. She talked about how they celebrated for seven days, people would gather around, pour water on each other, dance, sing in the mud, and bathe in it, and the whole community would participate. This was to celebrate life and being thankful for making it another year. This is one of the traditions they don’t practice anymore because of being in America where it doesn’t feel the same anymore.
She also talks about the importance of wearing beads in the Somali Bantu Community. Beads are used in all the Mvikos daily. They are put on children for protection, to keep the evil eye away, they usually use black and white ones. On adults, they use them for beauty, keeping the evil eye away, and for marriage ceremonies.
Mnoza is in her 30s and was raised in the U.S. She talks about Eid and how she celebrates it with her children and how it’s watered down to fit her new home. She also talks about the forgotten traditions she remembers but doesn’t practice anymore such as Eidi ya pembe. And about cultural ceremonies practiced as a rite of passage such as Mviko and others.
But she only has memories of what Eid used to be like since it’s the only celebration she does with her children. The first Eid is called Eid al-Fitr, also known as the “festival of breaking of the fast. It is after Ramadan to celebrate completing 30 days of fasting. The second one is Eid al-Adha called the Feast of the Sacrifice where people sacrifice animals to gift to the poor. She celebrates them by buying her family new clothes, going to prayer, and spending time with family.
One thing they all have in common is how the downside of losing their traditions is losing their sense of self like they don’t belong here, as was stated by Hawa.
Why I applied for the fellowship:
I decided to apply for the Texas Folklife Fellowship because I wanted to learn more about podcasting and auditory work. When it comes to storytelling, I have many skills, but I never tried podcasting and I was always intrigued. This fellowship gave me the opportunity to try something new. I learned to record, script writing, and work with audio production and editing. These skills increased my story to a whole another level with a new audience.
I want to tell my community’s story – to help spread their existence and preserve that knowledge for the long term. The fellowship let me do that. It was a long tasking journey, and I loved every second of it. I also have a newfound respect for this work because it is not for the weak. It was hard and frustrating, but I had the best mentors and have learned so many skills that I’m excited to use in the long-term.
My long-term plan is to continue this as a series where I would interview elders in the community and have my own podcast. This experience has awakened my love for storytelling and preserving memories and I have learned so much that I want the people in my generation to have these memories as well, so they can pass it on to their children.
Artist Bio
Famo Musa was born in Somalia and raised in Kenya. She is a writer and poet. She has been writing since she learned English fifteen years ago. She holds a B.A. in Literature and Creative Writing from the University of California San Diego. Famo has published some of her creative work in review journals and news on the Speaks City Heights website. She is a leader who has been active in the Somali Bantu community for the past 10 years documenting and writing short stories. She now resides in Houston with her husband and three kids where she just published her debut poetry collection about identity.
Follow me on Instagram at: @famoswriting and @famosphotos. You will see my newfound knowledge of field recording narration reflected in my future work.
Reach out: famoswriting23@gmail.com
Bonus:
If you want to see what Mviko looks like, click on the video below for reference, the materials do not belong to me.
This is the type of Mviko done when couples are getting married starting at 8:56
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-ARgJTOEKo&list=WL&index=28&t=592s
