Swahili men don’t marry from ‘Mlango wa Nane’

Swahili males were forbidden from marrying in Mlango wa Nane (the name for eight nomadic groups), which was considered to be cursed.

 According to Chief Ahmed Abdulrazak of Mombasa Old Town, young Swahili men are prohibited from marrying from Mlango wa Nane (a term for eight nomadic clans), which is thought to have evil omens. Mlango wa Nane included the Maasai, Orma, Rendille, and Sanya, whose women were "believed to harbor bad omens and that poverty would befall those who married from these communities," according to Abdulrazak, who added that nomads were viewed as wild and warlike, a perception that persists to this day. For young males from other villages, the Mtiza subgroup within the Agiriama was a no-no among the Mijikenda.

Shabaan Ndoro, a Duruma from Gandini Location in Kwale County and Mwembe Tayari Chief and Mijikenda elder, claimed that the community had no choice but to intermarry and that those who refused and married a Mtiza "fell in abject poverty and calamities." It was the same for Duruma men who married into the Mtongori bloodline, which was thought to be cursed, with gainfully employed husbands being fired randomly. The Wavumba of Kwale possessed gorgeous ladies, but males who married them suffered a slew of hardships. Both Abdulrazak and Ndoro agreed that the mishaps were seldom fatal.