Fumo Liyongo or Liongo was a Swahili writer and chieftain on the northern part of the coast of East Africa sometime between the 9th and 13th centuries. He is celebrated as a hero, warrior, and poet in traditional poems, stories, and songs of the Swahili people, many associated with wedding rituals and gungu dances. Liongo himself is credited with many such songs and poems. Oral tradition is generally coherent in describing Liongo as a king or prince of Pate island. Several towns on the Tanzanian coast claim to be Liongo’s birthplace. He is supposedly buried at Ozi.
Mythical hero of the Swahili and Pokomo peoples of eastern Kenya. Historians have endeavoured to place Liongo in the chronology of the history of the Kenya Coast, as early as 1200 or as late as 1600.
A large number of Swahili poems are attributed to Liongo, many of them popular wedding songs which are still performed at weddings, accompanied by special dancing, the so-called gungu dances, after the rhythm. Even the myth of Liongo is fragmentary and not a coherent story.
Liongo was born in one of seven towns on the Kenya Coast which all claim the honour of being the great poet’s cradle. He was exceptionally strong and as tall as a giant. He could not be wounded by any weapon, but when a needle was thrust into his navel, he would die; fortunately only he and his mother, whose name was Mbwasho, knew this. Liongo was King of Ozi and Ungwana in the Tana Delta, and of Shanga on Faza (Pate Island).
Liongo was passed over for the succession to the throne of Pate, which went to his cousin Ahmad (Hemedi), probably its first Islamic ruler. It seems that the advent of Islam caused the changeover from matrilinear to patrilinear succession. King (Sultan) Ahmad tried to get rid of Liongo and had him chained and gaoled. By means of a long and self-laudatory song, the refrain of which was sung by the crowds outside the prison, Liongo caused enough noise to file through his shackles without being heard by the guards. As soon as they saw him unchained, they fled, for he was a formidable man. He escaped to the mainland, where he lived with the Watwa, the forest-dwellers.
Each episode of this saga is marked with a song, which has been preserved. He learned to perfect his sureness of hand with bow and arrow, so that he later won an archery contest organised by the king to entrap him, and escaped again. Little is known about Liongo’s successful battles against the Galla (Wagala), whose king decided to offer him his own daughter in marriage so as to tie the hero to his own family. With her Liongo had a son who later betrayed and killed his father.
The epic of Fumo Liyongo talks about the misunderstandings between Fumo Liyongo and his brother, the unnamed sultan of Pate. At first, the epic suggests that Liyongo was in his middle age, and his height and physical strength surprised many so they praised him a lot.
When the people of the Wagalla tribe came to Pate to look for food to buy, they were told the praises of Liyongo by the people, likewise the Sultan of Pate praised Liyongo. On hearing these wonderful qualities, the Gallas really wanted to see Liyongo, so they wrote to Liyongo and asked him to come to see him.
Liyongo responded to the call, so he planned his journey to Pate while carrying a whole lot of luggage. For an ordinary person, the journey takes four days, but Liyongo took only two days to reach Pate.
When he approached the city of Pate, he blew on the first a big whistle panda until it burst. He blew on the second and it also burst. He blew the third and entered the city to the council of the sultan. Many people gathered to see him, when he landed his luggage was full of many things that were enough to fill the whole house.
Directly, the Gallas admitted that Liyongo is indeed a fat and strong man. The Gallas really wanted to get his seed, so they asked the sultan to allow them to get the seed, the leader agreed. They made a plan to marry Galla wife who requested him him a son. As Liyongo's fame spread, so did the conflict between him and the Sultan of Pate.
The king feared that Liyongo might usurp the kingdom from him so he looked for a way to destroy him.
When Liyongo discovered the Sultan's plot to destroy him, he escaped from Pate and went to live in the wilderness with the Wadahalo, the Watwa, the Sanye and the Boni. The king made a secret plan with the Sanye and Wadahalo to kill him in the forest by promising them a payment of one hundred reales if they brought him Liyongo's head. The people befriended Liyongo and then advised them to play the domain together. So they chose each other by taking turns to pluck the leaves from the fig tree. They planned that when it was Liyongo's turn, they would wait for him to climb up the hill and then shoot him with their arrows and kill him while he was in the tree.
With the mental ability that Liyongo had, he discovered the plot. Instead of climbing a fig tree, he dived down and used an arrrow to hit the fruit, so they failed to kill him. The people sent a report to the Sultan that it was impossible to kill Liyongo.
The king told them to go back to where Liyongo was and tell him being in the city is safe and there is no danger for them to go there with him. When they returned they told Liyongo the lie which he believed to be true, so he followed them and went with them to Pate town.
The Sultan organized a Gungu dance with his family and invited lovers of that type of dance, Liyongo was one of them. When the dance got faster, the soldiers caught Liyongo and took him to prision.
The king and his men decided to kill Liyongo while he was in prison. As the day of execution approached, Liyongo was given time to make requests for anything he wanted. Liyongo asked to have his family dance by Gungu to his people. This request was accepted and the dance was prepared. When the dance was prepared, Liyongo sent a poetic message to his mother through the maid Saada who brings her food.)
In the message, he explained that on the day of the dance, he should bake bread and put a chainsaw in it. His mother did the as she was told. When the maid Saada brought him food, the guards took the bread they thought was good and threw away the last one to go to Liyongo. When the dance started, Liyongo used the opportunity to tighten the chains, so he succeeded in cutting them. He broke the main gate of the prison and escaped into the forest.
When the king saw that he had failed to kill Liyongo, he persuaded his son to go and ask his father what could kill him. The Sultan promised Liyongo's son to marry his daughter, to give him a ministry in his leadership and other wealth if he succeeds in it. Liyongo's son continued until where the father was staying, and asked him to tell him the secret of not being harmed by anything.
Although Liyongo realized the plot of his enemies to go through his son, he agreed to reveal the secret to him. He told him that the only thing that can kill him is a copper needle inserted into his navel. The Sultan was very happy, when he was given this information by this young son of Liyongo.
So he gave him a copper needle, made further promises and gave him rich gifts.
He returned to Shaka again where his father was, waited for him while he was asleep, and inserted a needle into his navel. Liyongo woke up and got up in anger, took his arrow and went to the well looking for the enemy.
Kneeling down, he put an arrow in the bow while pointing it at the city and died. When the crowd saw him in that condition, they thought he was alive and were very upset. So they were filled with fear to go and get water from the well.
When they were overwhelmed by the lack of water, they went to ask Liyongo's mother to come and persuade him to leave and draw water. His mother used to go to cheer him up from time to time but she was not successful.
Finally his body fell and people realized that he was already dead.
When the Sultan learned of Liyongo's death, he was filled with joy. He informed his son Liyongo that his father had died. Instead of being sad, sad and mourning, he was happy.
This act offends the king who took all the wealth he had given him. Community members chased this young man away from interacting with them. A few days later he encountered an incurable disease that destroyed him.
Jifunze Kiswahili na mwalimu Johnpaul Arigumaho 