Esau Khamati Sambayi Oriedo (29 January 1888 – 1 December 1992) was a Kenyan Christian evangelist, a philanthropist, an entrepreneur and a trade unionist, a veteran of World War I and World War II as a soldier in the King's African Rifles (KAR), a barrister, and an anti-colonialism activist. In 1923 he singlehandedly altered the Christian church landscape in Bunyore and the rest of North Nyanza region—in the present-day western and Nyanza regions of Kenya. He was an indomitable adept all-around crusader for a myriad of polygonal causes—the rights of the aboriginal peoples, a stalwart advocate for the syncretism of Christianity and traditional African cultural moralities, and a literacy champion—in the British East African Protectorate & Colony of Kenya, during the period that span more than five decades (1910s – 1960s) of the colonial and postcolonial epoch.Great Britain. East Africa Royal Commission, Great Britain. Parliament, Great Britain. Colonial Office. East Africa Royal Commission 1953–1955 report. Great Britain: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1955.Solomon, Alan C. and Lohrentz, Kenneth P., "Guide to Nyanza Province Microfilm Collection, Kenya National Archives, Part III: Section 10, Daily Correspondence and Reports, 1930–1963, Vol. II" (1975). Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs – Former Departments, Centers, Institutes and Projects. Paper 1.United States Agency for International Aid (USAID). pdf documents: PNAAM016.pdf. 1 July 2013. <>.Devres, Inc. Technology and Management Needs of Small and Medium Agro-Industrial and Enterprises in Kenya: Implication for An International Agro-Industrial Service Center. United States Government. Washington, D.C.: United States Agency for International Development (U.S.A.I.D.), 1981.R. D. McLaren, Assistant Registrar of Societies, Government of Kenya. "Notice of Registered Societies." Kenya Gazette. Nairobi: Official Publication of the Government of the Republic of Kenya, 13 March 1964.
In 1952 – 1957 he was detained at Kapenguria together with Mzee Jomo Kenyatta and other fellow Kenyan freedom fighters reminiscent of Chief Koinange Wa Mbiyu (d. 1960) by the British colonial government in Kenya, under the so-called emergency rule. Besides, he endured unadulterated torture, denied legal representation and visitation by his family and confrères; and he bore the arrogation of all his business enterprises, financial, and real-estate property, confiscated as a penal measure by the colonial authorities.Lonsdale, John. Mau Mau & nationhood: arms, authority & narration. Ohio State University Press, 2003.Elkins, Caroline. Imperial reckoning: The untold story of Britain's gulag in Kenya. Macmillan, 2005. In the early 1930s Esau Oriedo and Jeremiah Othuoni (1898 – c. 1958) of Enyaita successfully, through forceful civil disobedience, advocated for the chieftainship of Bunyore; in what was one of the earliest successful self-determination local movement uprising directed principally against the provincial colonial government in British East Africa. Before that, Bunyore was still under the jurisdiction of the Paramount Chief, Nabongo Mumia of Wanga (d. 1949). Mumia had in 1926 been appointed, by the British colonial government, paramount chief of all four traditionally aligned districts of western Kenya; which included the people of Bunyore.Greenberg, J. H. (1950), The Bantu of North Kavirondo. Volume I. Günter Wagner. American Anthropologist, 52: 255–256. He was one of the first two council members from Bunyore to serve as a district representative in the colonial era District House Assembly known as the Local Native Council (LNC) of North Nyanza; one of the 26 countrywide local native legislative units enacted by the colonial government in 1924. Additionally, serving a tenure as the council's chairperson. His aptly articulative adept championing of secular education led to the North Nyanza LNC secular education initiativeMukudi, Edith Sumba Wanyama. Thesis (M.Ed.) – Kenyatta university: African contribution to the growth of secular education in North Nyanza, 1920–1945. Nairobi: Kenyatta university, 1989. that gave rise to the founding of the Government African School Kakamega, present-day Kakamega High School;Schilling, Donald G. "Local native councils and the politics of education in Kenya, 1925-1939." The International Journal of African Historical Studies9.2 (1976): 218-247. the first secular secondary school and the impetus of the modern-day public education system in Kenya. Esau Oriedo went on to be elected to multiple terms as a councilman in the County Council of Kakamega in the nascent post-colonial Kenya, before voluntarily stepping down to pave way for the younger generation, whom he continued to coach and mentor. In 1964 he successfully spearheaded the election to the national parliament of Edward Eric Khasakhala, the first member of parliament (MP) from Bunyore.Hornsby, Charles. Kenya: A history since independence. IB Tauris, 2013.
As a stalwart Christian crusader, Esau Oriedo is accredited among the native Africans whose contribution facilitated the growth and the headway of the modern Christian church into the interior of the African continent, dating 1450 – 1950. He and Chief Otieno wa Andale of Bunyore were principal aborigines ascribed with the successful growth of the Church of God Kima Mission—in its post 1904 infancy. He adeptly teamed up with Daniel Asiachi, on a project sanctioned by the American Bible Society and with the guidance of Dr. Gertrude B. Kramer, in the first ever translation of the Bible—New Testament, Psalms, and Proverbs—into the Nyole language.Mojola, Aloo Osotsi. God Speaks in Our Own Languages: Bible Translation in East Africa, 1844-1998 : a General Survey. Nairobi: Bible Societies of Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, 1999. His resolute crusading for the syncretism of Christianity and the native African values prompted him, in 1923, to forsake the Church of God Kima Mission. In 1924, Esau Oriedo with the full backing of the Archdeacon of Uganda and Kavirondo, W. E. Owen, went on to found the St. John's Anglican Church at Ebwali village in Bunyore under the auspices of the Church Mission Society.Letter from Archdeacon Kavirondo W. E. Owen: Correspondence and Missionary Papers, Church Missionary Society, CMS, missionary work in Africa 1918 - 1940. This brought an end to the Church of God's dominance in Bunyore; thusly, Bunyore became, to this day, the pillar of strength of the Anglican Church.
Esau Oriedo was an ardent pan-ethnic philanthropist and a literacy advocate who awarded a multitude of pan-ethnic bursaries to aboriginal students from underprivileged communities and families who could not afford to pay fees to attend school. Recipients included politician Tom Mboya (d. 1969) and other notable Kenyans. The auspiciousness of his bursaries promoted him to successfully lobby the implementation of the North Nyanza LNC Scholarship Fund. The archetypical recipient of the North Nyanza LNC scholarships was Arthur Okwemba; a cerebrally brilliant young man who went to study medicine at Makerere Medical School. Mr. Okwemba personified one of the first cadre of the 15 percent of Makerere’ students who came from entirely illiterate and humble origins.Iliffe, John. East African Doctors: a history of the modern profession. Vol. 95. Cambridge University Press, 1998.
Biography
Early life Esau Khamati Oriedo (also known as “EK” or “Mzee Esau”) was born circa 1888 at Ebwali village in the precolonial modern-day Republic of Kenyan, at a time when the coastal regions of the country were administered by the Imperial British East Africa Company, the forerunner to the East Africa Protectorate. He was of the ethnic Bantu Kavirondo Luhya people of the present-day Bunyore. His father was one of the elders who made up the clan's collegial system of barazaBaraza is Kiswahili for council, assembly or meeting of the elders of a tribe.—the Nyore or Nyole people were a gerontocratic acephalous society with a representative system of governance and collegial leadership structure composed of mainly a council of elders. He was the eldest of the four siblings, three brothers and one sister. Esau Oriedo had a difficult childhood and had to overcome monumental adversities. He lost his father early in life and had to craft his way through life as an orphan to become a self-made man who was respected by his peers and revered by his country. Moreover, he survived the variola major infirmity; a deadly strain of the smallpox disease that left him with long-term severe scarring on the face.
As an orphan, without any means of support, he left his native birthplace and travelled far in search of employment to support his three younger siblings. He secured employment as a “shamba boy” on a plantation annexed by a European settler. Despite the harsh work conditions and paltry pay, he worked diligently with pride, and performed commendably to the delight of his European employer, who also recognized his cerebral abilities; thus, promoting him to a domestic servant and later a cook. He became culinary expert—gourmet chef. He used his entire salary to support his three siblings; successfully ensuring his younger siblings did not subsist in a desolate plight of orphaned existence—in addition to providing for their needs, he made sure that his siblings received education beyond the rudimentary literateness. He acquired farmland for each of his brothers. He pointed to this period of his life, as humbling.
Family Esau Khamati Oriedo married Evangeline Olukhanya Ohana (née Analo) on 29 September 1923; the daughter of Analo and Omina, members of the Bantu Luhya ethnicity. The wedding was transformative, and caused unmitigated controversy; it synergized the Christian matrimonial covenant with a traditional African reception. The couple Christian ceremony was held at the Church of God Kima Mission; it was officiated by the Reverend H. C. Kramer who was the head missionary at the mission owned by the Church of God at Anderson at the State of Indiana in United States of America. The matrimonial church ceremony was preceded by a traditional African Luhya reception at Ebwali village in Bunyore. Theirs was a first of its kind to be held at the Church of God Kima Mission at Kima in Bunyore. The wedding generated unmitigated controversy—spearheaded by the Rev. Kramer and the Church of God's Missionary Board Office at Anderson, Indian in United States of America—whose outcome changed the trajectory of the Christian landscape across the Kavirondo region, the modern-day Nyanza and western regions of the Republic of Kenya.
The couple met at the mission where he was serving as a deacon, community liaison, and clerk; whereas, Evangeline Analo was a student at the mission's quasi-seminary for girls, a forerunner to Bunyore Girls’ High School, where she was concurrently studying Christian theology, and home economics educator—she was among a handful of young native African women chosen by the mission for grooming as future bible study intermediaries and home economics instructors amongst indigenous population.