On mchongoano and riddles in Kenya

• Published in: The Journal of Pan African studies Vol. 6; no. 6; pp. 100 - 121
• Main Author: Kihara, C. Patrick
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Los Angeles Journal of Pan African Studies 01.12.2013; Itibari Zulu
• Subjects: African studies; Communication; Comparative analysis; Educational aspects; Families & family life; Games; Genre; Language; Linguistics; Methods; Riddles; Schools; Social aspects; Social science research; Socialization; Society; University colleges; Kenya; Americas; Indiana; United States > US; Africa
• ISSN: 0888-6601; 1942-6569

In Kenya, there is a verbal dueling game called mchongoano that is popular with the young, but also appreciated by many adults for its humorous content. This paper is about mchongoano, which is compared with the traditional riddle in Kenya. The two genres are shown to be are very similar in terms of functions and characteristics. From the comparison it is evident that mchongoano shares with riddles functions like education and information, entertainment, socialization, social control, development of verbal skills etc., and features both as being of relative length, the practitioners and consumers are mostly the young, the use of proper, and kinship names are used in the immediate environment as the source of topics and subject matter etc. Thus, in the future, mchongoano is likely to replace the traditional riddle as a pass-time activity for the young, considering that it uses Sheng, an urban language that is popular among the youth and since the languages that package the traditional riddle are usually not used by the practitioners of this genre.