My funeral will be on Saturday: The uncanny prediction of a ‘seer’

In the hit song entitled "Property", the fallen Benga colossus John De’Mathew croons: “If you want me buried on Saturday, you would give me rat poison; my relatives would be unable to protect me; my mother would never know.”

Incidentally, his mother passed away several years before him. The rat poison turned out to be road carnage, which continues to claim Kenyan lives in great numbers.

With his lanky, albeit petite physique, smooth skin and dark complexion, De’Mathew cut the image of a likeable character in his many music videos.

His dance style, characterised by the elegant rocking of arms and swaying of the head, was simple yet captivating if not outright bewitching to lovers of his music.

With no fancy bling-bling or decadent designer wardrobe, his casual shirts and river-road-fit trousers were just right for his “hustler” brand, which resonated well with his legion of fans.

His lyrics had body and soul. The words cut like a thousand samurai swords. Those on the wrong side of his political satires felt the sting of his poetic compositions; more scorching than the fiercest of fires.

His use of the ‘cama’ gikuyu dialect, spoken in his Gatanga backyard and the greater Murang’a, appropriately spiced with doses of original proverbs and sayings, was authentic, eloquent, unpretentious and very deep.

Fare thee well De’Mathew. The literary value of your ‘works’ will be studied for generations to come.

Maina wa’Wanjiru, Nairobi

Ben Githae: ‘Mucene’, ‘mehe mehe’...

In her book, Defining Heresy: Inquisition, Theology, and Papal Policy in the time of Jacques Fournier (1284-1342), Irene Bueno cites Arnaud Laufre, a critic of Fournier and papal policy of the time, who had claimed that the words “mehe mehe” uttered by Catholic clergy while sprinkling holy water resembled the call of a bleating sheep, mainly because the Catholic rites in the medieval period were conducted in Latin, even to congregants unfamiliar with the language.

The pronoun ‘mehe’ is a less familiar variant of ‘mihi’, meaning ‘to me’, ‘for me’, or ‘by me’.

The word ‘mihi’ can be used in indirect object (dative of purpose case) form. For instance, 'he gave me a book', 'he bought me a book'; or to show someone’s perspective, 'he seems to me to be a good man', 'she seems to me to be a bad girl', in a usage normally referred to as ‘dative of agent’ in grammar.

The words ‘mihi’ and its older variant ‘mehe’ can also mean ‘me’, ‘I’ or ‘mine’. For instance, the books are mine, in a usage called dative of possession.

In his Kikuyu song, "Atumia Maracigua na Arume", gospel musician Ben Githae castigates menfolk for their mucene, njuku, cu cu cu cu, muhuhu, piri piri and mehe mehe, which all connote gossip, slander and loose talk.

The ‘mehe mehe’ in old Latin and as loose talk in central Kenya do not appear to bear a relationship.

Can Ben Githae or someone else give the etymological roots of ‘mehe mehe’ in its local usage?