Ayago

Where Nyabongo/Labongo Mourned For Four Days

Nyabongo/Labongo continued southwards and came to a large tree with a breast-like fruit near a stream where he mourned bitterly: “Wod iyaga, iketho anego nyathin para pi tigo peri, man nen, kawoni ayi pare urwinyo urwinyo iwanga!” (“Son of my mother, you made me slay my daughter for your bead and behold, her image is now fading from my sight!”) The tree was named Yago, and the stream, Ayago. Nyabongo/Labongo mourned here for four days, his tears flowing onto the fallen fruit of the tree.
He laid the fruit exactly as the body of his daughter that had been left to rot. To date when a female dies among the Luo, a four-day mourning period is declared. The fruit of the yago tree may also be buried in the grave of a person whose body cannot be found, as a sign of a decent burial, among the Luo.