Gor Mahia
Luo · demigod · legendary historical · demigod
Gor, nicknamed 'Mahia' after the Dholuo word for magic, was a chief and magician of the Kanyamwa area near the shore of Lake Victoria whose reputation for wonder-working, rainmaking and prophecy made him one of the most celebrated figures of Luo memory. Son of Ogada and heir, by tradition, to the powers of his grandfather Ogalo, he is described as ruling through fear of his sorcery, and stories credit him with foreseeing the arrival of Europeans. Though a historical personage of the recent past, he has passed into legend as an almost superhuman worker of the miraculous, his name later borrowed for Kenya's best-known football club.
Domains
- magic and sorcery
- divination prophecy
Powers
- to work magic and wonders
- to foretell future events
Epithets
- Gor K'Ogalo
Sources
- William R. Ochieng', An Outline History of Nyanza up to 1914 (Nairobi: East African Literature Bureau, 1974).
- David William Cohen and E. S. Atieno Odhiambo, Siaya: The Historical Anthropology of an African Landscape (London: James Currey; Nairobi: Heinemann Kenya; Athens: Ohio University Press, 1989).