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Long time ago before the arrival of the Europeans, the indigenous people liked to fight amongst themselves. There used to be people who were afraid for the war and some were very brave and just wanted the war to break at any time for them to show their manhood.
This is where you were to get people like Luanda Magere. He was so brave such that nobody could cross his line. Luanda Magere was coming from Kano from a clan known as Sidho. He was polygamous. They were fighting with another ethnic group known as Nandi. The Nandi's like fighting at night but Luanda Magere with his group liked daytime. The Nandi's were very good fighters at night compared to daytime.
While people were fighting, Luanda Magere was to be seen at home smoking tobbacco. But when his people were under Nandi threat, he could be seen asking for his spear and shield. When he went to the battlefield he could kill so many Nandis all at ago and eventually forcing them to retreat to their homes. The Nandi's could be seen discussing on how they could kill Luanda Magere as he was their only stumbling block.
Luanda Magere was so powerful such that the Nandis used to be so much afraid of him. When they went to war and found out that Luanda Magere was also in the battlefield, they would retreat back to their Nandi country. Magere would go to the Nandi people and take their cattle and other items without resistance. This he did in daytime. Those who may have attempted to resist were being killed on the spot as they could not kill him. This was because Luanda Magere was made out of hard stones called 'Luanda'.
When these enemies were trying to spear him, their spears only bent as they could not penetrate through him. This is when they started to worry of what substance Magere was made out of. They tried all they could do to kill him but they couldn't succeed. After some time, they concluded that he was God's creation and therefore could do nothing about it.
After so many years they made a deliberation on how they could kill him. One of the Nandis thought it wise that they give him one of their beautiful daughters to marry. Eventually they found one beautiful lady and told him that they have accepted defeat and the only price they could pay was to offer him their beautiful daughter in marriage so that he could stop raiding their homes during daytime to take their cows. Given that cows were sacred to the Nandis, anyone who could come and take their cows was seen as sacred.
When the news of marrying a Nandi lady reached his first wife, she did not accept the idea and told Luanda Magere that as they were their enemies, there was no way he could marry the lady but he could not heed his wife's advice. Eventually he married the Nandi lady and stayed together as a man and a wife for so many years. This lady had only one mission, that is, to know where Luanda Magere's strength was hidden. She used to go back to Nandi and each time she would be asked if she had already known where Luanda Magere's strength lied.
One time his first wife went to the garden and by that time Magere was not feeling well. He decided to tell his Nandi wife to treat him by cutting his shadow and put medicine where she cut. When she did this, she could see blood coming from his body. From there, she knew where his strength lied. When the first wife came from the garden and asked Magere how he was feeling by that time, he told her that although his condition worsened when she left, he was by that time feeling well. The wife asked him very loudly whoever had cut his shadow, and he replied that it was the Nandi lady who did cut it. From there, she told him that he had put his foot in the burning fire. She narrated the story to Lwanda Magere telling him of what she knew of the girl .
After a short, time the lady disappeared and went back to Nandi to tell her people where his strength was hidden. She told them everything and so the enemies knew where to hit when they were in battlefield. His first wife told him that he should not go to war anymore especially during day time but he insisted that once you are a hero you had to die like a hero but not as a coward man.
Two weeks later, a war broke out between Kano and Nandi and it is said that when he went to battlefield, he killed so many people that could not be counted. He was too tired that he could not run anymore, then is when one Nandi warrior speared his shadow and he collapsed. Those Nandi who were there started celebrating and shouting how the war was successful as they had killed the Kano hero. What surprised them was that instead of Luanda Magere falling down he melted away, and where he was killed they could only see stones forming. From there, they were so proud they went home laughing though others were apprehensive wondering on whether he actually died or he was still alive as they could only see stones.
The Kano people for who Luanda Magere fought went home wailing terribly as their hero had been killed. When he died, there was a strong wind everywhere and over the whole of Kano and Nandi, there was a thick cloud covering on the sky.
The Luanda Magere stone can be seen along the Chemelil - Nandi road. It is about 67Km from the Base camp and 1.5Km before you reach the Kopere - Songhor junction. The old woman I met there told me that the stone had been interfered with during the construction of the Chemelil - Nandi road. At that point, the contractors found a woman sitting on a traditional stool while cooking and that her body looked as if it had been struck by thunderstorm. They then took the body and some of the stones abroad. If you sharpen your spears on these stones then you go to hunt for wild animals, you cannot go back home without killing an animal.
(by Benson)