From the White Nile to the White House

Did you know that President Barack Obama’s grandfather once threatened to kill one of his wives, and actually started digging a grave? Or that his son, Barack Snr., was known as Mr. Double- Double because of his habit of ordering two double whiskies at once?

British filmmaker Peter Firstbrook has packed The Obamas: The Untold Story of an African Family with such nuggets of knowledge, giving readers a thorough picture of Obama’s Luo heritage and drawing lively portraits of his ancestors.

Firstbrook is the only person to have traced Obama’s African roots back more than 20 generations and there is a lot to enjoy in this meticulously researched work though it can be difficult to absorb at times.

He starts his tale with the Luos’ trek out of Sudan, describing it as one of the greatest migrations in Africa’s history.

“It is a journey which started with a local chief living in a mud hut overlooking the White Nile and ended seven centuries later with the leader of the most powerful nation on earth living in the White House,” he writes.

The book goes deep into Luo tradition and relates it to the president with some incongruous results. For example,

Obama is left-handed. Luos regard lefthandedness with suspicion. Also, Obama has two daughters: traditionally another burden for a Luo man.

At its best, The Obamas reads like an archaeological mystery with today’s Luos acting as the author’s guides as he tries to assemble this “large pile of jigsaw pieces.” It may require concentration but it rewards its readers by mixing a juicy cocktail of history and current affairs, and defining the president’s African heritage.

“The Luo will never consider (President) Obama to be a white man,” Firstbrook writes. “Regardless of where he was raised, or what he might say and do, they will always see him as an African – a true Luo with an ancestry that can be traced back two dozen generations.”