Luo burial traditions require that the dead return home, to ancestral land, to be laid to rest where their fathers lie. What began as cultural practice became political symbol when SM Otieno's widow sought to bury him in Nairobi in 1986. The case went to court. His clan sued to bring him to Nyanza. The battle over his body exposed the tension between customary law and individual rights, between modernity and tradition. Luo funerals remain elaborate, expensive, and mandatory. They are where community is performed and identity affirmed.