Case file · Folklore / legend
Fumo Liyongo, the hero who could not be wounded
Swahili poems and tales tell of Fumo Liyongo, a poet-warrior of the north Kenyan coast whom no weapon could wound except a copper needle driven into his navel, a secret betrayed by his own son.
1870 CE · -2.52, 40.52 · status: legend
The account
After his death, the story goes, he stayed kneeling with his bow drawn at a well, so that no one dared come near until he fell. The tales were first printed by Bishop Edward Steere in 'Swahili Tales' (1870) and the epic 'Utendi wa Liyongo' was written down in 1913. A tomb near Kipini is pointed out as his. The year is the first printed account.
The sceptical view
A heroic legend; scholars date a historical Liyongo anywhere between the 9th and 17th centuries.