Song Of Lawino And Song Of Ocol 3e4638

Poets of Africa

Song of Lawino & Song of Ocol

Other Poetry Books from EAEP

1. Poems from East Africa – David Cook & David Rubadiri (eds.)

2. Song of Lawino – Okot p’Bitek

3. Song of Lawino and Song of Ocol – Okot p’Bitek

4. Two Songs – Okot p’Bitek

5. Horn of My Love – Okot p’Bitek

6. When Bullets Begin to Flower – Margaret Dickinson (ed.)

7. Boundless Voices: Poems from Kenya – Arthur Luvai (ed.)

8. My Mother’s Song and Other Poems – Micere Githae Mugo

9. Tides of Time: Selected Poems – Jared Angira

10. A Chequered Serenade to Mother Africa – Mutu wa Gethoi

11. Words That Melt a Mountain – Taban Lo Liyong

12. Make it Sing & Other Poems – Marjorie O. Macgoye

13. Tired! – Joseph Kagimu

14. Echoes Across the Valley – A. I. Luvai & K. Makokha (eds.)

15. Song for the Sun in Us – Okello Oculi

16. The Lianja Epic – Mubima Maneniang

17. Lament of the Silent and Other Poems – Jared Angira

18. An African Thunderstorm & Other Poems – David Rubadiri

19. A Poetry Course for KCSE – Paul Robins & R. A. Hargreaves

20. Appreciating Integrated Poetry – Njoki Gitumbi & Nyambura Njuguna

Song of Lawino & Song of Ocol

Okot p’Bitek

Introduction by G. A. Heron Illustrations by Frank Horley

Published by East African Publishers Rwanda Ltd. Tabs Plaza, Kimironko Road Opposite Kigali Institute of Education P. O. Box 5151 Kigali RWANDA Email: [email protected] Website: www.eastafricanpublishers.com

East African Educational Publishers Ltd. Brick Court, Mpaka Road/Woodvale Grove Westlands, P. O. Box 45314 Nairobi - 00100 KENYA

East African Educational Publishers Ltd. C/O Gustro Ltd. P.O. BOX 9997 Kampala

Uganda

Ujuzi Books Ltd. P. O. Box 38260, Dar es Salaam TANZANIA

© Okotp’Bitek 1972, 1989 All right reserved

First published 1972 East African Publishing House

First published by East African Educational Publishers 1989

Reprinted sixteen times This impression 2013

ISBN 978-9966-46-708-9

Printed by International print-o-Pac Limited C-4 to C-11, Hosiery Complex, Phase 2 extn, Noida-201305, U.P. India

CONTENTS

Introduction

Song of Lawino

Song of Ocol

Ocol’s tongue is fierce like the

arrow of the scorpion . . .

INTRODUCTION

African writers who choose to use English or French set themselves certain problems. They wish to express African ideas. But they have chosen a nonAfrican tool to express them. There is a grave danger that with the tool of language they will borrow other foreign things. Every language has its own stock of common images expressing a certain people’s way of looking at things. Every language has its own set of literary forms which limit a writer’s manner of expression. How many of these tools can a writer borrow before his African ideas are affected by the influence of foreign ideas implied in them?

The first few African writers in colonial countries were not concerned with this problem. They simply imitated and praised their conquerors.¹ But this group was small, short-lived and insignificant. Ever since the idea of ‘negritude’ emerged in the 1940s among French-speaking writers² most African writers have been conscious of the dangers. They have tried in various ways to mould European languages and forms so that they could express African ideas. The ‘negritude’ writers based their poems on images taken from African traditions. Chinua Achebe, one of the earliest successful English speaking writers, uses the European novel form, but he is very careful to create an ‘Africanised’ English for the dialogue of his characters.³

Despite these efforts, many European influences are present in African writing and in the criticism of African writing. Sadly, the written literature of the African nations has been clearly separated in many people’s minds from the oral literary heritage that is present in every African community. Comparisons have more often been made between African poems and European poems than between African poems and traditional songs. Fortunately this emphasis is now changing.

Okot p’Bitek compels us to make comparisons between his poems and traditional songs. The title ‘Song of . . .’ that he has given to all his poems

suggests the comparison. He used many features borrowed from traditional songs in the writing of Song of Lawino. Partly because of the familiarity of these features to all Africans, Song of Lawino has become one of the most successful African literary works. Some African writers have been read mainly by a small well-educated elite. Okot succeeded in reaching many people who rarely show an interest in written literature, while still winning praise from the elite for his poems.

This success seems remarkable if we consider the fact that some publishers rejected this poem only a few years before this achievement. These rejections probably came mainly from the publishers’ familiarity with European rather than African forms of literature. But the idea of a long poem is now a rather strange one in either tradition. Few poets use long poems now. Again Song of Lawino does not fit into any Western model for a long poem. It is not an epic poem, it is not a narrative poem, it is not the private meditations of the poet. This written ‘Song’ form was born in Uganda while Okot was writing Song of Lawino.

If there was now only one ‘Song’, we could perhaps discount this originality of form as an insignificant accident. Okot, however, continued to write even longer poems. Song of Ocol, Song of Prisoner and Song of Malaya are all in similar form to Song of Lawino. In addition, two other writers were sufficiently impressed by Song of Lawino to write their own ‘Songs’. Joseph Buruga in The Abandoned Hut is strongly influenced by Okot, and Okello Oculi in Orphan and Malak is experimenting in different ways to use long poems in English in an African way to express African emotions and problems. It is interesting to look further at these ‘Songs’ to see why they have made an impact.

An equally important reason for the success of these poems is the controversial issues that they raise. In some circles in East Africa, the words Lawino and Ocol have become common nouns. You will hear the ‘Ocols’ or the ‘Lawinos’ of Africa praised or condemned in many arguments. The two characters have become prototypes of two opposing approaches to the cultural future of Africa. You will have your own opinions in this debate and after you have enjoyed these

poems you will be able to make up your own mind about the relevance of Okot’s contribution to it. This introduction contains a short biography of the writer and a consideration of the influence of Acoli songs on Song of Lawino. Then I discuss some details of the form and imagery of the two poems. Finally I try to suggest some issues raised by the poems which may be discussed.

Biography

Okot p’Bitek was born in Gulu, northern Uganda, in 1931. He went to Gulu High School and King’s College, Budo. In 1952, he went for a two-year course at the Government Teacher Training College, Mbarara. He then taught English and Religious Knowledge at Sir Samuel Baker’s School, near Gulu. His parents were well-known people in the local Protestant community and in this period Okot also was a Christian. He was already interested in music, he was the choirmaster at Sir Samuel Baker’s School. He was also active in politics during this period.

His first venture into literature was a poem called ‘The Lost Spear’. This poem retold the traditional Lwo tale of the spear, the bead and the bean. Okot wrote this while at Budo and Mbarara. He says the poem was very much influenced by Longfellow’s Hiawatha, which Okot ired greatly. He lost this manuscript. However, in 1953, while still at Mbarara, he published a novel, Lak Tar, in the Acoli language.

Lak Tar tells the story of an Acoli boy whose father dies while he is still very young. A few years later he falls in love with a girl and she agrees to marry him but he is unable to pay the very high bride price. His stepfather and his uncles refuse to help him. The rest of the novel relates the series of misfortunes that befall him when he goes to Kampala to try to earn the money he needs. Despite nearly two years away, he earns only a fraction of the bride price, and during his return journey he is robbed. The novel ends with his arrival home, miserable and penniless.

Okot’s other major interest at this time was football. He played for his school, his college, local clubs, his district team and the Uganda national team. It was through this interest in football that he first travelled widely in northern Uganda. He made many friends and gained more varied experience of the traditions of his people which was later very useful to him. Football also helped him to travel even further afield. In 1958 he went with the Uganda team on a tour of Britain.

Okot took this opportunity to extend his education. He stayed in England to study. He did a one-year course for a diploma in Education at Bristol University. He then did a degree course in law at Aberystwyth. It was during this period that Okot lost his Christian commitment. It was also at this time that the direction of his interests changed from the European traditions he had been studying to the traditions of his own people. While studying the Medieval European tradition of trial by ordeal he recognised a parallel to the traditions of the Acoli. He wanted to investigate this.

When he finished his Law degree in 1962 he had an opportunity to pursue his interest in African traditions. He moved to Oxford University to study for a B. Litt. in social anthropology. It was in this period that he developed many of the attitudes he expresses strongly in his poems and academic works. In his Preface to his book, African Religions in Western Scholarship, he tells us of his conflicts with his teachers:

During the very first lecture . . . the teacher kept referring to Africans or nonWestern peoples as barbarians, savages, primitive tribes, etc. I protested, but to no avail.⁵

In this book he is strongly critical of the whole idea of social anthropology. He claims that anthropology has always been concerned to and justify colonialism, and that it should therefore not be studied in African Universities.

This kind of rejection of Western traditions parallels his attempts to use African forms for his poetry.

The movement towards Ugandan independence persuaded Okot to return home for a short time in 1962. He intended to stand as the U.P.C. candidate for Gulu, but he changed his mind. While back in Uganda he took the opportunity to do some fieldwork for his B. Litt. degree. He then returned to Oxford. His research now centred mainly on the oral literature of his people. He completed his thesis, Oral Literature and its Background among the Acoli and Lang’o in 1964. He then returned to work in Uganda.

First he worked in Gulu again, for the extra-mural department of Makerere College. He continued his research in traditional songs, especially investigating the religious ideas expressed through them. He was also involved with a large group of friends in the creation of the Gulu Festival. He was a performer as well as an organiser, singing and dancing with a group and devising ways of adapting traditional songs to the different performance conditions of the Festival. It was in this period that he wrote Wer pa Lawino, the Acoli version of Song of Lawino. It is easy to see how songs that Okot was working on could influence the composition of his own poem.

In 1966 he moved to Kampala. There he tried to carry on similar work by changing the emphasis of the Ugandan Cultural Centre from mainly foreign works to mainly traditional performances. He was involved from the beginning in the formation of a large and successful traditional dance group called ‘The Heartbeat of Africa’. He was later appointed Director of the Uganda Cultural Centre. He organised an eight-day festival to coincide with the Independence celebrations in October 1968.

Shortly after this, his career in Uganda was abruptly cut short. While returning from a trip to Zambia he learnt that he had been dismissed. He was later told that his strong criticisms of politicians in Song of Lawino and elsewhere caused this

dismissal. He left Uganda and went to work at the University of Nairobi, first in Kisumu and then in Nairobi. Okot packed a great deal of activity into his life, always working hard. In 1975 he published a collection of essays, Africa’s Cultural Revolution. A collection of Acoli songs was published as The Horn of My Love in 1974 and in 1978 a refreshing version of familiar tales, Hare and Hornbill. These widely different books are all united by Okot’s concern that the nations of Africa should be built on African not European foundations. He returned to Makerere University as Professor of Creative Writing but tragically died in 1982 within five months of taking up the appointment.

Influence of Songs and Effect of Translation

Okot wrote the Acoli version of Song of Lawino in a period in his life when he was daily concerned with Acoli traditional songs, both in his research and in his activities in connection with the Gulu Festival. In his work for the Festival, he co-operated very closely with a large group of friends. These are some of the people whose help he acknowledged on the title pages of Song of Lawino. Naturally when Okot was writing his poem he also worked together with these friends. He read new versions of each chapter of the poem to these people as soon as they were completed and their comments were taken into if the chapter needed rewriting. Thus even its method of composition is similar to that of traditional songs. A group of singers work together and continuously alter the songs as they perform them.

Other elements link the poem to traditional songs. In most parts of the poem, Lawino addresses herself to someone for example: ‘Husband’ (p. 37), ‘my clansmen’ (p. 38), ‘Brother’ (p. 40). This form of address is a rhetorical device taken straight from Acoli oral literature. Another feature used a lot in Wer pa Lawino and sometimes also occurring in the translation is the use of a repeated phrase as a refrain, emphasising an important idea. There is a good example of this in Chapter 3:

Timme ducu lutimme Munu-Munu Ping’o lewic pe mako Munu, Lukwako dako atyer, calo Munu Luting’ pong’kor, calo Munu Wumato taa cigara, calo Munu, Wa mon, wa co calo Munu; Wunato lem-wu calo Munu, Wunato dog-wu calo Munu, Wunango laa dogwu calo Munu, Ma dog co nywak ki reng’ng’e pa Munu. ⁷

In the English version this repetition is considerably reduced: You kiss her on the cheek As white people do, You kiss her open-sore lips As white people do You suck the slimy saliva From each other’s mouths As white people do. (p. 47)

This translates only three lines of the original. In the translation of the other lines

the refrain is missed out. This repetition can be used over a few lines, as in this example, or to tie together a whole chapter. The repetition of this phrase strongly emphasises the idea of slavish imitation which Lawino finds so ridiculous in the dance. The whole of the poem is tied together by a similar refrain. It is taken from an Acoli proverb. In Wer pa Lawino, it reads: Te Okono obur bong’ luputu. ⁸

Okot’s translation is: The pumpkin in the old homestead Must not be uprooted! (p. 44)

Pumpkins are a luxury food. They grow wild throughout Acoliland. To uproot pumpkins, even when you are moving to a new homestead, is simple wanton destruction. In this proverb, then, Lawino is not asking Ocol to cling to everything in his past, but rather not to destroy things for the sake of destroying them. Again, the refrain is used to emphasise an important idea the writer is putting across in the whole poem.

The most important influence Acoli songs have had on Song of Lawino is in the imagery Okot uses. Okot has completely avoided the stock of common images of English literature through his familiarity with the stock of common images of Acoli literature. In the English version, this gives his poem a feeling of freshness for every reader, and a sense of Africanness for African readers. One place where these images are found in the poem are in the quotations for songs that are set out as quotations in the text. There are examples of these on pages 63, 65, 6970, 79-81, 104, 118, 123. These songs often convey Lawino’s feelings more fully than her own words. The song on page 86, for example, expresses the sorrow in the names of sadness very clearly:

Fate has brought troubles Son of my mother Fate has thrown me a basket, It all began as a joke Suffering is painful It began before I was born.

More important than these are the innumerable places where Lawino’s own words echo the words of a traditional song. If we look at a few lines of Song of Lawino next to a few lines from an Acoli song, we can see this clearly:

Beg forgiveness from them And ask them to give you A new spear A new spear with a sharp and hard point A spear that will crack the rock Ask for a spear that you will trust (p 122) The spear with the hard point Slits the granite rock The spear that I trust Penetrates the granite rock The hunter has slept in the wilderness

I die oh,

Through his thorough knowledge of an African literary tradition Okot has succeeded in using English as a tool to reach a wider audience without borrowing foreign elements that distort his message.

All but a very few lines of Song of Lawino were written in Acoli originally and later translated into English. For most parts of the poem, the translation was an afterthought. When Okot was trying to publish the Acoli version, he translated a small extract for a writer’s conference in Nairobi. The enthusiastic reception of this persuaded him to translate the whole poem. Song of Ocol was also an afterthought. Lawino was an unsuitable spokesman for one or two of Okot’s comments on the East African scene. Song of Ocol was needed to add this extra dimension. Song of Ocol was written in English throughout; there is no Acoli version.

Okot’s ‘Songs’ are not songs in any literal sense. You cannot sing them. They are not simply a written version of Acoli songs. Acoli songs do not grow to book length. They are one or two verses repeated with musical accompaniment. They are not written down under one person’s authorship. They are sung and adapted by singer after singer, and each singer is free to create in his own way and change the song to fit current events or refer to his own girlfriend. They do not use rhyme or the regular rhythm used in Wer pa Lawino.

So it is possible to exaggerate the influence of Acoli tradition on Okot’s poems. From western tradition he takes the idea of individual authorship, of spoken verse, of rhyme, of division into chapters, of the printed word. But many of the aspects that give them their impact are those aspects which are a direct continuation of his people’s own tradition. Okot has adapted a traditional form to new conditions of performance, rather than created a new form.

The writer chose to make a very literal translation of Song of Lawino. The main differences between the two versions are the rearrangement of the order of certain sections within the chapters, the filling out of some descriptions of things unfamiliar to readers of the English version, and the dropping from the English version of some details which are in the Acoli original. There is no doubt that, as Taban lo Liyong has said:

the meaning of deep Acoli proverbs are made very light by their rendition into English word for word, rather than sense for sense, or proverb for proverb.¹

Certain areas of meaning are lost through this kind of translation. If we take the lines:

The pumpkin in the old homestead Must not be uprooted . . . (p. 44)

it is obvious that, even after an explanation, non-Acoli readers will not feel the force of the proverb as Acoli readers would. And the poem is full of such references to songs, carrying meanings that have been built up over years of familiarity with the words. It is possible that with a longer, less literal, translation some of this meaning could have been retained, but the result would have been very cumbersome.

But the advantages of Okot’s method outweigh these disadvantages. As I have pointed out, many African writers using English or French have attempted to ‘Africanise’ these languages. Okot p’Bitek has succeeded in this more than any other previous writer. A less literal translation would have involved the intrusion of foreign elements into his poem. It is true that Okot’s ‘Acoli-English’¹¹ carries deeper meaning to Acoli readers than to others, but it is rarely obscure for

Africans.

There are occasions when Okot deliberately adds strangeness in the translation which is not there in the original. The most obvious example of this is in Chapter 8. Instead of using the biblical , ‘gospel’, ‘Holy Ghost’ , ‘God’, Okot gives us a literal retranslation of the Acoli translation of these words. So we have: ‘good word’ (p. 76), ‘clean ghost’ (p. 77) and strangest of all ‘the Hunchback’ (p. 78). Here the English version carries the strangeness of these words to Lawino when she first heard them more strongly than the Acoli version. Most Acoli readers will be familiar with the Christian meaning of these and will not find them strange at all.

If we look at the first few pages of Chapter 4 (p. 50), we can see a more normal example of Okot’s translation working well. The first 74 lines of this chapter (up to: ‘Should they open it/So that the pus may flow out’) correspond more or less exactly in ideas to the first 49 lines of the Acoli version. One or two details in the description of the house and the abuse of Ocol that are in the original are missing in the translation. The arrangement of the age has also been slightly changed. The Acoli version uses ‘diro me Acoli’ or ‘ryeko me Acoli’ (the skill or wisdom of the Acoli)¹² as a refrain in a very tight description of the home. This repetition is missing from the English version, and the description is filled out with a little explanation, as the scene is unfamiliar to non-Acoli readers.

Okot leaves two words untranslated: ‘Lyonno and nyadyang’. These give the age a feeling of strangeness without making it difficult to understand. The age contains a quotation from a song: Father prepare the kraal. etc. (p. 51)

and also an image borrowed from another song: And my name blew

Like a horn Among the Payira. (p. 51)

Okot does not explain the reference to the expected bride price of cattle but this will present no difficulty to Africans. In this section, Okot gets the advantages of a literal translation with very little loss of meaning.

Verse

In Song of Lawino Okot replaces the regular rhythm and rhyme of the Acoli version with irregular free verse in the English version. His lines in Song of Lawino usually end with a strong emphasis. He builds his lines around the words he wants to emphasise, crowding weaker words into the beginning of the line: They mould the tips of the cotton nests So that they are sharp And with these they prick The chests of their men (p. 42)

This gives a staccato effect to his verse. This can be clumsy, but it sometimes successfully underlines Lawino’s contemptuous moods:

He just shouts Like houseflies Settling on top of excrement When disturbed. (p. 52)

The arrangement of the verse suits Lawino’s feelings.

Sometimes Okot successfully softens these lines to convey Lawino’s wistful

moods. The section from the beginning of Chapter 4 illustrates this. While she re Ocol’s wooing of her and the beauty of her home, Lawino’s voice takes on a note of nostalgia (p. 50-51). The staccato effect of the lines is reduced in sympathy. There are soft sounds ending many of the lines, for example: ‘briskly’, ‘lily’, ‘cattle’, ‘silently’. The lines flow smoothly to express Lawino’s gentler mood.

In Song of Ocol the emphatic stresses at the end of Okot’s lines are replaced by much more varied patterns of stress. The lines are shorter and Okot often misses out structural words which sometimes crowd out the lines in Song of Lawino. Okot also makes very effective use of one or two syllable lines to provide shock changes of pace. This changes the staccato effect into a lively bouncing rhythm: You sister From Pokot Who grew in the open air You are fresh . . . Ah! Come, Walk with me . . . (p. 141).

Song of Ocol is very easy to read aloud. In this poem Okot shows himself to be a master of English free verse. The language and imagery of Song of Ocol lack the references to oral tradition which give Song of Lawino some of its richness, but Okot shows himself well able to create his own imagery. One source of pleasure in the poem is the poet’s evident delight in the use of words. The images crowd on top of one another so that the reader’s imagination is feasted on a succession of vivid pictures: Mad creature Her hair

A burnt out forest Her eyes Shooting out from the head A pair of rockets Serpent tongues Spitting poison Lashing crocodile tail . . . (p. 130).

The Character of Lawino

The character of Lawino dominates Song of Lawino and it is important for you to consider how successful Okot’s potrait of her is. The poem is based on a real social problem, very common in rural areas in East Africa. Many wives have seen their husbands move out of the range of their education and experience through travel. Many ‘Ocols’ return home with nothing but contempt for the ways of their parents and their wives. What we need to consider is whether Lawino’s response to this situation is ‘real’. Does she react in the way we would expect women in such a situation to react?

To consider her character, we can divide the poem fairly easily into three sections. In the first five chapters Lawino is a perfect portrait of a woman scorned. She lashes out at Ocol, who used to ire her, and Clementine, who has usurped her place, indiscriminately. Then Tina disappears. In Chapters 6 to 11, Lawino seems much less concerned with her personal plight. She defends the customs of her ancestors with more and more profound comparisons between Western and Acoli ways. The last two chapters tie the concerns of the other two sections together. Lawino’s desire to win back Ocol’s iration is combined with a commentary on the whole Acoli community and an appeal for the renewal of traditional ways.

I find the Lawino of the first five chapters extremely credible. She is not jealous of Clementine in the narrow sense of desiring to have sole possession of Ocol. She is familiar with polygamy, she knows no other form of marriage. She is simply mystified and annoyed that Ocol prefers a woman who is no younger than her and can match her in none of her womanly accomplishments. Her mystification finds expression in wistful descriptions of her own beauty, and her annoyance in abuse of everything she has seen or heard of Ocol’s new way of life. I think the sudden disappearance of Tina weakens the portrait of Lawino a little.

I think it is this slight change in emphasis which has led some critics to make a distinction between Lawino as the woman scorned and Lawino as the defender of Acoli customs. In his review of Wer pa Lawino Okumu pa Lukobo says:

In choosing as his text Ter okon bong’ lupulu (Don’t uproot the pumpkin) I think Bitek has made a mistake. What Lawino has to say would have been better expressed by another Acoli proverb which says Dako abila ni eye meni (Your first wife is your mother). For what Lawino is really concerned with is a personal matter – her rivalry with her husband’s mistress Kelementina.¹³

This seems to me to be a misunderstanding of a very common feature of literature. Both oral and written literatures often operate at the same time on different levels of meaning. A domestic situation may be used by a singer or a writer to make a political comment. I see no contradiction between Lawino as an offended first wife and Lawino as the defender of Acoli values.

In fact, I think that a great deal of the appeal of Song of Lawino comes from Okot’s exploitation of the dramatic possibilities of Lawino’s rivalry with Clementine. Other writers have satirised aspects of life together or appealed to such a wide audience. Part of this success is due to the credibility of his portrait of Lawino.

Nevertheless, by allowing Tina to disappear completely from the poem, Okot gives some slight justification to these critics. But it should be pointed out that Lawino is concerned mainly to attack Ocol, and that Ocol is very clearly present in every part of the poem. Unlike Ocol in Song of Ocol, she doesn’t shift from attacks on one group of people to attacks on another. Throughout the poem she is mocking Ocol. The domestic situation and the character of Lawino in themselves provide a fairly consistent level of meaning in the poem. This level of meaning contributes to the success of Okot’s more serious aims in the poem.

Lawino as Spokesman

If Song of Lawino were no more than a good picture of a woman from an Acoli village it would not have attracted all the attention that has been devoted to it in the few years since its publication. Lawino is the writer’s tool for making his own comments on the way people behave in East Africa. At first sight it may seem that he has chosen a very bad tool. Certainly Taban lo Liyong, when he wrote The Last Word, thought so. He wrote:

Africans have been mad at expatriates for taking the African houseboy as the representative African. Okot hasn’t done better by letting a mere catechist criticise the West and Westernisation . . .. The trouble with his method is that his discussion is conducted in a low key, it is the simple that he deals with . . . things to be seen with the eyes, things to be heard with the ears, or felt with the skin – but little to be felt with the intellect.¹⁴

There is some truth in this. One of the reasons why Ocol’s reply was necessary is that Okot couldn’t say all he wanted to through Lawino because of her limited experience.

However, Lawino manages remarkably well. Because she is not intellectual, it does not mean she is not intelligent. Though she always uses simple language, as we shall see, she raises most of the issues about Westernisation that an intellectual might have raised. More important, Lawino’s ignorance enables Okot to do something which more intellectual poems failed to do.

In his book, African Religions in Western Scholarship, Okot talks of the ‘systematic and intensive use of dirty gossip’¹⁵ by Western scholars in describing

the ways of life of Africans. Whether or not Okot is scrupulously fair to all Western scholars, it is clear that much of the disruption and cruelty of colonial rule was made possible by white men’s ignorance of African ways of living and their preparedness to accept the tales they invented round their dinner tables as the truth. The sad thing is that some Africans still exaggerate ridiculous aspects of traditional ways without acknowledging valuable aspects of them.

To a considerable extent, Lawino uses ‘dirty gossip’ against her enemies. Because she is not ‘intellectual’ she lacks the ability to imaginatively project herself into Western culture which African intellectuals, through their enforced exposure to Western education, usually possess. In relation to Western culture she is a complete outsider. Even a character like the house servant in Oyono’s Houseboy, though he eventually violently rejects it, has much more sympathy with Western culture than Lawino. Because of this, Lawino is free to turn the Western weapon of ‘dirty gossip’ back on its s. It is natural for her to express the prejudices of her people. And these prejudices are simply the negative expression of her positive beliefs. By using Lawino, Okot is able to present Acoli ideas without the awareness of the other side’s case which hampers some of the more intellectual approaches.

Lawino is not unfair to Europeans. She is not trying to impose her set of beliefs on them. She is using her prejudices in an argument with other Africans within Africa. But she is unreasonable in some of her criticism of Clementine and Ocol. Some of her comments are little more than scandal mongering. For example, in Chapter 2, when she first attacks Clementine, the climax of her abuse is:

Perhaps she has aborted many! Perhaps she has thrown her twins In the pit latrine! (p. 42)

The word ‘perhaps’ shows that Lawino is simply spreading a tale against Clementine. Again some of her accusations against Ocol are a little unlikely. She says:

Perhaps you are covering up Your bony hips and chest And the large scar on your thigh And the scabies on your buttocks. (p. 53)

The word ‘perhaps’ is there again.

Even through this kind of abuse Lawino is expressing aspects of African tradition. Abortion is now legal in some Western countries. The concern with population control in those countries outweighs the dislike most people feel for the operation. With the African attitude to the event of birth and the respect of all traditions for large families, the whole idea of abortion in any circumstances is abhorrent. Again, in a society where very few clothes are normally worn, the only people who cover themselves are those who are ashamed of their bodies.

This abuse is another factor which links Song of Lawino to traditional literature. One function that traditional songs and stories sometimes fulfil is to enable of a family or community to step outside the normal restraints which their family roles impose on what they say to one another. In a song, the singer is free to use mockery to criticise the conduct of other of the community, and especially to defiate the self-important. Such a singer is always likely to overstate his case. This is exactly what Lawino does in her abuse of Ocol in this poem.

Through this kind of overstatement, Okot took African poetry from defence to attack. Colonialists have been attacked for their oppressive policies in innumerable novels and poems. Certain glaring failings of Western culture were exposed by some works. But much of the writing before Song of Lawino was primarily defensive in its cultural comparisons. Many writers were involved mainly in telling the white man ‘we too have a culture’. The first necessary exercise was to defend African culture from the abuses heaped on it by the colonialists.

This kind of writing has produced some excellent work, but it can have limitations. Many of you will have read Camara Laye’ s The African Child. This book has its good points, but its picture of African life is incomplete. For example, the writer plays down throughout the book the fact that his father was polygamous. He didn’t want to spoil the favourable impression of African ways he was trying to give to French readers by references to something that might offend them. There is no such equivocation in Song of Lawino. Acoli ways are presented without apology, systematically compared to European ways and consistently found to be better. Lawino is proud, not only of her beauty, but of every aspect of her way of life. From this position of pride she attacks.

We can see this very well if we consider Lawino’s attitude to sexual morality. The ‘dirty gossip’ of the colonialists condemned African dances because of the immorality of nakedness. Lawino doesn’t waste her time on a reasoned and balanced defence of dancing naked. She presents the openness, liveliness and healthiness of the Acoli dance positively, without apology:

When the drums are throbbing And the black youths Have raised much dust You dance with vigour and health

You dance naughtily with pride You dance with spirit, You compete, you insult, you provoke You challenge all! (p. 45)

Then she goes to the attack:

Each man has a woman Although she is not his wife, They dance inside a house And there is no light. Shamelessly, they hold each other Tightly, tightly, They cannot breathe. (p. 47)

Western dances are immoral because people embrace in public and dance with anyone, even close relatives.

The same question of sexual morality is involved in her later comments on Catholic priests and nuns. The tradition of priestly celibacy has a long history in Europe. There is also a long tradition of priestly hypocrisy, and of literary mockery of this hypocrisy. But still the idea of celibacy has a serious basis in many people’s minds and has been and still is, to a lesser extent, a familiar and influential idea in European culture. To Lawino the whole idea is completely

incomprehensible. As Okot pointed out in African Religions in Western Scholarship¹

. . . the African viewpoint . . . takes sex as a good thing.

So when the Padré and the Nun shout at her, it must be their sexual frustration expressing itself:

They are angry with me As if it was I Who prevented them marrying . . . (p. 88)

Again no priest can possibly discipline his sexual desires. The teacher from the Evening Speaker’s Class follows her to the dance. (p. 84). And every teacher must be like this:

And all the teachers Are alike They have sharp eyes For girls’ full breasts . . .

Lawino turns on her attackers and exposes their own immorality and hypocrisy.

These attacks on Western ways are another reason for the popular success of the poem. They make the poem lively and readable and give the shock effect of a first reading. The ridicule is firmly based on African ways of looking at things; many students will have heard this kind of thing in their village. The shock comes from seeing it on the printed page. Many students will be more familiar with condemnation of nakedness in dances than with mockery of Westernised dances.

Okot is making a number of very serious points through Lawino’s mockery of Westernised ways. At its mildest he is saying that the idea of ‘progress’ cannot be applied to culture. Ocol thinks that Acoli ways of dress, dance and religion are ‘primitive’ and must be superseded. But Lawino shows ways in which western things can be dirty, stupid or hypocritical. At the same time she shows how traditional ways of life allow her to express herself fully and freely as a woman. Both ways of life are open to criticism, both ways of life are valid. If Lawino has learnt one way of life, why should she change? Why should the Maasai wear tros? The words like ‘witch’, ‘Kaffirs’ and ‘sorcerers’ that Ocol throws at her don’t answer that question.

But Lawino doesn’t believe that the two ways of life are equally valid for Africans, and neither does Okot. She thinks the customs of white people probably suit white people. She doesn’t mind them following their own ways.

I do not understand The ways of foreigners But I do not despise their customs. (p. 44)

She doesn’t expect them to want to imitate her:

. . . no white woman Wishes to do her hair Like mine, Because she is proud Of the hair with which she was born . . . (p. 59)

But those Africans who insist on following the ways of white people are foolish, because they misunderstand their own ways and do not know themselves. If they try to destroy African traditions, they will fail:

Listen Ocol, my old friend, The ways of your ancestors Are good, Their customs are solid And not hollow They are not thin, not easily breakable They cannot be blown away By the winds Because their roots reach deep into the soil. (p. 44)

In the later chapters of Song of Lawino and in Song of Ocol. Okot shows us clearly what he thinks happens to those people who try to destroy their own roots. We can understand his points best if we look at the character of Ocol.

The Character of Ocol

If we read Song of Lawino carefully a clear picture of the character of Ocol emerges. In Song of Ocol, Ocol, out of his own mouth, confirms Lawino’s view of him. In many places throughout Song of Lawino, Lawino asserts that Ocol is rude and abusive both to her and to other people:

My husband abuses me together with my parents He says terrible things about my mother . . . (p. 38)

In Song of Ocol, Ocol confirms this impression. Rather than reasoning with Lawino he just shouts insults and throws her out of his house:

Song of the woman Is sour sweet It is pork gone rancid, It is the honeyed Bloodied sour milk In the stinking Maasai gourd. (p. 127)

In Chapter 7, when a beggar predicts violent revolution, Ocol, the politician,

makes no attempt to reason with him, but simply insults the man:

Out of my way You cowardly fool Creep back and hide In your mother’s womb . . . (p. 148)

Ocol is ‘arrogant’ (p. 38).

But Ocol’s arrogance and self-importance do not give him dignity. He is always in a hurry. He is ruled by time. Everything he does must take place at a fixed time:

. . . my husband insists What exact time He should have morning tea When exactly to have coffee . . . (p. 67).

Lawino doesn’t understand the need for these set times. She does things when she wants to. Children are fed or washed when it is necessary (p. 72), and:

When sleep comes

Into their heads They sleep . . . (p. 72)

Why make your life harder by fixing times for everything? It just confuses her.

For the Acoli time is not a commodity that can be consumed until it is finished:

In the wisdom of the Acoli Time is not stupidly split up Into seconds and minutes It does not flow Like beer in a pot That is sucked Until it is finished. (p. 72)

If visitors come when you are doing something you stop and enjoy their visit. But Ocol has no time to enjoy anything:

He never jokes With anybody He says

He has no time To sit around the evening fire. (p. 70)

All his life is haunted by his fear of wasting time. For Ocol, time is a commodity which can be bought and sold. It must not be wasted because:

Time is money. (p. 70)

When visitors appear at his door Ocol tries to get rid of them quickly with the question:

What can I do for you? (p. 71)

and even the crying of children makes him wild with rage because it interrupts work (p. 70). Despite his high opinion of himself he is no more than servant of time: Time has become My husband’s master . . . (p. 71)

and no one is likely to respect him because he: . . . runs from place to place Like a small boy. (p. 71)

Other people don’t share Ocol’s views of his own importance.

Time is not Ocol’s only master. He is a politician, and before the leaders of his party he behaves like:

. . . a newly-eloped girl . . . (p. 111)

Ocol says in his speeches that he is fighting for national unity: He says, They want to unite the Acoli and Lang’o And the Madi and the Lugbara Should live together in peace! (p. 106)

But his political energies don’t really seem to be geared towards bringing about unity, national or local. Most of his time as a politician is taken up with condemning other people. Ocol says that the Congress Party is against all Catholics, and that they will steal all their property, if elected:

(They) . . . will take people’s wives And goats and chickens and bicycles, All will become the property Of the Congress people. (pp. 108-9)

And it is not only the other party that he condemns. When he talks to the party leaders, he:

. . . accuses other party leaders Everybody else is useless, He alone Is the most hard working . . . (p. 111-12)

The most destructive result of his political activity is its effect on his own family. Ocol’s brother is in the Congress Party. Because of this their former closeness is replaced by enmity. Ocol thinks his brother wants to murder him (p. 108). He forbids Lawino to talk to the man who may one day become her husband (p. 108). Politics has destroyed the unity of home and brought misery to every member of it:

The women there Wear mourning clothes The homestead is surely dead . . . (p. 114)

Ocol’s political activity has only created new conflicts without settling the old ones.

And the material benefits that might partially compensate for these new conflicts are only enjoyed by the few, only by the strong:

. . . if your chest Is small, bony and weak They push you off . . . (p. 110)

This is the most important division brought by the political activities which followed Uhuru, the division between the rich, who have the politicians’ favour, and the poor, who have nothing:

And those who have Fallen into things Throw themselves into soft beds, But the hip bones of the voters Grow painful Sleeping on the same earth They slept Before Uhuru. (p. 113)

The politicians, Okot says, are doing nothing about this division. They are too busy fighting one another.

Certainly Ocol sees no reason to do anything. In Chapter 6 of Song of Ocol he asks the voters to agree that because he has worked harder for Uhuru he deserves:

Some token reward. (p. 142)

The reward he has taken for himself is a large house in the town and a big farm in the country (p. 142 and 144). He is not responsible for the sufferings of the voters:

Is it my fault That you sleep In a hut With a leaking thatch? (p. 142)

Why should Uhuru bring them wealth? They are just expecting too much. There must be powerful people and weak people and they can’t be expected, to mix:

Have lions Begun to eat grass To lie down with lambs And to play games with antelopes? (p. 145)

To Ocol these new divisions in African societies seem natural.

In Chapter 10 we are given further examples of Ocol’s intolerance. Ocol will let neither Lawino’s relatives, nor his own relatives into his house because they might make it dirty (p. 94) or give diseases to his children (p. 94). He condemns all traditional medicines. If they are occasionally effective it must be:

. . . by accident . . . (p. 96)

Again, he condemns all traditional religious beliefs, because he is an educated man and a Christian. In the years since independence there has been a great deal of reassessment of the missionaries’ views of African traditional beliefs by African Christians. Many Christians now see much that is of value in these beliefs.¹⁷ Ocol’ s attitudes have not changed at all. For him traditional beliefs are no more than ‘foolish superstitions’ (p. 95).

Ocol not only rejects these ‘superstitions’ himself; he wants to wipe them out. He prevents Lawino from visiting the diviner priest or making sacrifices when she is in trouble (p. 96). When his father was alive, he:

Once smashed up the rattle gourd Cut open the drum And chased away the diviner priest From his late father’s homestead (p. 95).

He later tried to destroy the tree on his father’s shrine (p. 95). Yet Ocol is a religious man. Lawino must not wear charms, yet he wears a crucifix (p. 96). Prayer can be effective:

It is stupid superstition To pray to our ancestors To avert the smallpox But we should pray To the messengers of the Hunchback To intercede for us. (p. 96)

Ocol sees no similarity between the two sorts of charms or the two sorts of prayer.

In Chapter 9 we see another aspect of Ocol’s arrogance. Lawino here asks questions in a genuine mood of enquiry. And she does not ask ‘silly questions’ (p. 90). The problem of who created the Creator and the mystery of the virgin birth are problems which better educated people have found to be barriers to Christian belief. An educated Christian like Ocol ought to have considered them. His casual refusal to discuss them because Lawino is not educated is a lame excuse. If he were really interested in knowledge he would be willing to discuss these things. But Lawino doesn’t think he is really interested in knowledge. She wishes she had someone else to ask: Someone who has genuinely Read deeply and widely And not someone like my husband Whose preoccupation Is to boast in the market place . . . (p. 93)

What has this man gained from his education?

Lawino really makes us wonder whether this ‘progressive and civilised man’ (p. 39) deserves any respect. With all his status he surely ought to have a little more dignity. He surely ought to be more patient and tolerant. Above all he ought to treat his wife, his parents and his home community with a little more respect. In Chapters 8 and 12 we have Lawino’s explanation of what has gone wrong. Ocol’s teachers were like Lawino’s teacher in the Evening Speaker’s Class. If Ocol had run from them to the dance as Lawino did he would have learnt things that meant something to him: We ed the line of friends And danced among our age-mates And sang songs we understood, Relevant and meaningful songs, Songs about ourselves . . . (p. 82)

Instead he went to school, where pupils shout: Meaninglessly in the evenings Like parrots . . . (p. 78)

They do not understand what they shout and the teacher controls them only by his anger. It seems as if Ocol is still like a parrot, boasting in the market place and condemning everything that the white priests told him to condemn, instead of picking out the good from both African and European ways.

Song of Ocol again confirms Lawino’s opinions. In Chapter 2 Ocol trots out for

us the attitudes to Africa that he has swallowed whole from the missionaries: What is Africa To me? Blackness, Deep, deep fathomless Darkness . . . (p. 128)

He goes on to tell us that Africans are ignorant, but stupidly content with their ignorant state. They are ruled by their fear of spirits and they have no technology. They are like children: Unweaned, Clinging to mother’s milkless breasts . . . (p. 129)

In Chapter 3, Ocol condemns all efforts to find reasons for pride in Africa’s past. He would prefer to forget his past: Smash all these mirrors That I may not see The blackness of the past From which I came Reflected in them. (p. 132)

In other words, Ocol wants to deny his Africanness. These feelings wring from him the cry of anguish which ends Chapter 2:

Mother, mother Why Why was I born Black? (p. 129)

Ocol’s white teachers have made him think of his continent, his community, his family and himself as essentially evil. They have robbed him of all his selfrespect. He is even ashamed of his own body. His bombastic arrogance and nervous violence of language are attempts to hide this shame. These are ‘the winds’ with which he has tried to ‘blow away’ the ways of his ancestors. He has failed to destroy their customs. But he has succeeded in breaking up his homestead, so that his wife mocks him publicly in song. He and his friends have succeeded in dividing his nation into bickering factions struggling for power while a discontented majority are permanently excluded from it. The beggar in Chapter 7 of Song of Ocol predicts revolution as a consequence of these divisions: A hunter Sat in the shadow Of a rock Rubbed two sticks A flash Flame Purified the land! (p. 148)

In the face of Lawino’s mockery, Ocol blusters with rage. In the face of the beggar’s threats, he is flippant and smug.

In Chapter 12, Lawino summarises what has happened to Ocol. Ocol has read many books . . . “among white men.” (p. 116). But the books have not helped him. Instead he has: lost his head In the forest of books. (p. 116)

And in the end the books have destroyed him: . . . the reading Has killed my man, in the ways of his people He has become A stump. (p. 116)

Ocol still has the roles of husband and head of a household, but he is no longer able to perform them. Instead he has become: A dog of the white man! (p. 118)

The white man is his ultimate master, acting on him through his continuing cultural and economic influences. Ocol obeys his master’s call and is pleased only by those things that belong to his master.

Ocol no longer owns anything. Everything he uses belongs to his master:

Aaa! A certain man Has no millet field He lives on borrowed foods He borrows the clothes he wears And the ideas in his head And his actions and behaviour Are to please somebody else Like a woman trying to please her husband! My husband has become a woman! (p. 119)

And many young men are the same. Lawino calls on her clansmen to weep for them because: Their manhood was finished In the classrooms Their testicles Were smashed With large books! (p. 120)

Here Lawino is mocking all those Ocols who are carrying the habit of slavish imitation of white men they learnt in the Mission School into every sphere of their lives in the new nations of Africa.

But this is not Lawino’s final word. She thinks there is still hope for Ocol. Ocol only needs treatment to rid him of his disease. First Lawino recommends physical remedies (p. 120). Ocol’s throat is blocked by the shame that has been choking him for so long:

The shyness you ate in the church . . . (p. 121)

It must be cleaned out by traditional foods and herbs. His ears are blocked by the things he has heard from priests and teachers. They must be cleaned. His eyes, behind his dark glasses, are blind to the things of his people. They must be opened. His tongue is dirty with the continuous flow of insults he has been pouring on his people. It must be cleaned.

When the physical remedies have been completed, Ocol will be ready for the real cure. He will be ready to regain his roots among his own people. Lawino explains how he nearly lost those roots:

When you took the axe And threatened to cut the Okango That grows on the ancestral shrine You were threatening To cut yourself loose, To be tossed by the winds This way and that way . . . (pp. 122-23)

For this real cure, Ocol must beg forgiveness of all those he insulted. But he must also seek the blessing of the elders and beg forgiveness from the ancestors, because:

. . . when you insulted me Saying I was a mere village girl You were insulting your grandfathers And grandmothers . . . (p. 122)

If he does all these things he will become a man again, the ancestors will help him recover:

Ask for a spear that you will trust One that does not bend easily Like the earth worm Ask them to restore your manhood! (p. 122)

Lawino’s final appeal concerns her domestic situation. She wants things to be normal in the household again. She wants Ocol to behave like her husband. And when he is recovered, if he only gives her: . . . one chance . . . (p. 123)

she is sure things will become normal. When his ears are unblocked he will hear the beauty of her singing. When his blindness is cured, he will see and appreciate her dancing:

Let me dance before you My love, Let me show you The wealth in your house . . . (p. 123)

When he is a man again, he will want her.

Ocol as Spokesman

If Song of Ocol is a reply to Song of Lawino then it is a bad one. Okot raises controversial issues in his poems, but he only puts one point of view in the controversy. I have already illustrated how many parts of Song of Ocol underline the points made in Song of Lawino. These two poems are not the thesis and antithesis of the argument, from which the reader can deduce a synthesis. Unlike some other African writers, Okot doesn’t consider a cultural synthesis to be the solution to Africa’s problems. He wishes to borrow technology from Europe, but not culture. Okot has very little sympathy with Ocol, so he makes Ocol reply in a clumsy way. Song of Ocol does not fairly represent an alternative to Lawino’s point of view.

This is why, if we think of these poems as separate works, Song of Ocol is much weaker than Song of Lawino. Another weakness is the lack of a clear situation in most of the poem. In Song of Lawino, Okot exploits the dramatic impact of the domestic conflict to express his more serious points about the future of Africa. Ocol is only concerned with his domestic situation for one chapter. At the end of the first chapter he sends Lawino away, and, except for one reference, in Chapter 8, forgets her. In Chapters 2 to 5 it is not clear who is being addressed. In Chapters 6 and 7, he is talking to his constituents, and in Chapter 9, he throws out a challenge to everybody in his nation with any position of importance.

This lack of a clear dramatic situation has reduced the popular impact of Song of Ocol. For a reader who has not read Song of Lawino, the widely differing issues raised in Song of Lawino are confusing. With the knowledge we bring to the poem from Song of Lawino the unity behind Ocol’s differing concerns in the poem is clear. Song of Lawino considered alone is a coherent unit. The two poems considered together make a coherent unit. Song of Ocol considered alone is disted. It contains many excellent pieces of poetry expressing important ideas, but they pull in different directions.

Though Ocol does not effectively reply to most of the points Lawino raises, he does reply to some. In some places in the poem Ocol is the writer’s spokesman. Okot’s sympathies are mainly, but not entirely, with Lawino. Okot drinks beer and whisky as well as kwete and waragi. He usually wears tros, though not a blanket suit. When he is ill he is prepared to use the white man’s medicine to help him recover. He is anxious that Africa should have the benefits of technology. Through Lawino, he couldn’t say these things. Through Ocol, he can and does.

In Chapter 3, Ocol briefly, but effectively, comments on traditional medicine. However foolish he might be in condemning all traditional remedies it is difficult not to share some of his horror at the scene he describes: That child lying On the earth Numb Bombs exploding in his head Blood boiling Heavy with malarial parasites Raging through his veins. The mad woman Spits on the palms Of his hands And on his feet Squirts beer

On his face Spills chicken blood To cool him On his chest A gift of Death . . . (p. 130)

Traditional remedies should have some place in Africa, but they cannot solve all her medical problems.

In Chapter 4 Ocol considers the position of women in traditional societies. It is interesting to compare his description of the walk from the well (p. 133) with Lawino’s description of the walk to the well (p. 56). Lawino is happy with her traditional role, but she does have to work rather hard: Woman of Africa Sweeper Smearing floors and walls With cow dung and black soil Cook, ayah, the baby tied on your back, Vomiting, Washer of dishes, Planting, weeding, harvesting, Store-keeper, builder, Runner of errands,

Cart, lorry Donkey . . . (p. 136)

And in some ways her status is rather low: In Buganda They buy you With two pots Of beer, The Luo trade you For seven cows . . . (p. 137)

If a little technology could reduce her work load, it would enable her to keep her beauty longer and she would have more time to dance before her husband.

In Chapter 5 Ocol makes fun of traditional concepts of manly behaviour. Ocol chooses a number of formerly powerful warrior communities of East Africa and challenges them to tell him what they have now gained from centuries of successful fighting: Survey your booty Study your empire Your gains . . . (p. 139)

These nomadic groups are the ones who have suffered most through recent

developments in East Africa. They are now trapped in areas of poor pasture with depleted stocks of cattle. Worst of all they suffer the humiliation of being objects of the curiosity of prying white people: Students of primitive man Big game hunters And tourists flocked in From all corners of the world, White women came to discover To see with their naked eyes What manhood could be! (p. 139)

Ocol asks his questions in an unnecessarily offensive way, but he is throwing out to these people a challenge which they must in some way accept.

The core of Ocol’s speech in Chapter 9 is his expression of faith in the urban future of Africa, and in the foundations of that future laid by Europeans. Naively and improbably he promises to: . . . erect monuments To the founders Of modern Africa: Léopold II of Belgium, Bismarck . . . (p.154)

But most of the speech is in the form of challenges to various people in positions of influence in Africa to explain the ‘African foundation’ (p. 153) of their activities. Here again Ocol is unwittingly speaking for Okot. Okot is mocking the borrowed plumes of all these dignitaries and challenging them to justify their borrowings.

Why should lawyers and bishops wear long robes as the English do? Why should the African legal system be based on English ‘Law Reports’? Why should all the officials in local government take their names from English equivalents (‘Mayors’, ‘Aldermen’, ‘Councillors’, ‘Town clerks’). Okot’s most serious challenge is to the ‘scholar’:

Can you explain The African philosophy On which we are reconstructing Our new societies . . . (p. 153)

Okot has made ‘the foundation’ on which he wishes to build African nations abundantly clear throughout this book. In these last pages he is challenging all concerned with nation building to reassess their own activities in the light of his ideas. If they don’t accept the challenge, then, like Shaka, (p. 154), those like Nyerere and Senghor who are looking for an African mould for nation-building will be ‘utterly defeated’ by the continuing cultural influence of Europe on Africa.

* * *

I would like to thank J. P. Odoci for his help with the translations from Acoli. G. A. Heron

Notes

1. For example: Dennis Osadebay, Thank You Sons and Daughters of Britannia ; Thomas Mofolo, The Traveller of the East (London. 1934) and Chaka: An Historical Romance (London, 1931 and London. HEB [Heinemann Educational Books), AWS 229. 1981).

2. The best known of these poets are Leopold Senghor and Aime Cesaire but other poets from French speaking Africa associated themselves with this school of writing.

3. See Chinua Achebe. Things Fall Apart (London, HEB. AWS I, 1962) and Arrow of God (London. HEB. AWS 16, 1965).

4. This story is retold by Taban lo Liyong in Eating Chiefs (London, HEB, AWS 74, 1970). p 3.

5. Okot p’Bitek. African Religions in Western Scholarship (Nairobi, East African Literature Bureau. 1971; Towota, N.J. Rowman and Littlefield, 1972).

6. Ibid., Chapter I, especially pp. 5 and 6.

7. Wer pa Lawino (Nairobi, East African Publishing House, 1969), p. 31. A fairly literal translation would read:

It happens in everything that they behave in the white people’s way, for white people don’t feel shame. They embrace other people’s wives, like white people, they hold their chests close, like white people. You smoke cigarettes like white people, both men and women like white people. You kiss each other’s lips like white people, you suck each other’s mouths like white people, you lick up the spit of each other’s mouths like white people, so that the mouths of the men are covered with the red paint of white people.

8. Ibid., p. 26.

9. From Okot p’Bitek’s The Horn of My Love (London, HEB, AWS 147, 1974).

10. Taban Lo Liyong, The Last Word (Nairobi. EAPH [East African Publishing House, 1969), ‘ Lawino is Unedu ’, p. 141.

11. Ibid., p. 140.

12. Wer pa Lawino . op cit-., p. 38.

13. In the Kyambogo T.T. College magazine Nanga , Vol 2, No.3, May 1970.

14. lo Liyong, op. cit.. p. 141.

15. p’Bitek. African Religious in Western Scholarship , op cit., p. 22.

16. Ibid:, p. 117.

17. See John Mbiti, African Religious and Philosoph y (London, HEB. 1969), p. 10:

African religions and philosophy have been subjected to great deal of misinterpretation, misrepresentation and misunderstanding. They have been despised, mocked and dismissed as primitive and underdeveloped . . . In missionary circles they have been condemned as superstition, satanic, devilish and hellish. In spite of all these attacks. traditional religions have survived, they dominate the background of African peoples, and must be reckoned with even in the middle of modern changes.

18. lo Liyong, op. cit., p. 200:

African culture is to be a synthesis and a metamorphosis – the order of things to come. It assimilates and it disseminates. It picks, it grabs, it carries on . . . A racially and culturally mixed person is the universal man; all is in him; he identifies with all; he is kith and kin to all other Homo Sapiens.

Song of Lawino

1 My Husband’s Tongue is Bitter

Husband, now you despise me Now you treat me with spite And say I have inherited the stupidity of my aunt; Son of the Chief, Now you compare me With the rubbish in the rubbish pit. You say you no longer want me Because I am like the things left behind In the deserted homestead. You insult me You laugh at me You say I do not know the letter A Because I have not been to school And I have not been baptised

You compare me with a little dog, A puppy.

My friend, age-mate of my brother, Take care, Take care of your tongue, Be careful what your lips say.

First take a deep look, brother, You are now a man You are not a dead fruit! To behave like a child does not befit you!

Listen Ocol, you are the son of a Chief, Leave foolish behaviour to little children, It is not right that you should be laughed at in a song! Songs about you should be songs of praise!

Stop despising people As if you were a little foolish man,

Stop treating me like salt-less ash* Become barren of insults and stupidity; Who has ever uprooted the Pumpkin?

My clansmen, I cry Listen to my voice: The insults of my man Are painful beyond bearing.

My husband abuses me together with my parents; He says terrible things about my mother And I am so ashamed!

He abuses me in English And he is so arrogant.

He says I am rubbish, He no longer wants me! In cruel jokes, he laughs at me, He says I am primitive Because I cannot play the guitar, He says my eyes are dead And I cannot read, He says my ears are blocked

And cannot hear a single foreign word, That I cannot count the coins.

He says I am like sheep, The fool.

Ocol treats me As if I am no longer a person, He says I am silly Like the ojuu insects that sit on the beer pot. My husband treats me roughly. The insults! Words cut more painfully than sticks! He says my mother is a witch, That my clansmen are fools Because they eat rats, He says we are all Kaffirs. We do not know the ways of God, We sit in deep darkness And do not know the Gospel, He says my mother hides her charms

In her necklace And that we are all sorcerers.

My husband’s tongue Is bitter like the roots of the lyonno lily, It is hot like the penis of the bee, Like the sting of the kalang! Ocol’s tongue is fierce like the arrow of the scorpion, Deadly like the spear of the buffalo-hornet. It is ferocious Like the poison of a barren woman And corrosive like the juice of the gourd.

My husband pours scorn On Black People, He behaves like a hen That eats its own eggs A hen that should be imprisoned under a basket. His eyes grow large Deep black eyes Ocol’s eyes resemble those of the Nile Perch! He becomes fierce Like a lioness with cubs, He begins to behave like a mad hyena.

He says Black People are primitive And their ways are utterly harmful, Their dances are mortal sins They are ignorant, poor and diseased!

Ocol says he is a modern man, A progressive and civilised man, He says he has read extensively and widely

And he can no longer live with a thing like me Who cannot distinguish between good and bad.

He says I am just a village woman, I am of the old type, And no longer attractive.

He says I am blocking his progress, My head, he says, Is as big as that of an elephant But it is only bones. There is no brain in it, He says I am only wasting his time.

______

* Salt is extracted from the ash of certain plants and also from the ash of the dung of domestic animals. The ash is put in a container with small holes in its bottom, water is then poured on the ash and the salty water is collected in another container placed below. The useless saltless ash is then thrown on the pathway and people tread on it.

2

The Woman With Whom I Share My Husband

Ocol rejects the old type. He is in love with a modern woman, He is in love with a beautiful girl Who speaks English.

But only recently We would sit close together, touching each other! Only recently I would play On my bow-harp Singing praises to my beloved. Only recently he promised That he trusted me completely. I used to ire him speaking in English.

Ocol is no longer in love with the old type; He is in love with a modern girl. The name of the beautiful one Is Clementine.

Brother, when you see Clementine! The beautiful one aspires To look like a white woman;

Her lips are red-hot Like glowing charcoal, She resembles the wild cat That has dipped its mouth in blood, Her mouth is like raw yaws It looks like an open ulcer, Like the mouth of a field! Tina dusts powder on her face And it looks so pale; She resembles the wizard

Getting ready for the midnight dance.

She dusts the ash-dirt all over her face And when little sweat Begins to appear on her body She looks like the guinea fowl!

The smell of carbolic soap Makes me sick, And the smell of powder Provokes the ghosts in my head; It is then necessary to fetch a goat From my mother’s brother. The sacrifice over The ghost-dance drum must sound The ghost be laid And my peace restored.

I do not like dusting myself with powder: The thing is good on pink skin Because it is already pale,

But when a black woman has used it She looks as if she has dysentery; Tina looks sickly And she is slow moving, She is a piteous sight.

Some medicine has eaten up Tina’s face; The skin on her face is gone And it is all raw and red, The face of the beautiful one Is tender like the skin of a newly born baby!

And she believes That this is beautiful Because it resembles the face of a white woman! Her body resembles The ugly coat of the hyena; Her neck and arms Have real human skins! She looks as if she has been struck By lightning;

Or burnt like the kongoni In a fire hunt.

She dusts the ash-dirt all over her face

And when little sweat

Begins to appear on her body

She looks like the guinea fowl!

And her lips look like bleeding, Her hair is long Her head is huge like that of the owl, She looks like a witch, Like someone who has lost her head And should be taken To the clan shrine! Her neck is rope-like, Thin, long and skinny And her face sickly pale.

Forgive me, brother, Do not think I am insulting The woman with whom I share my husband! Do not think my tongue Is being sharpened by jealousy. It is the sight of Tina That provokes sympathy from my heart.

I do not deny I am a little jealous. It is no good lying, We all suffer from a little jealousy. It catches you unawares Like the ghosts that bring fevers; It surprises people Like earth tremors: But when you see the beautiful woman With whom I share my husband You feel a little pity for her! Her breasts are completely shrivelled up,

They are all folded dry skins, They have made nests of cotton wool And she folds the bits of cow-hide In the nests And calls them breasts!

O! my clansmen How aged modern women Pretend to be young girls!

They mould the tips of the cotton nests So that they are sharp And with these they prick The chests of their men! And the men believe They are holding the waists Of young girls that have just shot up! The modern type sleep with their nests Tied firmly on their chests. How many kids Has this woman sucked?

The empty bags on her chest Are completely flattened, dried.

Perhaps she has aborted many! Perhaps she has thrown her twins In the pit latrine! Is it the vengeance ghosts Of the many smashed eggs That have captured her head? How young is this age-mate of my mother?

The woman with whom I share my husband Walks as if her shadow Has been captured You can never hear Her footsteps;

She looks as if She has been ill for a long time! Actually she is starving She does not eat She says she fears getting fat, That the doctor has prevented her From eating, She says a beautiful woman Must be slim like a white woman;

And when she walks You hear her bones rattling Her waist resembles that of the hornet. The beautiful one is dead dry

Like a stump, She is meatless Like a shell On a dry river bed.

But my husband despises me, He laughs at me, He says he is too good To be my husband.

Ocol says he is not The age-mate of my grandfather To live with someone like me Who has not been to school.

He speaks with arrogance, Ocol is bold He says these things in broad daylight. He says there is no difference Between me and my grandmother Who covers herself with animal skins.

I am not unfair to my husband, I do not complain Because he wants another woman Whether she is young or aged! Who has ever prevented men From wanting women?

Who has discovered the medicine for thirst? The medicines for hunger And anger and enmity Who has discovered them? In the dry season the sun shines And rain falls in the wet season. Women hunt for men And men want women! When I have another woman With whom I share my husband I am glad A woman who is jealous Of another, with whom she shares a man,

Is jealous because she is slow, Lazy and shy, Because she is cold, weak, clumsy! The competition for a man’s love Is fought at the cooking place When he returns from the field Or from the hunt,

You win him with a hot bath And sour porridge. The wife who brings her meal first Whose food is good to eat, Whose dish is hot Whose face is bright And whose heart is clean And whose eyes are dark Like the shadows:

The wife who jokes freely Who eats in the open Not in the bed room,

One who is not dull Like stale beer, Such is the woman who becomes The headdress keeper.

I do not block my husband’s path From his new wife. If he likes, let him build for her An iron roofed house on the hill! I do not complain, My grass thatched house is enough for me.

I am not angry With the woman with whom I share my husband, I do not fear to compete with her.

All I ask Is that my husband should stop the insults, My husband should refrain From heaping abuses on my head.

He should stop being half-crazy, And saying terrible things about my mother Listen Ocol, my old friend, The ways of your ancestors Are good, Their customs are solid And not hollow They are not thin, not easily breakable They cannot be blown away By the winds Because their roots reach deep into the soil.

I do not understand The ways of foreigners But I do not despise their customs. Why should you despise yours?

Listen, my husband, You are the son of a Chief. The pumpkin in the old homestead Must not be uprooted!

3 I Do Not Know the Dances of White People

It is true I am ignorant of the dances of foreigners And how they dress I do not know. Their games I cannot play, I only know the dances of our people.

I cannot dance the rumba, My mother taught me The beautiful dances of Acoli. I do not know the dances of White People. I will not deceive you, I cannot dance the samba! You once saw me at the orak dance The dance for youths The dance of our People.

When the drums are throbbing And the black youths Have raised much dust You dance with vigour and health You dance naughtily with pride You dance with spirit, You compete, you insult, you provoke You challenge all! And the eyes of the young men become red! The son of a man And the daughter of a man Shine forth in the arena. Slave boys and girls Dance differently from true-borns.

You dance with confidence And you sing Provocative songs, Insulting and abusive songs

Songs of praise Sad songs of broken loves Songs about shortage of cattle. Most of the songs make someone angry.

You do not come to the arena drunk, But when another youth hits you You take up the challenge As a man,

And when a girl knocks you You strike back,

A man’s manliness is seen in the arena, No one touches another’s testicles.

A girl whose waist is stiff Is a clumsy girl That is the lazy girl Who fears grinding the kabir millet.

You adorn yourself in Acoli costumes You tie lacucuku rattles Or bells on your legs. You wear bead skirts or string skirts Or a tiny piece of cloth And a ten-stringed bead Around your waist; Bangles on your arms And giraffe-tail necklaces on your tall neck.

A youngman wears the odye and lacomi, He puts his lover’s beads On his neck, Beautiful white feathers on his head, He blows his horn And other young men feel jealous of him.

It is danced in broad daylight In the open You cannot hide anything Bad stomachs that have swollen up,

Skin diseases on the buttocks Small breasts that have just emerged And large ones full of boiling milk, Are clearly seen in the arena Breasts that are tired And are about to fall,

Weak and bony chests of weaklings Strong lion chests Large scars on the thighs Beautiful tattoos below the belly button Tattoos that have become sores on the chest All parts of the body Are shown in the arena! Health and liveliness Are shown in the arena!

When the daughter of the Bull Enters the arena She does not stand here Like stale beer that does not sell,

She jumps here She jumps there. When you touch her She says ‘Don’t touch me’!

The tattoos on her chest Are like palm fruits The tattoos on her back Are like stars on a black night; Her eyes sparkle like the fireflies, Her breasts are ripe Like the full moon When the age-mate of her brother sees them, When, by accident, The eyes of her lover Fall on her breasts Do you think the young man sleeps? Do you know what fire eats his inside?

It is true, Ocol I cannot dance the ballroom dance. Being held so tightly I feel ashamed, Being held so tightly in public I cannot do it, It looks shameful to me!

They come to the dance dead drunk They drink white men’s drinks As well as waragi. They close their eyes, And they do not sing as they dance, They dance silently like wizards. Each man has a woman Although she is not his wife. They dance inside a house And there is no light. Shamelessly, they hold each other Tightly, tightly,

They cannot breathe!

Women lie on the chests of men They prick the chests of their men With their breasts. They prick the chests of their men With the cotton nests On their chests.

You kiss her on the cheek As white people do, You kiss her open-sore lips As white people do, You suck slimy saliva From each other’s mouths As white people do.

And the lips of the men become bloody With blood dripping from the red-hot lips; Their teeth look As if they have been boxed in the mouth.

Women throw their arms Around the necks of their partners And put their cheeks On the cheeks of their men. Men hold the waists of the women Tightly, tightly . . .

And as they dance Knees touch knees; And when the music has stopped Men put their hands in the tro pockets.

There is no respect for relatives: Girls hold their fathers, Boys hold their sisters close, They dance even with their mothers. Modern girls are fierce Like Labeja, the jok of Alero* That captures even the heads of nephews, They coil around their nephews And lie on the chests of their uncles And prick the chests of their brothers With their breasts.

And they dress up like white men, As if they are in the white man’s country. At the height of the hot season The progressive and civilised ones

Put on blanket suits And woollen socks from Europe, Long under-pants And woollen vests, White shirts; They wear dark glasses And neck ties from Europe. Their waterlogged suits Drip like the tears

Of the kituba tree After a heavy storm.

You smoke cigars Like white men, Women smoke cigarettes Like white women, And sip some poisons from the glasses.

It is hot inside the house It is hot like inside a cave Like inside a hyena’s den! And the women move like fish That have been poisoned, They stagger They fall face upwards Like fish that are dead drunk With lugoro or ober; Like small fish out of water.

The smoke of the tobacco The smoke of the cigars And the cigarettes

And the smoke of the candles Used for counting the coins, The smoke in the house Is like cumulus clouds.

The evaporating vapour From the many drinks, The steaming sweat The hot wet breaths Of the numerous people, The coughs and saliva Squirted by sneezing drunken sick, The many brands Of winds broken, Humid winds broken by men and women Producing various types of smells, The dust The evaporating piss . . . The air is heavy like the hammer.

The stench from the urinal is thick!

It hits your nose Like a blow, Like a horn of a bull rhino! You choke Your throat pains sharply You get out quick And shout a curse!

You meet a big woman She staggers towards you And leans on the wall And before she has untied her dress She is already pissing; She forces out the urine As if she has syphilis.

The stench from the latrine Knocks you down, from afar! You enter; It is as if you have entered Into a lion’s mouth. The smell of Jeyes And the smell of dung Rise to the roof.

The entire floor Is covered with human dung All the tribes of human dung! Dry dungs and dysentery Old dungs and fresh dungs

Young ones that are still steaming, Short thick dungs Sitting like hills, Snake-like dungs Coiled up like pythons.

Little ones just squatting there, Big ones lying on their sides Like tree trunks.

Some dungs are red like ochre Others are yellow Like the ripe mango, Like inside a ripe pawpaw. Others are black like soil, Like the soil we use For smearing the floor. Some dungs are of mixed colours! Vomit and urine flow by And on the walls They clean their anus. And there are writings On the walls Cut with knives.

My husband laughs at me Because I cannot dance white men’s dances; He despises Acoli dances He nurses stupid ideas That the dances of his People Are sinful, That they are mortal sins.

I am completely ignorant Of the dances of foreigners And I do not like it. Holding each other Tightly, tightly In public I cannot. I am ashamed. Dancing without a song Dancing silently like wizards, Without respect, drunk . . .

If someone tries To force me to dance this dance I feel like hanging myself Feet first!

I wish I could become A meteorite And I would know Where to fall!

______

* A chiefdom divinity. Other chiefdom divinities posess only persons within the chiefdom. But Labeja possesses even outsiders. e.g. mother’s brother.

4 My Name Blew Like a Horn Among the Payira

I was made chief of girls Because I was lively, I was bright,

I was not clumsy or untidy I was not dull, I was not heavy and slow.

I did not grow up a fool I am not cold I am not shy My skin is smooth It still shines smoothly in the moonlight. When Ocol was wooing me My breasts were erect. And they shook As I walked briskly, And as I walked I threw my long neck This way and that way Like the flower of the lyonno lily Waving in a gentle breeze.

And my brothers called me Nya -Dyang

For my breasts shook And beckoned the cattle, My father built it And they sang silently:

Father prepare the kraal, Father prepare the kraal, The cattle are coming.

I was the Leader of the girls And my name blew Like a horn Among the Payira. And I played on my bow harp And praised my love.

Ocol, my husband, My friend, What are you talking? You saw me when I was young. In my mother’s house

This man crawled on the floor! The son of the Bull wept For me with tears, Like a hungry child Whose mother has stayed long In the simsim field!

Every night he came To my father’s homestead, He never missed one night Even after he had been beaten By my brothers.

You loved my giraffe-tail bangles, My father bought them for me From the Hills in the East.

The roof of my mother’s house Was beautifully laced With elephant grass; My father built it

With the skill of the Acoli.

You ired my sister’s Colourful ten-stringed lion beads; My mother threaded them And arranged them with care.

You trembled When you saw the tattoos On my breasts And the tattoos below my belly button; And you were very fond Of the gap in my teeth! My man, what are you talking? My clansmen, I ask you: What has become of my husband? Is he suffering from boils? Is it ripe now? Should they open it So that the pus may flow out?

I was chief of youths Because of my good manners, Because my waist was soft. I sang sweetly When I was grinding millet Or on the way to the well, Nobody’s voice was sweeter than mine! And in the arena I sang the solos Loud and clear Like the ogilo bird At sunset. Now, Ocol says I am a mere dog A puppy, A little puppy Suffering from skin diseases.

Ocol says He does not love me any more

Because I cannot play the guitar And I do not like their stupid dance, Because I despise the songs They play at the ballroom dance And I do not follow the steps of foreign songs On the gramophone records. And I cannot tune the radio Because I do not hear Swahili or Luganda.

What is all this?

My husband refuses To listen to me, He refuses to give me a chance. My husband has blocked up my path completely.

He has put up a road block But has not told me why. He just shouts Like house flies

Settling on top of excrement When disturbed! My husband says He no longer wants a woman With a gap in her teeth, He is in love With a woman Whose teeth fill her mouth completely Like the teeth of war captives and slaves.

Like beggars You take up white men’s adornments, Like slaves or war captives You take up white men’s ways. Didn’t the Acoli have adornments? Didn’t Black People have their ways?

Like drunken men You stagger to white men’s games, You stagger to white men’s amusements. Is lawala* not a game? Is cooro* not a game? Didn’t your people have amusements? Like halfwits You turn to white men’s dances, You turn to musical instruments of foreigners As if you have no dances; As if you have no instruments!

And you cannot sing one song You cannot sing a solo In the arena. You cannot beat rhythm on the half-gourd Or shake the rattle-gourd To the rhythm of the orak dance! And there is not a single bwola song That you can dance, You do not play the drum Or do the mock fight; At the funeral dance Or at the war dance You cannot wield the shield!

And so you turn To the dances of white people, Ignorance and shame provoke you To turn to foreign things!

Perhaps you are covering up Your bony hips and chest

And the large scar on your thigh And the scabies on your buttocks;

You are hiding Under the blanket suit Your sick stomach That has swollen up Like that of a pregnant goat.

And the dark glasses Shield the rotting skin around your eyes From the houseflies, And cover up The husks of the exploded eye balls.

______

* Lawala is a hunting game. Cooro is a board game.

5 The Graceful Giraffe Cannot Become a Monkey

My husband tells me I have no ideas Of modern beauty. He says I have stuck To old fashioned hair styles. He says I am stupid and very backward, That my hair style Makes him sick Because I am dirty. It is true I cannot do my hair As white women do.

Listen, My father comes from Payira, My mother is a woman of Koc! I am a true Acoli I am not a half-caste I am not a slave girl;

My father was not brought home By the spear My mother was not exchanged For a basket of millet.

Ask me what beauty is To the Acoli And I will tell you; I will show it to you If you give me a chance!

You once saw me, You saw my hair style And you ired it, And the boys loved it. At the arena Boys surrounded me And fought for me.

My mother taught me Acoli hair fashions;

Which fits the kind Of hair of the Acoli, And the occasion.

Listen, Ostrich plumes differ From chicken feathers, A monkey’s tail Is different from that of the giraffe, The crocodile’s skin Is not like the guinea fowl’s, And the hippo is naked, and hairless.

The hair of the Acoli Is different from that of the Arabs; The Indians’ hair Resembles the tail of the horse; It is like sisal strings And needs to be cut With scissors. It is black,

And is different from that of white women.

A white woman’s hair Is soft like silk; It is light And brownish like That of the brown monkey, And is very different from mine. A black woman’s hair Is thick and curly; It is true Ring worm sometimes cuts up A little girl’s hair And this is terrible; But when hot porridge Is put on the head And the dance is held Under the sausage-fruit tree And the youths have sung

You, Ring worm

Who is eating Duka’s hair Here is your porridge,

Then the girl’s hair Begins to grow again And the girl is pleased.

No one, except wizards And women who poison others Leaves her hair untrimmed! And the men Do not leave their chins To grow bushy Like the lion’s neck, Like the chin Of a billy goat, So that they look Like wild beasts. They put hot ash On the hair Below the belly button And pluck it up, And they pluck the hair on their face And the hair of the armpits.

When death has occurred Women leave their hair uncombed!

They remove all beads And necklaces, Because they are mourning Because of sorrows. The woman who adorns herself When others are wailing Is the killer! She comes to the funeral To congratulate herself.

When you go to dance You adorn yourself for the dance, If your string-skirt Is ochre-red You do your hair With ochre, And you smear your body With red oil And you are beautifully red all over! If you put on a black string-skirt You do your hair with akuku

Your body shines with simsim oil And the tattoos on your chest And on your back Glitter in the evening sun. And the healthy sweat On your bosom Is like the glassy fruits of ocuga.

Young girls Whose breasts are just emerging Smear shea butter on their bodies, The beautiful oil from Labwor omor. The aroma is wonderful And their white teeth sparkle As they sing And dance fast Among the dancers Like small fish In a shallow stream. Butter from cows’ milk Or the fat from edible rats

Is cooked together with lakura Or atika; You smear it on your body today And the aroma Lasts until the next day.

And when you balance on your head A beautiful water pot Or a new basket Or a long-necked jar Full of honey, Your long neck Resembles the alwiri spear.

And as you walk along the pathway On both sides The obiya grasses are flowering And the pollok blossoms And the wild white lilies Are shouting silently To the bees and butterflies!

And as the fragrance Of the ripe wild berries Hooks the insects and little birds, As the fishermen hook the fish And pull them up mercilessly,

The young men From the surrounding villages, And from across many streams, They come from beyond the hills And the wide plains, They surround you And bite off their ears Like jackals.

And when you go To the well Or into the freshly burnt woodlands To collect the red oceyu, Or to cut oduggu shrubs,

You find them Lurking in the shades Like the leopardess with cubs.

Ocol tells me That I like dirt. He says Shea butter causes Skin diseases.

He says, Acoli adornments Are old fashioned and unhealthy. He says I soil his white shirt If I touch him, My husband treats me As if I am suffering from The ‘Don’t touch me’ disease!

He says that I make his bed sheets dirty And his bed smelly. Ocol says I look extremely ugly When I am fully adorned For the dance! When I walk past my husband

He hisses like a wounded ororo snake Choking with vengeance. He has vowed That he will never touch My hands again. My husband Is in love with Tina The woman with the large head; Ocol dies for Clementine Ocol never sleeps For the beautiful one Who has read!

When the beautiful one With whom I share my husband Returns from cooking her hair She resembles A chicken That has fallen into a pond; Her hair looks Like the python’s discarded skin.

They cook their hair With hot iron And pull it hard So that it may grow long. Then they rope the hair On wooden pens Like a billy goat Brought for the sacrifice Struggling to free itself.

They fry their hair In boiling oil As if it were locusts, And the hair sizzles It cries aloud in a sharp pan As it is pulled and stretched. And the vigorous and healthy hair Curly, springy and thick That glistens in the sunshine Is left listless and dead

Like the elephant grass Scorched brown by the fierce February sun. It lies lifeless Like the sad and dying banana leaves On a hot and windless afternoon.

The beautiful woman With whom I share my husband

Smears black shoe polish On her hair To blacken it And to make it shine, She washes her hair With black ink;

But the thick undergrowth Rejects the shoe polish And the ink And it remains untouched

Yellowish, greyish Like the hair of the grey monkey.

There is much water In my husband’s house Cold water and hot water. You twist a cross-like handle And water gushes out Hot and steaming Like the urine Of the elephant

You twist another cross-like handle; It is cold water, Clean like the cooling fresh waters. From the streams Of Lututuru hills

But the woman With whom I share my husband Does not wash her head; The head of the beautiful one Smells like rats

That have fallen into the fireplace

And she uses Powerful perfumes

To overcome the strange smells, As they treat a pregnant coffin! And the different smells Wrestle with one another And the smell of the shoe polish Mingles with them

Clementine has many headkerchiefs, Beautiful headkerchiefs of many colours She ties one on her head And it covers up The rot inside

She ties the knot On the forehead And arranges the edges

With much care So that it covers Her ears As well as the bold forehead That jumps sparks When lightning has splashed, And hurls back sunlight More powerfully than a mirror!

Sometimes she wears The hair of some dead woman Of some white woman Who died long ago And she goes with it To the dance! What witchcraft!

Shamelessly, she dances Holding the shoulder of my husband, The hair of a dead woman On her head

The body of the dead woman Decaying in the tomb!

One night The ghost of the dead woman Pulled away her hair From the head of the wizard

And the beautiful one Fell down And shook with shame She shook As if the angry ghost Of the white woman Had entered her head I have no wish

Ocol, my friend Look at my skin It is smooth and black. And my boy friend Who plays the nanga Sings praises to it.

I am proud of the hair With which I was born And as no, white woman Wishes to do her hair Like mine, Because she is proud Of the hair with which she was born, I have no wish To look like a white woman.

No leopard Would change into a hyena, And the crested crane

Would hate to be changed Into the bold-headed, Dung-eating vulture, The long-necked and graceful giraffe Cannot become a monkey.

Let no one Uproot the Pumpkin.

6 The Mother Stone Has a Hollow Stomach

My husband says He rejects me Because I do not appreciate White men’s foods, And that I do not know How to hold The spoon and the fork.

He is angry with me

Because I do not know How to cook As white women do And I refuse To eat chicken And to drink raw eggs As white women do

He says He is ashamed of me Because when he opens The tin of lobster I feel terribly sick, Or when he relates How, when he was in the white men’s country They ate frogs and shells And tortoise and snakes My stomach rebels And throws its contents out Through my mouth. He complains endlessly,

He says Had I been to school I would have learnt. How to use White men’s cooking stoves.

I confess, I do not deny! I do not know How to cook like a white woman.

I cannot use the primus stove I do not know How to light it, And when it gets blocked How can I prick it? The thing roars Like a male lion, It frightens me!

They say

It once burst And the flame burnt A goat to death!

I really hate The charcoal stove! Your hand is always Charcoal-dirty And anything you touch Is blackened; And your finger nails Resemble those of the poison woman. It is so difficult to start:

You wait for the winds To blow, But whenever you are in a hurry The winds go off to visit Their mothers-in-law.

The electric fire kills people. They say It is lightning, They say The white man has trapped And caught the Rain-Cock* And imprisoned it In a heavy steel house.

The wonders of the white men Are many! They leave me speechless!

They say When the Rain-Cock Opens its wings The blinding light And the deadly fire Flow through the wires And lighten the streets And the houses;

And the fire Goes into the electric stove. If you touch it It runs through you And cuts the heart string As they cut the umbilical cord, And you stand there, dead, A standing corpse!

I am terribly afraid Of the electric stove, And I do not like using it Because you stand up When you cook. Who ever cooked standing up? And the stove Has many eyes. I do not know Which eye to prick So that the stove May vomit fire

And I cannot tell Which eye to prick So that fire is vomited In one and not in another plate.

And I am afraid That I may touch The deadly tongue Of the Rain-Cock

O! I do not like Using the electric stove, I cannot cook anything well When you give me The Rain-Cock stove.

The white man’s stoves Are good for cooking White men’s food: For cooking the tasteless Bloodless meat of cows That were killed many years ago And left in the ice To rot! For frying an egg Which when ready Is slimy like mucus,

For boiling hairy chicken In saltless water. You think you are chewing paper! And the bones of the leg Contain only clotted blood And when you bite It makes no crackling sound,

It tastes like earth!

The white man’s stoves Are for boiling cabbages And for baking the light spongy thing They call bread.

They are for warming up Tinned beef, tinned fish, Tinned frogs, tinned snakes, Tinned peas, tinned beans, Big broad beans Tasteless like the cooro!

They are for preparing Foods for the toothless, For infants and invalids. It is for making tea or coffee! You use the saucepan And the frying pan

And other flat-bottomed things, Because the stoves are flat Like the face of the drum.

The earthen vegetable pot Cannot sit on it, There are no stones On which to place The pot for making millet bread.

Come, brother, Come into my mother’s house! Pause a bit by the door, Let me show you My mother’s house.

Look, Straight before you Is the central pole. That shiny stool At the foot of the pole Is my father’s revered stool.

Further on The rows of pots Placed one on top of the other Are the stores And cupboards. Millet flour, dried carcasses Of various animals,

Beans, peas, Fish, dried cucumber . . .

Look up to the roof, You see the hangings? The string nets Are called cel. The beautiful long-necked jar On your left Is full of honey. That earthen dish Contains simsim paste; And that grass pocket Just above the fireplace Contains dried white ants.

Here on your left Are the grinding stones: The big one Ashen and dusty And her daughter

Sitting in her belly Are the destroyers of millet Mixed with cassava And sorghum.

The mother stone Has a hollow stomach, A strange woman She never gets pregnant; And her daughter Never gets fatter She gets smaller and smaller Until she is finished.

Do you know Why the knees Of millet-eaters Are tough? Tougher than the knees Of the people who drink bananas!

Where do you think The stone powder From the grinding stone goes?

On this stone They also grind Dried beans and peas. The sister stone, The smaller one, Clean and beautifully oiled Like a girl Ready for the jok dance, Is the simsim grinding stone.

And when my sister Is grinding simsim Mixed with groundnuts And I am grinding Millet mixed with sorghum You hear the song of the stones You hear the song of the grains

And the seeds And above all these The beautiful duet By Lawino and her sister.

O how I miss my sister And how I miss the singing While grinding millet in my mother’s house!

On your left Above the grinding stone Stacked right to the roof Is the firewood. If you ask me About firewood I can describe them to you in detail I know their names And their leaves And seeds and barks.

Oywelo and lucoro and kituba Are no use as firewood, They burn like paper They are like pawpaw Their fires are cold Like the firefly’s fire.

Labwori is alright If it is perfectly dry. But if it is still green The smoke it produces Is like a spear! It is useful for Chasing men from the hut Men who sit too close To the cooking place Their eyes fixed into the pot! Odure* who does not Listen when others sing Odure, come out

From the kitchen. Fire from the stove Will bum your penis!

Opok is easy To split with the axe; Yaa burns gently It burns like oil; Poi is no use for firewood, It is rock; It is useful only As a walking staff For the aged.

On the far right Is the cooking place. The fireplace in my mother’s house Is dug into the earth. The wife of my mother’s brother Has the Lango type, Three mounds of clay Shaped like youthful breasts full of milk Stand together like Three loving sisters.

I do not know How to use foreign stoves, My mother taught me Cooking on the Acoli stove And when I visited My mother’s brother I cooked meals

On the Lango stove.

In my mother’s house There are no plates: We use the half-gourd And the earthen dishes. The white man’s plates Look beautiful But you put millet bread in it And cover it up For a few minutes – The plate is sweating And soon the bottom Of the bread is wet And the whole loaf cold.

A loaf in a half-gourd Returns its heat And does not become wet In the bottom; And the earthen dish Keeps the gravy hot

And the meat steaming; And when your husband Has returned from a hunt Or from a long day’s journey Give him hot porridge In a half-gourd.

And when I have Been in the garden a whole day Weeding or harvesting in the hot sun, On my return home Give me water In a large half-gourd Water from the glass Is no use. It reaches nowhere.

In my mother’s house We eat sitting on the earth And not on trees Like monkeys; The young men Sit cross legged And a girl sits carefully On one leg. Father alone sits on the stool. We all sit on skins Or papyrus mats On the earth. The knives in my mother’s house Are for harvesting. Or for cutting up the meat Before it is cooked: But not for cutting millet bread.

We wash our hands clean And attack the loaf

From all sides. You mould a spoon And dip it in the gravy And eat it up.

And you use your right hand Even if you are left-handed: This is good manners. Only rude fellows Use their left hands For breaking millet bread.

I do not know How to cook Like white women; I do not enjoy White men’s foods; And how they eat How could I know? And why should I know it?

White men’s stoves Are for cooking White men’s foods. They are not suitable For cooking Acoli foods And I am afraid of them.

Ocol says Black people’s foods are primitive, But what is backward about them? He says Black people’s foods are dirty; He means, Some clumsy and dirty black women Prepare food clumsily And put them In dirty containers.

He insists I must eat raw eggs Smelly slimy yellow stuff. He says It is good for me! He says There is something in eggs Which is good for the bones

But my bones are strong, I can dance all night long Listen to the song They sang about me:

The beautiful one Dances all night long Alyeker prevents me sleeping. I wait on the pathway She refuses to come to me The beautiful one Dances all night long.

What is the good thing in eggs? Can it not be found In other foods? My husband, I do not complain That you eat White men’s foods. If you enjoy them Go ahead! Shall we just agree To have freedom To eat what one likes?

______

* It is believed that lightning and thunder are caused by a giant reddish-brown bird that is almost identical with the domestic fowl. When it opens its wings lightning flashes and thunder is caused when its strikes with its powerful bolt.

* Odure is the nickname for small boys who are fond of sitting in the house when mother is cooking. It was derived from a small boy of that name whose penis was burnt by the fire from the stove.

7 There is No Fixed Time for Breast Feeding

My husband is angry Because, he says, I cannot keep time And I do not know How to count the years;

He asks me How many days There are in a year, And how many weeks In four moons; But I cannot answer: The number of moons In nine weeks I cannot say! How can I tell?

Ocol has brought home

A large clock It goes tock-tock-tock-tock! And it rings a bell.

He winds it first And then it goes! But I have never touched it. I am afraid of winding it! I wonder what causes The noise inside it! And what makes it go!

On the face of the clock There are writings And its large single testicle Dangles below. It goes this way and that way Like a sausage-fruit In a windy storm.

I do not know

How to tell the time Because I cannot read The figures. To me the clock Is a great source of pride It is beautiful to see And when visitors come They are highly impressed! And Ocol has strange ways Of saying what the time is In the morning. When the sun is sweet to bask in He says When the cock crows ‘It is Eight o’clock’! For the first time He says ‘It is Five’! Towards the middle of the night, When wizards are getting

ready, Ocol says ‘It is Eleven’! And after sunset ‘It is Seven’.

My head gets puzzled, Things look upside-down As if I have been Turning round and round And I am dizzy.

If my husband insists What exact time He should have morning tea And breakfast, When exactly to have coffee And the exact time For taking the family photograph — Lunch-time, tea time, And supper time — I must first look at the sun, The cock must crow To remind me. In our village When someone is going On a long journey When there is a hunt Or communal hoeing People wake up early, When the horizon in the East

Is aflame And in the West The Buffalo Star is ripe Like a yellow and sweet mango About to fall to the earth.

No one moves at midnight Except wizards covered in ashes Dancing stark naked Armed with disembowelled frogs And dead lizards:

Or young thieves Looking for other men’s daughters, They travel fearless Through the fiends That sow small-pox In the countryside;

They split the darkness

With their bare chests They smell out their loves Through the thick dew!

When the sun has grown up And the poisoned tips Of its arrows painfully bite The backs of the men hoeing And of the women weeding or harvesting. This is when You take drinking water To the workers.

When the sun has grown up

And the poisoned tips.

Of its arrows painfully bite

The backs of the men hoeing

And of the women weeding or harvesting.

Food is taken to the fields When the men are exhausted. They crack the bones of chicken And eat much peas and beans And heaps of millet bread As big as elephant dung.

Then they return home Leaving behind a large field And houseflies

Fighting over bits of food And excreta that were thrown away. When the sun Has cooled off, The men and youths Visit the traps and pits, They hunt edible rats, Or hook fish From the streams.

Others cut wooden dishes Out of logs Or make ropes for the cows Or weave baskets For the chicken house; They repair the roofs Of the granaries Or make patterns on half-gourds.

You hear the flutes

Of the herdsmen Bringing the cattle home. The flute-songs mingle With the lowing of the bulls. A man listens To the roar of his own bull And shouts praises to it. But no one praises another’s bull, Not even the bull of his brother.

The young boys Who tend the goats Take turns to make The outdoor fire.

The fortunate mother Of a good daughter Sits outside her hut, Her back turned to The outdoor fire, Her legs fully stretched And she congratulates herself.

But if your daughter Has no manners If she is so loose That men sleep with her Even in the grass, Then, even if you are ill You must go to the well To draw water And the nanga players Will sing you a song:

The mother of the beautiful girl

Dies on the way to the well As if she has no daughter Her girl has no manners What is to be done? The mother of the girl Dies on the grinding stone In the bush to collect firewood!

At the orak dance A good girl Whose mother is blind Dances vigorously And glances at the sun, She returns home Before sunset. A good daughter Releases her mother She sits around the evening fire And tells folk tales To her younger ones.

My husband says I am useless Because I waste time, He quarrels Because, he says, I am never punctual. He says He has no time to waste. He tells me Time is money.

Ocol does not chat With me, He never jokes With anybody, He says He has no time To sit around the evening fire.

When my husband

Is reading a new book Or when he is Sitting in his sofa, His face covered up Completely with the big newspaper So that he looks Like a corpse, Like a lone corpse In the tomb,

He is so silent! His mouth begins To decay!

If a child cries Or has a cough Ocol storms like a buffalo He throws things At the child; He says He does not want

To hear noises, That children’s cries And coughs disturb him!

Is this not the talk Of a witch? What music is sweeter Than the cries of children?

A homestead in which The cries of children Are not heard, Where the short little songs Are not repeated endlessly, Where the brief sobs And brotherly accusations And false denials Are not heard! A homestead where Children’s excreta is not Scattered all over the swept

compound And around the granaries,

Where all the pots and earthen dishes Are safe Because there are no Silly ones to break them. No clumsy hands Trying hard to please mother And breaking half-gourds,

Who but a witch Would like to live In a homestead Where all the grown-ups Are so clean after the rains, Because there are no Muddy fat kids To fall on their bosoms After dancing in the rains

And playing in the mud?

At the lineage shrine The prayers are for child birth! At the ogodo dance The woman who struts And dances proudly, That is the mother of many, That is the fortunate one; And she dances And looks at her own shadow.

Time has become My husband’s master It is my husband’s husband. My husband runs from place to place Like a small boy, He rushes without dignity.

And when visitors have arrived My husband’s face darkens He never asks you in, And for greeting He says ‘What can I do for you’?

I do not know How to keep the white man’s time. My mother taught me The way of the Acoli And nobody should Shout at me Because I know The customs of our people! When the baby cries Let him suck milk From the breast. There is no fixed time For breast feeding.

When the baby cries It may be he is ill; The first medicine for a child Is the breast. Give him milk

And he will stop crying, And if he is ill Let him suck the breast While the medicine man Is being called From the beer party.

Children in our homestead Do not sleep at fixed times: When sleep comes Into their head They sleep, When sleep leaves their head They wake up.

When a child is dirty Give him a wash, You do not first look at the sun! When there is no water In the house You cannot wash the child

Even if it is time For his bath! Listen My husband, In the wisdom of the Acoli Time is not stupidly split up Into seconds and minutes, It does not flow Like beer in a pot That is sucked Until it is finished.

It does not resemble A loaf of millet bread Surrounded by hungry youths From a hunt; It does not get finished Like vegetables in the dish.

A lazy youth is rebuked, A lazy girl is slapped, A lazy wife is beaten,

A lazy man is laughed at Not because they waste time But because they only destroy And do not produce.

And when famine Invades your villages And women take their baskets To go and beg food In the next village Strangers will sleep with them! They will have your wives And what can you say?

Ocol laughs at me Because, he says, I do not know The names of the moons, That I do not know How many moons in a year And the number of Sabbaths In one moon.

The Sabbath is a day For Christians When Protestants and Catholics shout And suffer from headaches.

The Acoli did not Set aside a special day For Jok; When misfortune hits the homestead

The clansmen gather And offer sacrifices To the ancestors: When the rains Refuse to come The Rain-Cock* prepares a feast. A goat is speared In the wilderness And the elders offer prayers To Jok.

We all know the moon — It elopes, Climbs the hill And falls down;

It lights up the night, Youths like it, Wizards hate it, And hyenas howl When the moon Shines into their eyes.

Periodically each woman Sees the moon, And when a young girl Has seen it For the first time It is a sign That the garden is ready For sowing,

And when the gardener comes Carrying two bags of live seeds And a good strong hoe The rich red soil Swells with a new life.

Turning your back To your husband Is a serious taboo, But when the baby Is stilI toothless froth, When you see the moon You turn your back To your husband.

If you do not resist The great appetite Then your child becomes Sickly and thin His knees become Soft like porridge,

He will become pregnant And the weight of his diseased stomach Will prevent him From standing up. I do not know The names of the moons Because the Acoli Do not name their moons.

During the Ager period Millet is sown, Just before the rains And as they sow They raise much dust.

When the rains return We say The rains have fallen The period is called Poto-kot

Then the millet seeds germinate. Sometimes the rains come early Sometimes they return late. When the millet Begins to flower And the time For the harvest is approaching All the granaries are empty:

And hunger begins To bite people’s tummies, This period Is called Odunge, Because fierce hunger burns People’s insides And they drink Vegetable soups To deaden the teeth Of the fire.

And as the millet

Begins to get ready for the harvest, Some women ask, Is this not my own garden? They take their harvest knives And a small basket, They cut one head here And another one there, And when someone laughs, They ask, Whose garden have I spoiled? So the period Just before the harvest Is called Abalo-pa-nga?

The Acoli know The Wet Season And the Dry Season. Wet Season means Hard work in the fields,

Sowing, weeding, harvesting. It means waking up before dawn, It means mud And thick dew. Herdboys dislike it. Lazy people hate it.

Dry Season means pleasures, It means dancing, It means hunting In freshly burnt plains.

You hear otole dance drums And funeral songs, You hear the horns and trumpets And the moonlight dance songs Floating in the air.

Youths in small groups Go on the apet hunting

expeditions. Great hunters stay alone In the wilderness Smoking the carcass of the cob Or the buffalo.

Others go off to Pajule To look for bridewealth, For if you have no sister Then kill an elephant. You sell the teeth And marry a wife, Then you call your son Ocan, because you are poor!

Dry Season means wooing And eloping with girls. It means the moko dance When youths and girls Get stuck to one another!

My husband says, My head is numb and empty Because, he says, I cannot tell When our children were born.

I know that Okang My first born Was born at the beginning Of the Dry Season And my little girl In the middle of the rains. Okang was born In the middle of the famine Called Abongo-wang-dako. They say. One night a man Was so hungry He got up And felt his wife’s eyes

To see if she was asleep So that he might Inspect the Cooking pots.

And Atoo was born After the smallpox fiends Had just left the homestead. The fiends found Many people with bad hearts There was much quarrelling And jealousy among women And so many people perished. I lost my father too, That is why The little girl was called Atoo.

A person’s age Is seen by looking at him or her. A girl is grown up When her breasts have come; A young man’s voice breaks And hair appears On his face And below his belly button.

When a girl sees the moon She is ripe, After bearing three children She begins to wither And soon she becomes A mother-in-law. Then she is deeply respected.

A person’s age Is shown by what he or she does It depends on what he or she is,

And on what kind of person He or she is.

You may be a giant Of a man, You may begin To grow grey hair You may be bald And toothless with age, But if you are unmarried You are nothing. Ocol tells me Things I cannot understand, He talks About a certain man, Jesus. He says The man was born Long ago In the country of white men.

He says When Jesus was born White men began To count years: From one, then it became ten. Then one hundred Then one thousand And now it is One thousand Nine hundred And sixty six.

My husband says Before this man was born White men counted years backwards. Starting with the biggest number Then it became One thousand Then one hundred Then ten,

And when it became one Then Jesus was born.

I cannot understand all this I do not understand it at all!

_______________

* The priest of rain who presides during the ceremony for rain.

8 Am Ignorant of the Good Word in the Clean Book

My husband Looks down upon me; He says I am a mere pagan, I do not know The way of God. He says I am ignorant

Of the good word In the Clean Book And I do not have A Christian name. Ocol dislikes me Because, he says, Jok is in my head And I like visiting The diviner-priest Like my mother!

He says He is ashamed of me Because when the Jok In my head Has been provoked

It throws me down As if I have fits.

Ocol laughs at me

Because I cannot Cross myself properly

In the name of the Father And of the Son And the Clean Ghost

And I do not understand The confession, And I fear The bushy-faced, fat-bellied Padré Before whom people kneel When they pray.

I refused to The Protestant catechist class. Because I did not want To become a housegirl, I did not want To become a slave To a woman with whom I may share a man.

Oh how young girls Labour to buy a name! You break your back Drawing water For the wives Of the teachers, The skin of your hand Hardens and peels off Grinding millet and simsim. You hoe their fields, Split firewood,

You cut grass for thatching And for starting fires, You smear their floors With cow dung and black soil And harvest their crops.

And when they are eating They send you to play games To play the board game Under the mango tree!

And girls gather Wild sweet potatoes And eat them raw As if there is a famine, And they are so thin They look like Cattle that have dysentery!

You work as if You are a newly eloped girl!

The wives of protestant Church teachers and priests Are a happy lot. They sit with their legs stretched out And bask in the morning sun. All they know Is hatching a lot of children.

My elder sister Was christened Erina, She was a Protestant But she suffered bitterly In order to buy the name And her loin beads No longer fitted her!

One Sunday I followed her Into the Protestant church: A big man stood Before the people. His hand was lifted up, My sister said He was blessing the people. The man had no rosary, He wore a long black gown And a wide white robe He held a little shiny saucer:

It had small pieces of something. The name of the man Was Eliya And he was calling people To come and eat Human flesh! He put little bits In their hands And they ate it up!

Then he took a cup, He said There was human blood In the cup And he gave it To the people To drink!

I ran out of the Church, I was very sick! O! Protestants eat people!

They are all wizards, They exhume corpses! For dinner!

I once ed The Catholic Evening Speakers’ Class But I did not stay long I ran away, I ran away from shouting Meaninglessly in the evenings Like parrots Like the crow birds

Maria the Clean Woman Mother of the Hunchback* Pray for us Who spoil things Full of graciya.

The things they shout I do not understand, They shout anyhow They shout like mad people.

The padré shouts words, You cannot understand, And he does not seem To care in the least Whether his hearers Understand him or not; A strange language they speak These Christian diviner-priests, And the white nuns Think the girls understand What they are saying And are annoyed When the girls laugh. One night The moon was very bright And in the distance The ‘get-stuck’ dance drums Were throbbing vigorously,

The teacher was very drunk His eyes were like rotting

tomatoes. We guessed he was teaching Something about the Clean Ghost. He shouted words at us And we shouted back at him, Agitated and angry Like the okwik birds Chasing away the kite From their nest.

He shouted angrily As if he uttered abuses, We repeated the same words Shouting back at him As when you shout Insults at somebody’s mother!

We repeated the meaningless phrases Like the yellow birds

In the lajanawara grass.

The teacher was an Acoli But he spoke the same language As the white priests. His nose was blocked And he tried To force his words Through his blocked nose. He sounded like A loosely strung drum.

The teacher’s name Was Bicenycio Lagucu. He was very drunk And he smiled, bemused.

The drums of the ‘get-stuck’ dance Thundered in the distance And the songs came floating

In the air.

The milk In our ripe breasts boiled, And little drops of sweat Appeared on our foreheads, You think of the pleasures Of the girls Dancing before their lovers,

Then you look at the teacher Barking meaninglessly Like the yellow monkey.

In the arena They began to sing my song, We could hear it faintly ing through the air Like the thin smoke From an old man’s pipe:

O! Lawino! Come let me see you Daughter of Lenga-moi Who has just shot up Young woman come home! O Lawino! Chief of the girls My love come That I may elope with you Daughter of the Bull Come that I may touch you.

You think of the pleasures

Of the girls

Dancing before their lovers,

Then you look at the teacher

Barking meaninglessly

Like the yellow monkey.

The teacher drummed His meaningless phrases Through his blocked nose; He was getting more drunk. Thick white froth Formed around his mouth As if he had just fallen down With fits.

Pray for us Who spoil things Full of graciya

And when he shouted The word ‘graciya’ (Whatever the word meant) Saliva squirted from his mouth And froth flew Like white ants from his mouth The smelly drops Landed on our faces Like heavily loaded houseflies Fresh from a fresh excreta heap!

And when he belched The smell of the rotting beer Hit you like a brick And when he belched His mouth filled with hot beer From his belly

And he noisily swallowed this back.

The collar of the teacher’s white shirt Was black with dirt, He was sweating profusely And his cheeks were rough Like the tongue of the ox.

The comb never touched his head, His hair resembled the elephant grass, Tall and wiry The teacher looked like a witch. And he endlessly Drummed his meaningless words Through his blocked nose, And we shouted the words back

at him, And the moonlight dance drums Thundered in the distance. And the songs came floating From beyond his hills. My comrades Are dancing in the moonlight And I Sitting before the ugly man, Before the man With the rough skin, The man Whose body smells!

The girls are dancing Before their lovers Shaking their waists To the rhythm of the drums; And I Sitting like stale bread On the rubbish heap;

My companions are gay They are dancing And singing meaningful songs, In the arena They are singing My song;

And the boys Are whispering sweet words Into the girls’ ears And our teacher Is drunk!

Anger welled up inside me Burning my chest like bile, I stood up And two other girls stood up, We walked out, Out of that cold hall With the stone floor.

We ran fast, Away from the ugly man Away from the meaningless shouts Like parrots, Like the yellow birds In the lajanawara grass.

We crossed the stream And climbed the gentle rise Straight into the arena We ed the line of friends And danced among our age-mates And sang songs we understood, Relevant and meaningful songs, Songs about ourselves:

O father Gather the bridewealth That I may bring a woman home O the woman of my bosom The beautiful one

Prevents me from sleeping The woman of my bosom

If anyone troubles my beloved I shall shed tears of blood; The woman of my bosom Prevents me from sleeping O father, If I die, I will become a vengeance ghost, The woman of my bosom Prevents me from sleeping.

We danced with vigour And sweat poured Down our backs, Youthful sweat From healthy bodies.

Let the fool Continue to deceive himself! Who has ever prevented The cattle from the salt lick?

The time when youth should meet youth Is wasted in shouting things No one understands Is spent in singing Meaningless songs That no one believes in.

The milk in your breast Boils painfully. Your breasts must be touched, Rubbed on the cool chest of your beloved So that the pricking pains May be relieved.

The heads of the young men Reject the pillows And prefer The arms of their lovers.

But they lock you up Inside a cold hall As if you are sheep, And they lock up All the girls In one cold hall, And the boys In another cold hall.

And the young men Sleep alone Cold, like knives Without handles.

And the spears Of the lone hunters,

The trusted right-hand spears Of young bulls Rust in the dewy cold Of the night.

But look! Who comes with The large headed club?

The teacher, still drunk. He too is coming To hunt for girls At the ‘get-stuck’ dance! He ed the line of youths But they pushed him away! He danced at the edge Singing properly, His large owl-head Moving this way And that way To the rhythm of the drums.

Shameless The ugly man Whispered something in my ear!

And touched my breast With the rough palm Of his bony hand Cutting it as if with An old rusty knife.

I spat in his face.

He said He would dismiss me From the Evening Speakers’ Class, And if I am so stupid, I will never get Anything from the purse In his tro pocket.

Don’t touch me You rough-skinned aged thing! Who cares for your stupid shoutings

In the evening? Let go my hand Syphilis man! Who can you buy To spread your death!

And all the teachers Are alike, They have sharp eyes For girls’ full breasts; Even the Padrés Who are not allowed To marry Are troubled by health, Even the fat-stomached Who cannot see His belly button Feels better When he touches A girl’s breasts, And those who listen To the confessions Peep through the port-hole And stab the breasts With their glances.

My husband rejects me Because, he says I have no Christian name. He says Lawino is not enough. He says Acoli names are Jok names And they do not sound good. They are primitive, he insists, And he is a progressive man

Ocol wanted me To be baptised ‘Benedeta’, He has christened One daughter ‘Marta’. The other took The name of the mother of the Hunchback!

Maria the Clean Woman

Mother of the Hunchback

His first born son is Jekcon* And the second he calls Paraciko*. One of his illegitimate sons is Tomcon* And the other Gulyelmo Iriko.*

My husband rejects Acoli names, Meaningful names, Names that I can pronounce. He says

They are Jok names And he wants nothing To do with Jok. He says He has left behind All sinful things And all superstitions and fears He says

He has no wish To be associated any more With the devil

Pagan names, he says, Belong to sinners Who will burn In everlasting fires: Ocol insists He must be called By his Christian name!

But my husband’s name Is so difficult to pronounce; It sounds something like Medikijedeki Gilirigoloyo.* It sounds to me like ‘Give the people more vegetables, Foxes make holes in the pathway’,

It sounds like a praise name Uttered by a stammerer! What is the meaning of ‘Marta’? Gulyelmo, Iriko, Jeckon, Are these names of ancestors?

My Bull name is Eliya Alyeker, I ate the name Of the Chief of Payira, Eliya Aliker, Son of Awic.

Bull names are given To Chiefs of girls Because like bulls They lead their age-mates Like the full moon at night They dominate the stars

They are names Of great chiefs And great men of war

Is ‘Benedeta’ a Bull name? Is ‘Maria’ a Bull name In the white man’s country?

Apiyo and Acen Are Jok names Twins are Joks, And are deeply respected. Akelo is the one Who comes after twins Ajok and Ajara Grow extra fingers or toes Adoc comes out Of the belly feet first.

All these are Jok And they are feared and respected When a girl is called Adong Her father died Just before she was born Akot does not mean ‘Born in the rains,’ But ‘afterbirth

Contained bubbles of water’, And this is a sign of rain. The daughter of A woman with a black heart Who kills people with poisons Is called Akwir or Anek.

Some names are names of sorrows Alobo, Abur, Ayiko, Woko That Fate has thrown A large basket To be filled With dead children

Fate has brought troubles Son of my mother Fate has thrown me a basket, It all began as a joke Suffering is painful It began before I was born.

My father’s name Is Otoo Lenga-moi, He ate the title Lenga-moi In the battle in the Hills. Ocol’s grandfather’s title Is Lutany-moi You earn the moi With your spear Or gun or sword.

Is ‘Tomcon’ a Jok name? ‘Paraciko’, is it a battle honour? ‘Bicenycio’ and ‘Iriko’ Are these praise names, That white men shout When they dance their ‘getstuck’dance? Or are they mourning names?

The first born

May have a name But he is always called Okang, He is the first To listen to the songs Of the birds; He is proof That the woman is not barren; He is the owner of the shrine That shall be built In honour of his father. He is respected.

The one who follows Okang Is called Oboi. He is always jealous,

He fights with his brother And fights for his brother The third son is called Odai And the last son is Cogo. If you hit his head

With your finger His mother will throw Things at you; Because that is the child Of which a mother is most fond.

Who understands The meaning of the Christian names? The names they read for The names of white men That they give to children When they put water on their heads, What do they mean? To me They all sound Like empty tins, Old rusty tins Thrown down From the roof top.

______

* See footnote on p. 97

* Jekcon: Jackson

* Paraciko: Francis

* Tomcon: Thompson

* Gulyelmo: William

* Iriko: Erik

* Medikijedeki: Milchizedek

* Gilirigoloyo: Gregory

9 From the Mouth of Which River?

When I was in the Evening Speakers’ Class We recited the Faith of the

Messengers And Our Father who is in Skyland, We sang Greetings to Maria We learnt:

Glory shine on the body of the Father And on the body of the Son And on the body of the Clean Ghost

We recited the Prayer for saying Yes And the Prayer for Love, The Prayer for Trust, The Greetings of the beautiful men With birds’ wings, And the Dekalogu. The Ten Instructions of the Hunchback. But our teachers

Hated questions. Protestant and Catholic priests Are all the same — They do not like questions.

When they mount the rostrum To preach They shout and shout And most of what they say I do not follow. But as soon as they stop shouting They run away fast, They never stop a little while To answer even one question,

Immediately They start collecting The gifts. You hear:

Who sows a little

Will reap a little Who sows much Will reap much It is not by force The Hunchback thanks, those who give with soft hearts

Do they buy the places In Skyland with money? The stools On the right hand of the Hunchback, Are these reserved For moneyed fellows,

Fat-bellied men The backs of whose necks Resemble the buttocks of the hippo, And green oils Ooze out of the lined necks?

Those who will Surround the Hunchback, Will they be The three-chinned ones Who are not used to the heat And should not go To the place below Because it does not befit them And it is too warm for them?

The teachers Of the Evening Speakers’ Class Hate questions. If you go to the Padré You provoke a fight. You take the road And go to the Nun, The young woman Is fierce like A wounded buffalo girl, She screams As if someone has Stabbed her at the death spot. And the black teachers Are angry They say Asking too many questions Befits only Martin Luther And the stupid stubborn Protestants.

They say, Asking a lot of silly questions Cannot be tolerated, And the Padré quarrels And his goatee beard Shakes furiously.

We sang the Faith of the Messengers Like parrots I did not understand it at all! I thought about it In my own head But I could get nowhere, And there was nobody To turn to. The Padré and the Nun are the same, They only quarrel They are angry with me As if it was I Who prevented them marrying. To them The good children Are those Who ask no questions, Who accept everything

Like the tomb Which does not reject Even a dead leper! Who accept everything Like the rubbish pit, Like the pit latrine Which does not reject Even dysentery.

And those good children Who ask no questions Are liked, They are given oranges And guavas and bananas They take a ride In the Padré’s car. The Nun pats them on their backs And says my son you are good!

We recited The Faith of the Messengers Like the yellow birds In the lajanawara grass

The teacher shouted As if half-mad And we shouted back:

I accept the Hunchback The Padré who is very strong Moulder of Skyland and Earth . . . My mother Was a well-known potter, She moulded large pots, Vegetable pots, And beautiful long necked jars. She made water pots And smoking pipes

And vegetable dishes. And large earthen vessels for bath. She dug the clay From the mouth of the Oyitino River. The place Was well-known among potters.

I heard about it When I was a small girl, And when my breasts emerged I went with my mother And helped her carrying the clay.

The Hunchback Where did he dig the clay For moulding things? Where is the pot He dug the clay For moulding Skyland,

And the clay for moulding Earth? From the mouth of which River? When my mother Has brought the clay From the River She leaves it to season overnight. The next day She beats it with the wooden hammer And then she moulds The pots and dishes And none of her works Crack when fired!

When Skyland was not yet there And Earth was not yet moulded Nor the Stars Nor the Moon, When there was nothing, Where did the Hunchback live?

Where did the Hunchback

Dig the clay for moulding things, The clay for moulding Skyland The clay for moulding Earth The clay for moulding Moon The clay for moulding the Stars? Where is the spot Where it was dug, On the mouth of which River?

And when the Hunchback Was digging the clay Where did he stand? And when he brought home The clay for moulding things Where did he put the clay To season overnight? And when he was beating it With the wooden hammer On which rock Did the Hunchback put the clay?

My husband Has read at Makerere University. He has read deeply and widely, But if you ask him a question He says You are insulting him; He opens up with a quarrel He begins to look down upon you Saying You ask questions That are a Waste of time!

He says My questions are silly questions, Typical questions from village girls. Questions of uneducated people, Useless questions from untutored minds.

My husband says I have a tiny little brain And it is not trained, I cannot see things intelligently, I cannot see things sharply. He says Even if he tried To answer my questions I would not understand What he was saying Because the language he speaks Is different from mine So that even if he Spoke to me in Acoli I would still need an interpreter.

My husband says Some of the answers Cannot be given in Acoli Which is a primitive language And is not rich enough

To express his deep wisdom. He says the Acoli language Has very few words It is not like the white man’s language Which is rich and very beautiful A language fitted for discussing deep thoughts.

Ocol says He has no time to waste Discussing things with a thing like me Who has not been to school. He says A university man Can only have useful talk With another university man or woman. And that it is funny, That he should stoop so low

Even to listen To my questions.

And when he says These things to me He does not look me in the face, He turns his back And talks casually While doing some other work

And when the Padré Hears these questions He threatens you with his beard! When a Nun Hears the questions She says, You should repeat The Prayers for Faith.

I think about these questions In my head And my head begins to ache, And my neck begins to pain, But who can I ask? Where can I go?

I am not a shy woman I am not afraid of anybody And I am not easily browbeaten. I know that the person who asks Has done no wrong, I will not be frightened By those who say Asking questions is mortal sin That will take a person To the Place Below.

But I swallow the questions, They burn inside me

Like a bee That has gone into the ear; And my eyes redden With frustration And I tremble With anger.

When the Hunchback was not yet there Before he had moulded himself What things were there?

When Skyland was not yet moulded And there was no Earth, No Stars No Moon When Chief Hunchback was not yet there Before he had moulded himself,

Where did he get the clay For moulding things? The clay for moulding himself Where did he get It, From the mouth of which River? When the Hunchback was not

yet there And his head was not yet moulded And his eyes And his hands And his legs When his heart was not yet there, How did he find The clay for moulding things Before he had any eyes? The clay for moulding the Hunchback Where was it dug from? From the mouth of which River?

How did the Hunchback Dig the clay for moulding things Before his hands were moulded? The wooden digging stick For digging the clay,

The wooden hammer For beating the clay For moulding himself, How did he hold the wooden hammer And the digging stick? Whose hands did he borrow? And when he was digging The clay for moulding himself Whose legs did he use For standing up?

Where did Chief Hunchback Get his head For thinking about moulding himself, For beginning to think About moulding himself And what shape and size He should be?

Where did the Hunchback Find the hands, The hands for moulding himself Where did he find them? How did he mould his hands Before he had any hands?

On the way to the well To draw water In the bush Collecting dry firewood I think about these questions When I am grinding millet Or on the rocks Drying the cassava mash, On the way to the garden Early in the morning Through the thick dew, In the night I cannot sleep But my head just stops Like a broken down car!

And the questions Are numerous like grass, If you begin to ask them They flow endlessly Like the Nile waters, They burn endlessly Like the red fire At the altar! You wish there was No other work So that you may sit For as long as you like;

And you wish You were lucky To find someone to help you; Someone who has genuinely Read deeply and widely And not someone like my husband

Whose preoccupation Is to boast in the market place Showing off to people!

You wish you were lucky To find someone to assist you Who does not shout Like house-flies When disturbed From an excreta heap! Who does not shout meaninglessly Like the Padré; Who listens, And does not get annoyed So easily like the Nun: Who does not boast Like the teachers of the Evening Speakers’ Class.

You consider the birth of Christ: They say His mother did not know a man. They also say, The bridewealth had already been paid,

Among our people When a girl has Accepted a man’s proposal She gives a token, And then she visits him In his bachelor’s hut To try his manhood.

Before the bridewealth is paid The man puts his cheeks On the girl’s bosom And if the girl is lucky She gets a stomach!

And when they teach That the Mother of Christ Did not know a man I cannot understand it.

But the teachers of religion Hate questions; A young tree that is bending They do not like to straighten. Whether they do it purposely, Whether they themselves Have no answers I do not know, But I know They hate questions,

10 The Last Safari to Pagak *

My husband quarrels bitterly. He says I do not know hygiene And I do not know How to look after the sick. He says I do not know The use of quinine, And I have not been taught How to prevent diseases. My man is ashamed of me Because my father Was a well-known diviner-priest; He says He is sick of my superstitions and fears.

And he fears What the neighbours say Because my mother brought Some powerful anti-poison

medicine, To counter the deadly poisons Of the childless woman In our homestead. Some had brought agugu Others brought adraka With which to kill all the children.

My husband complains That I encourage visitors Who should not Come into his house, Because they bring dirt and houseflies!

He says My old relatives smell horribly. And they have terrible diseases, Leprosy and tuberculosis And their bodies itch.

He says These diseases will be Transmitted to the children. He has warned me That my father’s sister Has lice in her hair And jiggers in her feet. She should not visit me!

My husband says these things In broad daylight. He speaks aloud, He does not care Whether my relatives Hear him or not. And when a storm is threatening, He says There are no beds In his house For villagers!

My husband says Villagers soil his chairs And bed sheets, He says They ruin his nicely polished floor With the mud in their feet.

He cares little About his relatives either. Of his own mother, Ocol says She smokes some nauseating tobacco And spits all over the place And she keeps bed bugs In her loin cloth. And when his mother Comes to visit him, Ocol locks the doors And says

He has an important meeting In the town!

My husband complains About food. You would think He earns sand! He told his mother’s brother There was no food Because he had not written A letter!

The son of the Bull Does not allow the children To visit my mother, He says He does not like The feeding of grandmothers Because the children Eat all the time.

Ocol says The way his mother Brings up children Only leads To ignorance, poverty and disease. He swears He has no confidence In the wisdom of the Acoli.

My husband despises me Because I fear The kite with the flame In its anus.

He says No such things exist. It is my eyes That are sick And only foolish superstitions Make me see these things. But my husband believes Some people see The beautiful men With the wings of vultures Flying through the air!

My husband has threatened To beat me If I visit the diviner-priest again.

He says The hair-poison does not exist, That it is hook worm That troubles the people.

Ocol condemns diviner-priests And Acoli herbalists. He says They are all liars Who deceive fools, And robs people’s chickens, Goats, sheep, cattle and money.

Their so-called medicines Are dirty mixtures Of all sorts of things Collected from the bush And mixed in beer.

He says The medicine gourds are filthy,

And the herbs Are drunk from unhygienic cups.

My husband agrees That sometimes by accident Some of the herbs are effective. He also its That not all who Enter the white man’s hospital Walk home on their own feet, But are carried away In comfortable beds Painless, free of troubles, No more bothered by hunger or anger Or the complaints of wives!

When the fiends That bring smallpox Visit the homestead, Ocol does not go

To the shrine of the ancestors. He says It is foolish to do so, We should have our arms scratched And some corrosive poisons Put in the wounds.

He says When we suffer misfortune We should say:

Look Mariya Mother of the Hunchback . . .

We should pray to Joseph And Petero, and Luka And the other ancestors of white men! He says It is stupid superstition

To pray to our ancestors To avert the smallpox, But we should pray To the messengers of the Hunchback To intercede for us. My husband wears A small crucifix On his neck, And all his daughters Wear rosaries.

But he prohibits me From wearing the elephant tail necklace, He once beat me For wearing the toe of the edible rat And the horn of the rhinoceros And the jaw-bone of the alligator.

A large snake Once fell down from the roof Of the cold hall! The Nun who was teaching The Evening Speakers’ Class Grabbed her large crucifix And pressed it on her bosom, Closed her eyes And said something We could not understand.

My husband says The cowry shells, The colobus-monkey hair, The dog’s horn charms Are all useless things.

He says Only foolish backward folk Uneducated simple fellows

Who live in the shadow of fear Carry these dirty things!

When a bull disease Has knocked me down Or when the ghost in my head Is provoked And threatens to cause ill-health,

When a child Has been cursed by his uncle Or when the Evil Eye Has attacked my daughter,

My husband does not allow me To visit the diviner-priest, The goat cannot be sacrificed, And no Jok dances Can be danced.

And when it is Jok Omara That has caused madness, Or Odude or Ayweya

That has brought troubles, When Jok Rubanga* Has broken someone’s back Or Jok Odude Has tied up a woman’s womb, And the husband Cries over his lost bridewealth, Saying, What is marriage without childbirth?

Ocol laughs, Ocol says, The ways of fools are dark And they are foolish beyond compare! My husband Once smashed up the rattle gourd, Cut open the drum, And chased away the diviner-

priest From his late father’s homestead. The old man walked away, His headgear waving His ankle bells jangling rhythmically And the large monkey-skin bag Dangling on his neck.

People whistled in amazement, They asked, What ghost has captured The head of Ocol?

My husband took an axe And threatened to cut the Okango That grew on his father's shrine. His mother fell down under the tree,

She said Cut me first Then cut the sacred tree!

He threw down the axe And went to the church. He knelt before The stone picture of Joseph And mumbled things I could not understand.

I do not know The white man’s names of diseases, I do not know The names of their medicines, I cannot measure The heat of the body With the white man’s glass rod Because my hand trembles And I cannot read it.

When my child is unwell I see it from his watering nose, The hair of his body stands up And his lips are parched, I see that he is not bright, I do not read the names of diseases from books.

I hear him cry

And his eyes water, I hear the noise from his stomach The worms complaining;

He is pale As if he has been playing in ashes, You hear his chest crackling, He has no appetite, And he is aggressive but tired and weak; He is troublesome, He wants this thing and that thing, Then he does not want this thing And does not want that thing. His body feels hot like fire, And he sits by the fire In the middle of a hot afternoon.

When my child is ill

I try the various Acoli herbs, I try the medicine My mother showed me:

The roots of bomo For stomach aches It kills poisons As well as worms.

The roots of omwombye Is chewed for bad throats, A drop in the eye Kills the pains And removes the Evil Eye’s sting. When the eyes are bursting with pain Put some akeyo in a pot. Cook it for some time, Then expose the eyes To the steam from the pot;

This bums up the spears That were in the eye.

The shoots of lapena For coughs and sore throats — You put some salt in it And chew it! The shoots of lapena and olim Are chewed when they have Removed the blockage in the throat. Fresh wounds are treated With ogali or pobo. The sticky juices Gum up the broken skins And the bitter poison Keeps the houseflies at bay

My mother showed me many medicines, Medicines for leprosy and yaws,

For difficult childbirth and barrenness For men whose spears Refuse to stand up, Lazy spears That sleep on their bellies Like earthworms! Medicines for snake bites, Medicines for breasts That dry up too soon Big milkless breasts Full of fibre Like the fruit of the barusus palm!

If my child is ill I try the various medicines That my mother showed me, If all these fail I go to the medicine woman, And when the child has improved

I take a chicken to the herbalist, Or a goat or a ram.

When fevers trouble my child frequently, When all the diseases Have fallen in love with him, And all youthful diseases Run after him As if he was a beautiful girl, So that he has coughs and dysentery And throat trouble and eye sickness, And his ears have pus And his legs have ulcers And he is bony, skinny And his loin-string is loose, I know that this is not for nothing!

I know that someone is behind it.

I know someone has hidden The child’s excreta in a tree fork, Or has buried his hair or nail paring In a river-bed I know that some jealous woman Perhaps even a close relative Has visited the shadow trapper Who has captured the child’s shadow.

When your child is weak and listless, When his energy fails him, When he withdraws from the fight For life, and gives up quickly, It means his head has been captured, And he is only a crawling corpse: A diviner-priest must be called.

He will divine And tell the killer, The jealous one will be found out!

Ten beautiful girls Are walking in single file, Along the pathway, They carry axes They are going to the bush To split firewood, In the grass lurks The black mamba, Its throat burning with venom.

The first three girls walk past, Then the fourth and fifth, And all nine girls go by, And your daughter Who is at the tail of the line Is struck!

She stands there, The reptile refuses to unhook its fangs,

She drinks a whole cup of death, She gives a brief shriek And mumbles some farewell To her loving mother! Then she drops Dead!

She lies there As if feigning death; Her ripe breasts lift up their hands And wail aloud, Saying, No mouths will suck us! Our tips will not be tickled! Our milk will rot in the earth!

In battle The hottest youths fight at the front, Eager, angry, proud,

The youths think of their loves And say, It is the old ones Who die in bed! The spears of the foe And their arrows Rain like the hailstones, Your son is struck In the small of the back, And the spear Cuts through the liver And the heart.

Other people’s boys’ receive bruises Others get cuts, Many earn battle honours, They return home Blowing their horns, loud and clear!

And while others celebrate And sing war songs, You sing songs of praise, Farewell songs to the dead!

Why should lightning Seek out your husband From his bedroom? Other women’s husbands Are walking in the rain! What is so sweet in your husband? What so bitter in other people’s sons?

Why, at the hunt, Does the wounded buffalo bull Charge your father And with its blunt horn Tear open his belly, Throwing the intestines

On top of the grass? Why should you And not somebody else Be made orphan?

All misfortunes have a root, The snake bite, the spear of the enemy, Lightning and the blunt buffalo horn, These are the bitter fruits Grown on the tree of Fate. They do not fall anyhow, They do not fall at random, They do not come our way by accident, We do not just run into them. When your uncle curses you You piss in your bed! And you go on pissing in your bed Until you have taken him A white cock!

When your mother lifts her

breast And asks you, Did you suck this? If your father lifts his penis Towards you! Know that you are in deep trouble.

No one wrestles with his father, No one looks down On his mother, You cannot abuse your mother! Because it was that woman Who hewed you out of the rock And moulded your head and body.

Think of the excreta and piss The vomit and mucus With which you wetted your mother!

Think of the fire That burnt her finger many times, When she cooked for you.

Think of the jealousies of others, The sorcerers and shadow trappers, Poisoners and the Evil Eyes, Think of the fights They put up for you!

You sucked those wrinkled breasts, And that’s what made you The big man you are! And even if your father is totally blind, Even if his ears are dead, Even if the world has boxed him, Even if his legs are dry like

firewood, If he is rude to you You say, ‘Thank You’ And never answer back Because he stands before you Like the giant tido tree. You are but a climber plant.

A mother’s anger is bitter, It is fierce like lightning And boils like thunder. If you make her angry She will strike below her belly button, If you annoy the girl She will strike the ash Then you will get Exactly what you ask for!

Your vitality will go, You will behave

As if you were a half-wit, Your manhood will disappear And like a castrated bullock Women will be perfectly safe with you!

And to recover, A goat must be slaughtered, Your mother and her brother Must spit blessing in your hand. And then you will become man again. There is no medicine in the hospital For a mother’s curse, None for an uncle’s curse! And when your father’s anger Has boiled over The white man’s medicines Are irrelevant and useless Like the freak rains

In the middle of the dry season.

When a woman has brought Death in a bundle, With which to kill people, And Death has felt the inside of the victims And found them clean, It bounces back And destroys the bringer! It refuses to be returned, It refuses all sacrifices. It says ‘I was not brought To eat a goat, I do not want a ram, Not a bull’.

Death in the bundle Kills the children of the bringer, Her husband, Her other relatives And then she herself

Eats the dust. Which white man’s medicine Can stop the hand of Death in the bundle? Which one can blunt The sharp edges of Death’s Sword? If in a hunt The spears of the men Strike tree trunks and earth And they return home Silent, None blowing a horn,

If in the homestead Young wives stay young Their breasts refuse to fall And their tummies are for ever Well back Because they are hard Like the lela rocks

Like the dry trunk of the poi, And the men are soft in the knees And weak in the loin,

When the rains fail And famine threatens a fierce invasion, Fiercer than the spear of the Lango,

If the crops are moved down by Okwil Or the hail stones have rained And ruined all the millet,

If the locust swarms That blacken the sky Stay the night in the homestead And refuse to move The next day,

When there is much trouble In the homestead, It is not for nothing, It is because The ancestors are angry, Because they are hungry, Thirsty, Neglected.

So the elders gather At the clan shrine, Blood, meat and beer Are offered to the ancestors. Greetings are exchanged And the living Pray to the dead To cleanse the homestead, And they pray, Saying: The troubles in the homestead Let the setting sun

Go down with them!

And the people repeat

Let them go down Let them go down With the setting sun!

And an old woman Will bless the young men, She will spit blessing in their hands So that their spears may be sharp, Sharp and hard, So that their trusted spears Should not sleep outside In the dewy cold, But should strike the death spot Deep and painful! Then the young cobs

Will scream And shed tears of sweet pains!

My husband rejects me Because he says That I am a mere pagan And I believe in the devil. He says I do not know The rules of health, And I mix up Matters of health and superstitions.

Ocol troubles my head, He talks too much And he heaps insults on me As well as my relatives.

But most of his words are senseless, They are like the songs Of children’s plays.

And he treats his clansmen As if they are enemies. Ocol behaves As if he is a witch!

It is true White man’s medicines are strong, But Acoli medicines Are also strong.

The sick gets cured Because his time has not yet come: But when the day has dawned the journey to Pagak No one can stop you, White man’s medicines Acoli medicines, Crucifixes, rosaries, Toes of edible rats,

The horn of the rhinoceros None of them can block the path That goes to Pagak!

When Death comes To fetch you She comes unannounced, She comes suddenly Like the vomit of dogs, And when She comes The wind keeps blowing The birds go on singing And the flowers Do not hang their heads. The agoga bird is silent The agoga comes afterwards, He sings to tell That Death has been that way!

When Mother Death comes

She whispers Come, And you stand up And follow You get up immediately, And you start walking Without brushing the dust On your buttocks.

You may be behind A new buffalo-hide shield, And at the mock fight Or in battle You may be matchless;

You may be hiding In the hole Of the smallest black insect, Or in the darkest place Where rats breast-feed their puppies, or behind the Agoro hills,

You may be the fastest runner, A long distance runner, But when Death comes To fetch you You do not resist, You must not resist. You cannot resist!

Mother Death She says to her little ones Come!

Her little ones are good children Obedient, Loyal, And when Mother Death calls Her little ones jump, They jump gladly For she calls And offers simsim paste

Mixed with honey! She says My only child Come, Come, let us go. Let us go And eat white-ants’ paste Mixed with shea-butter! And who can resist that?

White diviner priests, Acoli herbalists, All medicine men and medicine women Are good, are brilliant When the day has not yet dawned For the great journey The last safari To Pagak.

______

* Pagak is the place of no return, Death’s homestead

* The name of the Christian God in Lwo is Rubanga. This is also the name of the ghost that causes tuberculosis of the spine, hence Hunchback.

11 Buffaloes of Poverty Knock the People down

With the coming Of the new political parties, My husband roams the country side Like a wild goat;

He is up before dawn: You think He is going to hoe The new cotton field Or to sow the millet Or to harvest the simsim

All day long He is away, He does not eat at home As if I do not cook!

When he comes He does not stay a moment, He says There is another meeting At the homestead of the Hoe Chief. He is away all night, And when he returns so late He says Their car got stuck In the mud.

He says They are fighting for Uhuru He says They want Independence and Peace And when they meet They shout ‘Uhuru! Uhuru’! But what is the meaning Of Uhuru?

He says They want to unite the Acoli and Lango And the Madi and Lugbara Should live together in peace! He says The Alur and Iteso and Baganda And the Banyankole and Banyoro Should be united together With the Jo-pa-Dhola and the

Toro And all the tribes Should become one people.

He says White men must return To their own homes, Because they have brought Slave conditions in the country. He says White people tell lies, That they are good At telling lies, Like men wooing women. Ocol says They reject the famine relief granaries And the forced-labour system.

I do not understand The new political parties. They dress differently, They dress in robes Like the Christian diviner-priests, But Ocol treats his brother As if they are not relatives,

Ocol puts on a green-and-white robe, A large flowing robe And he struts Like a bull baboon, He blows the whistle And rings the bell Calling people to gather At the marketplace.

His brother wears a red-andblack robe,

He looks like the judge Who condemns people to death He looks like the male aribe bird And shouts like the train. He walks majestically Like a bull elephant.

My husband is the leader Of the Democratic Party. When they greet each other They shake their fists.

Ocol does not enter His brother’s house. You would think There was homicide between them That has not been settled, You would think That the oput-drinking peacemaking ceremony

Has not yet taken place And they fear the deadly ojebu taboo! Ocol dislikes his brother fiercely, His mother’s son’s hatred Resembles boiling oil! The new parties have split the homestead As the battle axe splits the skull! My husband has sternly warned me Never to joke With my husband-in-law: Not that joking may cause pregnancy, Not that I am a loose woman, But that the strong gum of the joke Will reconnect the snapped string Of brotherhood Between him and his brother!

Is this the unity of Uhuru? Is this the Peace That Independence brings?

When my husband Opens a quarrel With his brother I am frightened! You would think They have not slept In the same womb, You would think They have not shared The same breasts! And they say When the two were boys Looking after the goats They were as close to each other As the eye and the nose, They were like twins,

And they shared everything Even a single white ant.

Ocol says His brother is a liar And a big fool. He says There is something wrong With his brother’s head Nobody should trust such a beast.

He says His brother wants to kill him, He calls his mother’s son That Man! He says His brother is dangerously jealous of him And has smuggled a pistol, And has collected money And hired a man To bump him off! When Ocol says these things

His eyes bulge in his head Like ripe papayas And threaten to fall off

He shouts His brother will bring Communism! I do not know What this animal is!

He says The Congress Party Will remove all Catholics From their jobs And they will take away All the land and schools And will take people’s wives And goats, and chickens and bicycles, And will become the property Of the Congress people.

How terrible that would be If it were true! But I know That if Ocol dies His mother’s son Whom he now hates so much Will inherit all Ocol’s properties, The goats, the chickens and the bicycles, And I will become his wife And my children will become his children! Where will he take the land And the schools? And if they remove All Catholics from their jobs, Who will do the jobs? Where will they get the people To do these jobs?

When Ocol’s brother replies, He sound like the dance-drums In the late evening. He says The Democratic Party Is the Party for Padrés The Party for fools and blockheads. He says Catholics have numb heads. They hear everything from the Italian Fathers! He says The Democratic Party Will sell the land To poor white men Refugees, who came to this country Saying they have come to teach The white man’s religion

When they have no teaching certificates.

He says Ocol and the other fools Allow their heads to be numbed By foolish prayers And by kneeling Before white men!

I have never seen A white Padré In the Democratic Party! At the market place meetings There are many Catholics But I have not heard an Italian Shout ‘D - P! D - P! Uhuru’! Do they teach the leaders In the dead of night In the Bishop’s house?

And if the white men are poor Where will they get the money With which to buy the land?

I have seen Many leaders of the D.P. They come to my house And eat and drink there, Some have really numbed heads Like the head of my husband; But others have heads like lightning Quick and powerful, Some are real men Not women dressed in dark suits. I have met Many leaders of Congress They go to Ocol’s brother’s house They eat and drink there.

Some have heads like the sun Bright, burning and brilliant, Others carry pieces of stone On their necks And call them heads!

Where is the Peace of Uhuru? Where the unity of Independence? Must it not begin at home? And the Acoli and Lango And the Madi and Lugbara, How can they unite? And all the tribes of Uganda How can they become one?

I do not understand The meaning of Uhuru! I do not understand Why all the bitterness And the cruelty And the cowardice, The fear, The deadly fear that Eats the hearts Of the political leaders!

Is it the money? Is it the competition for position?

Someone said Independence falls like a bull buffalo And the hunters Rush to it with drawn knives, Sharp shining knives For carving the carcass. And if your chest Is small, bony and weak They push you off, And if your knife is blunt You get the dung on your elbow, You come home empty-handed And the dogs bark at you!

If you are not a man They frighten you with noise

But you return home. You walk like a chicken Beaten by the rain And the women hiss at you And your children run away from you! You are silent Like a woman who has broken a taboo!

And the other men Carry large pieces of fatty beef, You hear their horns loud and proud! And you eat green vegetables Without the simsim paste And your thin children Collect the odir and ocenne insects And they roast the odir and ocenne

And eat them And the children of others Are fat, And their wives grow larger buttocks, They eat meat from the chest of bulls And the skin of their legs Shines with health!

The stomach seems to be A powerful force For ing political parties, Especially when the purse In the tro pocket Carries only the coins With holes in their middle, And no purple notes Have ever been folded in it;

And especially for those who

Have never tasted honey from childhood, And those who grew up Fatherless or motherless! And those with no sure jobs!

Men with soft hearts, Men with soft blunt eyes Who are shy to tell the biggest lies, Who are afraid To repeat them in the presence Of their mothers and children, To repeat empty lies Before their wives And before their wives’ mothers, Such soft-necked men Should stay at home!

And when the Party leaders Come from Kampala, My husband jumps, He is like a newly eloped girl,

He is all over the place He is quick to win a good name, And when he talks, He explodes like the dry pods of cooro! He is like a woman Who has just buried The other woman With whom she shares a husband.

He says to the bosses ‘O chief you kill me with laughter’! His shallow laugh and put up

smiles Drown the frowns of the chiefs! They probably think he is wonderful!

My husband accuses other party leaders. Everybody else is useless, He alone Is the most hard working, The most loyal, The man with the most reliable information. All that others say Is lies, Lies intended only to win favours! To buy position To buy jobs And places in conferences In Kampala and abroad!

My husband says The masses of the people In the villages Listen only to him. He says The other party leaders Have formed a new party, A new party for fools, That they are rebels And should be expelled! He says The rebels are a minority The masses of the people Are solidly behind him And the Party Leaders, And they talk about him At all beer parties.

When my husband Climbs onto the platform, You hear the bell You hear the drums! There is a big crowd, Some people stand on hillocks! The crowd resembles The Palaro gathered to Celebrate Lapul, their chiefdom Jok.

My husband Reads his speech from a book, He says a few words And shakes his fly whisk, The women yodel And make ululation!

They yodel and make ululation Not because they understand,

They yodel so that their voices may be heard So that their secret lovers may hear them, They shout and make ululations Because they are tired Tired of the useless talk Tired of the insults And the lies of The speakers.

They shout and raise their hands Not because they understand But because they do not understand The many foreign words. Uhuru! Congress! Freedom! Democratic! Independence! Minister! . . .

The women make ululations Because they are irritated Because they are excited Because they want to dance. They want the talks to end So that they can dance. And when he is in the market place, He talks endlessly Like a bird’s mother-in-law. His words are itchy like scabies, Itchy like scabies on the buttocks.

He talks endlessly, And some of the things he says Are painful and hurtful, Like an unripe boil.

He shouts and shouts And loses his voice. He says

We must all unite And fight for Independence and Peace.

He says They fight with diseases, Poverty and ignorance. They want peace and friendship, They fight black-heartedness and quarrels!

And if you are ignorant Of the death of the homestead Of my husband, The death of the homestead Caused by the parties You would think My husband was the best leader.

And while those inside Eat thick honey And ghee and butter, Those in the countryside Die with the smell, They re-eat the bones That were thrown away For the dogs.

And those who have Fallen into things Throw themselves into soft beds,

But the hip bones of the voters Grow painful Sleeping on the same earth They slept Before Uhuru! And they cover the ulcers On their legs With animal skins.

And when they have Fallen into things They become rare, Like the python With a bull water buck In its tummy, They hibernate and stay away And eat!

They return To the countryside For the next elections

Like the kite That returns during the Dry Season

When the kites have returned The Dry Season has come!

The Democratic Party How does it differ From the Congress?

Ocol says They want Uhuru, His brother says They want Uhuru and Peace, Both of them say They fight ignorance and disease!

Then why do they not hands, Why do they split up the army Into two hostile groups? The spears of the young men And their shields, Why are the weapons And the men and women Dispersed so uselessly?

And while the pythons of sickness Swallow the children And the buffaloes of poverty Knock the people down And ignorance stands there Like an elephant,

The war leaders Are tightly locked in bloody feuds, Eating each other’s liver As if the D.P. was leprosy And the Congress yaws; If only the parties Would fight poverty With the fury With which they fight each other, If diseases and ignorance Were assaulted

With the deadly vengeance With which Ocol assaults his mother’s son, The enemies would have been Greatly reduced by now.

I am concerned About the well-being of our homestead! The women there Wear mourning clothes The homestead is surely dead The enmity, the black-heartedness, The quarrels, the jealousies . . .

When the fiends That sow smallpox Go through our homestead That people will be finished, Because the insides of the people are bad! This will be the gift That the political parties have brought!

And while the pythons of sickness Swallow the children And the buffaloes of poverty Knock the people down And ignorance stands there Like an elephant, The war leaders Are tightly locked in bloody feuds, Eating each other’s liver

12 My Husband’s House is a Dark Forest of Books

Listen, my clansmen, I cry over my husband Whose head is lost. Ocol has lost his head In the forest of books.

When my husband

Was still wooing me His eyes were still alive, His ears were still unblocked, Ocol had not yet become a fool My friend was a man then!

He had not yet become a woman, He was still a free man, His heart was still his chief.

My husband was still a Black man The son of the Bull The son of Agik The woman from Okol Was still a man, An Acoli.

My husband has read much, He has read extensively and deeply, He has read among white men And he is clever like white men

And the reading Has killed my man, In the ways of his people He has become A stump.

He abuses all things Acoli, He says The ways of black people Are black Because his eyeballs have exploded, And he wears dark glasses, My husband’s house

Is a dark forest of books. Some stand there Tall and huge Like the tido tree

Some are old Their barks are peeling off And they smell strongly. Some are thin and soft. The backs of some books Are hard like the rocky stem of the poi tree, Some are green Others red as blood Some books are black and oily, Their backs shine like The dangerous ororo snake Coiled on a tree top.

Some have pictures on their backs, Dead faces of witch-looking men and women, Unshaven, bold, fat-stomached

Bony-cheeked, angry revengefullooking people, Pictures of men and women Who died long ago.

The papers on my husband’s desk Coil threateningly Like the giant forest climbers, Like the kituba tree That squeezes other trees to death; Some stand up, Others lie on their backs, They are interlocked Like the legs of youths At the orak dance, Like the legs of the planks Of the goggo fence, They are tightly interlocked Like the legs of the giant forest climbers In the impenetrable forest

My husband’s house

Is a mighty forest of books, Dark it is and very damp, The steam rising from the ground Hot thick and poisonous Mingles with the corrosive dew And the rain drops That have collected in the leaves.

They choke you If you stay there long, They ruin your nose and tongue So that you can no longer Enjoy the fresh smell of simsim oil Or the taste of malakwang,

And the boiling darkness Bursts your eye balls. And the sticky juices That drop from the gum trees Block the holes of your ears,

And when ten girls Standing on the hillock In the moonlight Sing oyele songs, Throwing stones of abuse At the rough-skinned ugly old men Chosen for them as husbands By their money-loving fathers,

Or when your daughter Sings a lovely lullaby To her baby brother Strapped on her back, And she sways forwards and backwards As she sings

O baby Why do you cry? Are you ill? O baby stop crying

Your mother has fried the aluru birds In ghee!

When the girls sing cycle songs And the nurse sings her lullaby You hear only noises, Noises that disturb you Like a brick Thrown on top of the iron roof.

If you stay In my husband’s house long, The ghosts of the dead men That people this dark forest, The ghosts of the many white men And white women That scream whenever you touch any book, The deadly vengeance ghosts Of the writers Will capture your head, And like my husband You will become A walking corpse.

My husband’s ears are numb, He hears the crackling sounds Of the gums within the holes of his ears

And thinks this is the music Of his people; He cannot hear The insults of foreigners Who say The songs of black men are rubbish!

Listen, my husband, Hear my cry! You may not know this You may not feel so, But you behave like A dog of the white man! A good dog pleases its master, It barks at night And hunts in the salt lick It chases away wild cats That come to steal the chicken! And when the master calls It folds its tail between the legs.

The dogs of white men Are well trained And they understand English!

When the master is eating They lie by the door

And keep guard While waiting for left-overs.

But oh! Ocol You are my master and my husband, You are the father of these children You are a man, You are you! Do you not feel ashamed Behaving like another man’s dog Before your own wife and children?

My husband, Ocol You are a Prince Of an ancient chiefdom, Look, There in the middle of the homestead

Stands your grandfather’s Shrine, Your grandfather was a Bull among men And although he died long ago His name still blows like a horn, His name is still heard Throughout the land.

When he died Your father proudly Built him that Shrine! A true son of his father He carried out all the duties Of a first born son.

He himself was a great chief Well beloved by his people. At the otole dance He was right in the middle Completely surrounded by his

host Like the termite queen mother, But you could spot him By his huge head gear Waving like a field of flowering sugar cane. In battle he fought at the front Fierce like a wounded buffalo-girl, When his men struck the enemy The heaven shook from its base;

Has the Fire produced Ash? Has the Bull died without Head? Aaa! A certain man Has no millet field, He lives on borrowed foods. He borrows the clothes he wears And the ideas in his head And his actions and behaviour

Are to please somebody else. Like a woman trying to please her husband! My husband has become a woman!

Then why do you wear a shirt? Why do you not tie A sheet round your waist As other women do? Put on the string skirt And some beads on your loins!

O, my clansmen, Let us all cry together! Come, Let us mourn the death of my husband, The death of a Prince The Ash that was produced By a great Fire! O, this homestead is utterly dead, Close the gates With lacari thorns, For the Prince The heir to the Stool is lost! And all the young men Have perished in the wilderness! And the fame of this homestead That once blazed like a wild fire In a moonless night

Is now like the last breaths Of a dying old man!

There is not one single true son left, The entire village Has fallen into the hands Of war captives and slaves! Perhaps one of our boys Escaped with his life! Perhaps he is hiding in the bush Waiting for the sun to set!

But will he come Before the next mourning? Will he arrive in time?

Bile burns my inside! I feel like vomiting!

For all our young men

Were finished in the forest Their manhood was finished In the class rooms, Their testicles Were smashed With large books!

13 Let Them Prepare the Malakwang dish

But Ocol, my husband, If you are not yet utterly dead And fit only for the stomach of the earth, If your heart string Is not yet completely cut, If your ghost Has not yet escaped and got completely lost, If some blood is still flowing However faintly,

Take courage, Take a small amount of millet porridge, Let them prop you up, Drink some fish soup Slowly, slowly You will recover. Chew the roots of omwombye. It is very bitter But it will clear your throat.

Let them prepare the malakwang dish Eat the roots of lurono And the roots of your tongue Will be loosened. When they have prepared lukut, Eat it, It will strengthen your knee!

Let them drop simsim oil

Into the holes of your ear, Let them scoop out the gum That has filled your ears for so long, The thick dust you collected From the altar And the chaff From the books And the useless things From the magazines and newspapers, And the radio and television! Here is some water. It is luke warm, It will not burn you, Let me pour it for you So that you may wash your face!

But first Remove those dark glasses,

Throw them away, Then remove the scales That have formed on your eyes During daylight When you closed your eyes In prayer.

Bring the ripe seeds of labikka And scratch Ocol’s eyeballs And remove the blood That has clotted there, Put the rhino-horn powder In his eyes, Let it stab away The pus that blocks his eyes!

The blindness that you got in the library Will be removed by the diviner!

The swelling that has blocked

your throat Will be treated with the shoots of lapena Chew the shoots of lapena and olim, Put some salt in the shoots And swallow the bitter green juice! You must vomit The shyness you ate in the church. Drink raw eggs mixed in millet flour; and if this does not make you feel sick Put one finger Deep down your throat!

Clean your teeth with sand, I will prepare the sand for you White like the sand Vomited by the frog!

Brush your tongue So thickly coated with bitter insults; Here is warm water There is some salt in it, Gargle it. Clean your mouth, Spit out the insults with the water! The abuses you learnt From your white masters And the stupid stubbornness Spit them down with the water.

And, son of the Bull When you are completely cured When you have gained your full strength Go to the shrine of your fathers, Prepare a feast, Give blood to your ancestors, Give them beer, meat and millet bread, Let the elders Spit blessing on you Let them intercede for you And pray to the ancestors Who sleep in their tombs Face upwards.

Beg forgiveness from them And ask them to give you A new spear A new spear with a sharp and

hard point. A spear that will crack the rock. Ask for a spear that you will trust One that does not bend easily Like the earth worm. Ask them to restore your manhood! For I am sick Of sharing a bed with a woman!

Ask them to forgive Your past stupidity, Pray that the setting sun May take away all your shyness Deceit, childish pride, and sharp tongue! For when you insulted me, Saying I was a mere village girl, You were insulting your

grandfathers And grandmothers, your father and mother! When you compared me With the silly ojuu insects That sit on the beer pot, You were abusing your entire people. You were saying The customs of your people Are like the useless things Left in the old homestead.

When you took the axe And threatened to cut the Okango That grows on the ancestral shrine You were threatening To cut yourself loose. To be tossed by the winds This way and that way

Like the dead dry leaves Of the olam tree In the dry season.

When you have recovered properly Go to your old mother And ask forgiveness from her; Let her spit blessing in your hands; And rub the saliva On your chest And on your forehead!

And I as your first wife, Mother of your first born, Mother of your son and daughter, I have only one request. I do not ask for money Although I have need of it, I do not ask for meat, I can live on green vegetables For a while yet. Buy clothes for the woman With whom I share you, Buy beads for her, and perfume; And shoes and necklaces, and earrings!

When you have gained your full strength I have only one request,

And all I ask is That you remove the road block From my path.

Here is my bow-harp Let me sing greetings to you, Let me play for you one song only Let me play and sing The song of my youth:

She has taken the road to Nimule She will come back tomorrow His eyes are fixed on the road Saying, Bring Alyeka to me That I may see her The daughter of the Bull Has stayed away too long His eyes are fixed on the road

All I ask

Is that you give me one chance, Let me praise you Son of the chief! Tie ankle bells on my legs Bring lacucuku rattles And tie them on my legs, Call the nanga players And let them play And let them sing,

Let me dance before you, My love, Let me show you The wealth in your house, Ocol my husband, Son of the Bull, Let no one uproot the Pumpkin.

Song of Ocol

1

Woman, Shut up! Pack your things Go!

Take all the clothes I bought you The beads, necklaces And the remains Of the utensils, I need no second-hand things.

There is a large sack In the boot Of the car,

Take it Put all your things in it And go!

Song of the woman Is the confused noise Made by the ram After the butcher’s knife Has sunk past The wind pipe, Red paint spraying On the grasses; It is a song all alone A solo fragment With no chorus No accompaniment, A strange melody Impossible to orchestrate; As if in echo Of women’s wailing At yesterday’s funeral,

Song of the dead Out of an old tomb. Stealthy cracking Of dry bones, Falling in of skulls Under the weight Of earth; It’s the dull thud Of the wooden arrow As it strikes the concrete Of a wall And falls to earth, Extinguished Without life Like a bird Hit by stone From a boy’s catapult.

Have you heard The sigh of a monarch In exile?

He squats on a the shadow Of a disused hut, It is cold The keen wind Knifes through his Torn tros Licking his bruised knee With rough feline tongue,

Yesternight! Yesternight ah!

The smallest toe On the left foot Slowly weeps blood,

A fat housefly Drones away;

Under the arm pit It is sticky, The remains of a shirt Sticks to his back,

Yesternight ah! The hot bath. The thick purple carpet, The red slippers . . .

His dry lips taste salty, A ball of thirst Is climbing up his throat He is forcing down Some saliva,

Yesternight The waiter on his knees,

The woman whispering, ‘My Lord, My husband’ The red wine The soft lights, Woman’s smile Inviting man to bed, The hot lips Of her younger sister Firm breasts The embrace . . .

He looks at his hands At the black finger nails, Cold sweat . . . He is choking, He keeps asking himself, ‘But why? Why? Why’?

Song of the woman Is the mad bragging Of a defeated General, Ten thousand men Dead, dying, The others scattered;

It is the pointless defiance Of the condemned, He is blindfolded, The rough hand Of the noose Round his neck.

Woman Your song Is rotting buffalo Left behind by Fleeing poachers, Its nose blocked With houseflies

Woman

Your song

Is rotting buffalo

Left behind by

Fleeing poachers

Sucking bloody mucus, The eyes Two lumps of green flies Feasting on crusts Of salty tears, Maggots wallowing In the pus In the spear wounds;

Skinny-necked

Bald headed vultures Hover above, While aged stiff-ted lions And limping-hipped hyenas Snarl over bones;

Song of the woman Is sour sweet, It is pork gone rancid, It is the honeyed Bloodied sour milk In the stinking Maasai gourd.

I see an Old Homestead In the valley below Huts, granaries . . . All in ruins; I see a large Pumpkin Rotting A thousand beetles In it; We will plough up All the valley, Make compost of the Pumpkins And the other native vegetables, The fence dividing Family holdings Will be torn down, We will uproot The trees demarcating The land of clan from clan,

We will obliterate

Tribal boundaries And throttle native tongues To dumb death.

Houseboy, Listen Call the ayah Help the woman Pack her things, Then sweep the house clean And wash the floor, I am off to Town To fetch the painter.

2

What is Africa To me?

Blackness, Deep, deep fathomless Darkness;

Africa,

Idle giant Basking in the sun, Sleeping, snoring, Twitching in dreams;

Diseased with a chronic illness, Choking with black ignorance, Chained to the rock Of poverty,

And yet laughing, Always laughing and dancing, The chains on his legs Jangling;

Displaying his white teeth In bright pink gum, Loose white teeth That cannot bite, Joking, giggling, dancing . . .

Stuck in the stagnant mud Of superstitions, Frightened by the spirits Of the bush, the stream, The rock, Scared of corpses . . .

He hears eerie noises From the lakeside And from the mountain top, Sees snakes In the whirlwind And at both ends Of the rainbow;

The caves house his gods Or he carries them On his head Or on his shoulder As he roams the wilderness, Led by his cattle,

Or following the spoor Of the elephant That he has speared But could not kill;

Child, Lover of toys, Look at his toy weapons, His utensils, his hut . . . Toy garden, toy chickens, Toy cattle, Toy children . . .

Timid, Unadventurous, Scared of the unbeaten track, Unweaned, Clinging to mother’s milkless breasts Clinging to brother, To uncle, to clan,

To tribe

To blackness,

To Africa, Africa This rich granary Of taboos, customs, Traditions . . .

Mother, mother, Why, Why was I born Black?

3

To hell With your Pumpkins And your Old Homesteads, To hell

With the husks Of old traditions And meaningless customs,

We will smash The taboos One by one, Explode the basis Of every superstition, We will uproot Every sacred tree And demolish every ancestral shrine.

We will not just Breach the wall Of your mud hut To let in the air, Do you think We plan merely To bring light Into the hut? We will set it ablaze Let fire consume it all This lair of backwardness;

We will uproot granaries Break up the cooking pots And water pots, We’ll grind The grinding stones To powder;

That obsolete toy

With which you scratch the soil And the other rusty roys In the hut, The dried fish Riddled with cockroaches, The piece of carcass Hung above the cooking place Black with soot . . . We’ll make a big heap Of all the rubbish From the hut And set the heap Aflame.

Look at that woman Shaking the rattle gourd And talking to herself,

Mad creature, Her hair A burnt-out forest, Her eyes A pair of rockets Shooting out from the head, Serpent tongue Spitting poisons Lashing crocodile tail;

Do you see The fools Sitting around her? Terror infested faces Eyes closed Gummed with tears,

Lips cracked, bleeding, Throats Parched deserts of drought;

That child lying On the earth Numb Bombs exploding in his head, Blood boiling Heavy with malarial parasites Raging through his veins,

The mad woman Spits on the palms Of his hands And on his feet, Squirts beer On his face To cool him, Spills chicken blood On his chest,

A gift to Death!

The child’s mother Smiles, The diviner pleads With dread malaria,

I give you blood, Let this child live; Here’s your beer Take your beer, Leave us this child; Take your food . . .

We will round up All these priests And priestesses of darkness. All the rain-makers And herbalists, The men and women Who sacrifice at chiefdom

Or clan shrines,

We will arrest all the witches, Wizards, evil-eyes, Sellers of fetish bundles, Bones and claws, Dealers in poisons Extracted from plants And venoms from snakes;

Serpent tongue

Spitting poisons

Lashing crocodile tail;

We will put all these Pillars of fear In a lake steamer, Take them to the deepest part And cast them into the void;

We will arrest All the village poets Musicians and tribal dancers, Put in detention Folk-story tellers And myth makers, The sustainers of Village morality;

We’ll disband The nest of court historians Glorifiers of the past, We will ban The stupid village anthem of ‘Backwards ever Forwards never’.

To the gallows With all the Professors Of Anthropology And teachers of African History, A bonfire We’ll make of their works, We’ll destroy all the anthologies Of African literature And close down All the schools Of African Studies.

Where is Aimé Césaire? Where Léopold Senghor? Arrest Janheinz Jahn And Father Placide Temples, Put in detention All the preachers Of Negritude;

The balloon of The African Personality Exploded long ago, DuBois is dead We will erect No memorial for him; Why should I care Who built the citadel Of Zimbabwe? Of what relevance is it Whether black men Architected the Pyramid?

Smash all these mirrors That I may not see The blackness of the past From which I came Reflected in them.

4

Noises come From within a dark hut, A foul smell seeps Of crude waragi And stale kwete beer, Chickens are fighting Over fresh dung of child;

It is Adok Too The blind poet from Lamogi Playing the nanga And singing praises To a newly wed bride; Footsteps of men and women Are stamping the earth, Puffs of dust Mingled with smoke, Smell of burnt meat;

A woman makes ululations

A man blows A long wooden horn. It sounds like a sneezing hippo, Adok Too sings softly . . .

Ten stacks of newly split firewood, Leaning against the old tree In the middle of The Homestead, Five stacks of grass For starting fire, Five stacks of grass For thatching a new hut, The hut of the newly wed:

Do you know the slave Who split the firewood? Show me the tractor They used for cutting the grass And the cart That brought the firewood And the grass home;

I see a young woman Returning home from the well, Balancing a large pot On her head, Some water spilling Her face slimes wet Beads of water On her bare breasts, Long yellow and red Beams from the setting sun Darting over her youthful breasts Like dragon flies;

Her naked feet Digging the pathway, Nibbling away the earth, Her soles are thick Cracked like the earth In the dry season,

The skin of her hands Are rough like concrete wall, There are stones Embedded in the skin, Her palms are worn out Like the soles Of old shoes;

The blind poet’s voice Is piercing the thatch, The arrow of his song Strikes the woman Like lightning:

O! daughter of Bull Wild lily of the hills You are fit for son of Chief, O! my brother A dream deceived me, What an envious dream? When I woke I was wet . . .

Sister Woman of Acoliland Throw down that pot With its water, Let it break into pieces Let the water cool The thirsty earth;

It is taboo To throw down water pots With water in them, But taboos must be broken, Taboos are chains Around the neck, Chains of slavery;

Shatter that pot, Shatter taboos, customs, Traditions . . .

Listen not To the song of the poet The blind musician Plays for his bread, The bread owners Are your slavers; Listen not to Adok Too’s praises, They are spurs For the tired horses, Blinkers for donkeys;

You woman from Kikuyuland Let that burden slide, Fall from your back You are no mere Donkey cart; Cut that mukwa cord Cutting a valley in your head, Burn the kiondo sacks That bow you down To see only my dusty boots,

Lift up your head Walk erect My love,

The blind poet’s voice

Is piercing the thatch,

The arrow of his song

Strikes the woman

Like lightning

Let me see Your beautiful eyes, Let me caress Your sultry neck, Let me kiss your dimples . . .

Shut up you Bush poet from Kiambu And you from Nyeri Cease insulting my wife

With your stupid song My girl is not A camel.

Listen My sister from Ankole And you from Ruanda And Burundi,

Here’s a hammer, Smash those pots Of rotten milk Burst open the door Come forth into daylight,

Beat up that old woman Who pumps you full of milk,

Are you a caterpillar For wasps To lay their eggs in? Who told you That your fertility Will be enhanced

By excessive fatness?

Who says you are beautiful When you cannot even walk? You stagger into the sunlight Melting, dripping, wet, A pregnant hippo; Soft, flabby, weak, Bursting buttocks, Your breasts are two drums, Can you see your belly button? I hear the lowing of cattle A forest of long white horns Approaching home.

I hear the wild song Of the herdsman He is singing praises To your ugliness!

Woman of Africa Sweeper Smearing floors and walls With cow dung and black soil, Cook, ayah, the baby tied on your back, Vomiting, Washer of dishes, Planting, weeding, harvesting, Store keeper, builder, Runner of errands, Cart, lorry, Donkey . . .

Woman of Africa What are you not?

In buibui Your face is covered, In black cloth

Like a bat’s leather wing, Harem Private collection Of tasty flesh, Do you hear the bell Of the leading cow? The dust you see Is not caused by a hurricane, It’s the herds Of the Jo-Lango;

We will destroy All these shenzi cattle The root of their savagery, The cause of their misery And death;

I see your husband He’s had a little drink His mouth drooling:

Asha before lunch Chausiku after dinner Young Akelo after midnight . . .

In Buganda They buy you With two pots Of beer, The Luo trade you For seven cows,

And what is that Madi hoe The Acoli men give your father? He cannot even use it For digging! They purchase you On hire purchase even, Like bicycles,

You are furniture, Mattress for man Your arm A pillow

For his head!

Woman of Africa Whatever you call yourself, Whatever the bush poets Call you You are not A wife!

5

You Karamojong elder Etched with the scars Of spear, You young raiders Skimming across the plains Ostrich feathers dancing on your heads Blown back like papyrus tufts By the Nile, I see blood On the shafts

Of your spears;

You Maasai warrior Honing your spear And polishing it with ghee, You naked Jie Studying the sick cow, You Turkana scout Perched on the termite mound Ijakait from Toposa, You Dodos General Presiding over the war council;

You Suk youth I hear you singing Praises to your black ox, Your hands raised In imitation of its horns;

You men on Nandi hills Tending cattle in the rocky

pastures Always suspecting an impending raid, You Pokot hordes Driving home the stolen cattle;

Kipsigis men I see colourful shields Surrounding a thick bush In which I see A lion’s tufted tail . . .

You proud Kalenjin Chiefless, free, Each man the chief Of his hut.

When your spears Appeared on the horizon Beyond the Bahr el Ghazal The Nilotes scattered Like flying debris From a bombed house, The Luo ran A thousand miles Were stopped by the big Lake, Had you given chase They might have perished In the water Like the Egyptians In the Red Sea; When you swept Southwards Towards the Rift Valley Other men fled Like antelopes Chased by the leopard,

Like grasshoppers Escaping from a wild fire;

You taught Kikuyus Circumcision, Spread the chiefless democracy Of the Age-Sets system . . .

Kalenjin, You Jo-Lango— Spirit haunted, Survey your booty, Study your empire, Your gains:

A large arc Of semi desert land Strewn with human skeletons Barely covered by the Hostile thorn bushes And the flowering cactus, A monument to five hundred years Of cattle theft! Wallowing in the mud Of poverty and ignorance You recited poems About the beauty of your beasts, Sang songs about the might Of your spears And your thieving exploits;

Believing you were The richest of the earth,

Drunk with the illusion Of real power You continued to jump Up and down Up and down As you dance, Firmly holding to the spear, The symbol of your backwardness;

Your barren empire Remained ‘closed’ to progress, A vast natural animal reserve In which wild men And wild beasts roamed, Students of primitive man Big game hunters And tourists flocked in From all corners of the world. White women came to discover, To see with their naked eyes

What manhood could be!

You mountain dwelling Sebei Do you hear me? You Kumam Digging lung fish From the marshes, You Iteso Fighting at the beer party You Lutuko . . .

Listen, We will not simply Put the Maasai in tros To end twenty five thousand years Of human nakedness, Dynamiting the ochre quarries Is only the starting gun,

We will arrest All the elders

The tutors of the young During circumcisions. The gathering of youths In the wilderness for initiations Will be banned, The council of elders Will be abolished; The war dance . . . The blowing of war horns Will be punished With twelve strokes Of the cane For each blast;

All the men with moi names And those with ‘killer’ marks On their backs And on their arms Will be hanged for murder;

You will be disarmed, If need be, by force, All your spears And colourful shields, All your bows And poisoned arrows Will be destroyed, Not one will be left Even for the museums,

Spearmakers and blacksmiths Will be jailed; Ah! What a colourful heap We’ll make Of the ostrich feathers And all the other head gears, We’ll reduce the heap to ashes;

We will rip off The smelly goatskin skirts From the women And burn them. Cut all the giraffee hair necklaces And elephant hair bangles, Break the ivory amulets Cutting deep in the flesh Of the upper arms, Remove all the chains, Earrings, nose rings, Lip-stops . . .

Each head will be shaved . . .

Spearing black billy goats In the dry river bed, Sacrifices to cool The blood of the murdered man, All superstitious activities Will be stamped out, They will not be allowed Even on the stage;

Tell me You young man From Maasailand, They call you moran, I see your brother’s spear Planted at the door Of your hut, You know he is inside Sleeping with your wife!

Would you let a man ‘Borrow’ your wife Yet kill him For taking your shuka?

We shall burn down The manyattas, Destroy each one of them Together with all stupid customs

That are observed in them.

Ijakait, Come brother, You are tall and athletic You are handsome, Walk into your City

6

Do I hear you whisper Who is that man? What is his name? Do you not know me And my brothers-in-power? With your head up; Do you see The eyes of the girls Glued on you? Here you do not have To kill a man or a lion first.

Take that girl She wants you.

You sister From Pokot Who grew in the open air, You are fresh . . . Ah! Come, Walk with me In the City gardens, Hold my hand . . . My woman Here’s a rose bud, Keep it, Guard it, Don’t lose it, Do you hear?

All the time I was reading Econ. At Makerere, And my friend the Resident

Magistrate Was sweating and cramming for the Bar, You were busy Performing the get-stuck dance, Spending weeks at funeral parties, Or in the bush Chasing wild animals Or collecting wild honey, Thoughtless and carefree Like children dancing around the hut After a meal; We spent years In detention Suffering without bitterness And planning for the revolution;

Tell me

My friend and comrade, Answer me simply and frankly,

Apart from the two shillings fee For Party hip, And the dances you performed When the Party chiefs Visited your village, And the slogans you shouted That you did not understand,

What was your contribution In the struggle for Uhuru?

Comrade, Do you not agree That without your present leaders Uhuru could never have come?

And, surely, You are not so mean As to grudge them Some token reward, Are you?

I have a nice house In the Town, My spacious garden Explodes with jacaranda and roses, I have lilies, bougainvillea, canna . . . Do you appreciate the beauty Of my roses? Or would you rather turn My flower garden Into a maize shamba?

What did you reap When Uhuru ripened And was harvested?

Is it my fault That you sleep In a hut With a leaking thatch?

Do you blame me Because your sickly children Sleep on the earth Sharing the filthy floor With sheep and goats? Who says I am responsible For the poverty of the peasantry? Am I the cause of unemployment

And landlessness?

Do you appreciate the beauty

Of my roses?

Or would you rather turn

My flower garden

Into a maize shamba?

Did you ever see me Touring the countryside Recruiting people’s daughters Into prostitution?

How did I make men ignorant? Was it not I Who asked the Minister To build a school In your village?

And did I prevent Children from other villages From going to school?

I have other properties In the Town, But, Come, Beat the dust off your feet And jump into my Merc., Let me take you for a ride And show you around my farm . . .

When the tractor first snorted On these hunting grounds The natives scuttled into the earth Like squirrels, Like the edible rat Pursued by the hunter’s dog,

Behold, Africa’s wildest bush Is now a garden green With wheat, barley, coffee . . .

Look at that prize bull, Black, hornless and without a hump . . . Don’t touch the udder of my cow With your unsterilised hands, Don’t touch the milking utensils . . .

Do you see That golden carpet Covering the hillside? Those are my sheep . . . Wool, mutton;

O! How refreshing it is To watch the plants germinate, Grow, flower and ripen, And the young healthy animals

Playing!

I come to my farm Every weekend, It’s wonderful to get out Of the Town Into the fresh air Of the country I enjoy the smell Of the earth The aroma of the coffee blossoms Intoxicates me!

Tell me My friend and comrade Do you The night of Uhuru When the celebration drums throbbed And men and women wept with joy As they danced Hands raised in salute To the national flag?

Did someone tell you That on the morning of Uhuru The dew on the grass Along the village pathways Would turn into gold

To be collected by the women Going to the well

To fetch water, Or by the early morning hunters Laying traps for the duikers At the water holes? And the leaves Of the olam tree That fall off At the start of the droughts Did you dream That the leaves Would become banknotes And be scattered by the wind Among the villagers?

We have property

And wealth We are in power;

Tresers must be jailed For life Thieves and robbers Must be hanged, Disloyal elements Must be detained without trial . . .

Have lions Begun to eat grass To lie down with lambs And to play games with antelopes? Can a leopardess Suckle a piglet?

7

What do you mutter there Idiot? I hear you whimper Like a sick puppy, Your penis shrivelled up With fear;

Listen to the beggar’s song The song of a cripple At sunset:

We sowed, We watered Acres of Cynicism Planted forests of Laughter Bitter laughter Corrosive venom, Men shed tears As they rocked Held their sides Laughed, laughed, Floods of tears Turned red;

We manured the Land Frustrations sprouted Bursting the soil Like young banana trees, Fat frustrations

Flourished fast

Yielding fruits Green as gall;

On the hillsides We planted Fear, It blood-red blossoms Covered the hills Like February fires, Prickly leaves Hard and yellow Pricked men’s skins Causing festering wounds;

In the valley A streamlet trickled, Its water sluggish, slimy, Beside the streamlet The lamb Uhuru Dead as stone, The shimmering flies

Giving false life To its open eyes!

A herdsboy Sat on the bank above, Threw small stones Hit the carcass, The flies rose Like white ants, The boy sobbed Eyes smarting with pepper;

The lamb

Uhuru

Dead as stone,

The shimmering flies

Giving false life

To its open eyes? Two men stood On the other side Roared like thunder, Peals of Laughter Dipped in poison Pierced the boy Like daggers of steel, Blood gushed from his heart Anointing the Land!

We reaped Cynicism

Stored it In a concrete granary Wider, deeper Than Mwitanzige*, We distilled Anger From the Laughter Ten thousand tons Of venom; Stored it in a tank Underground, Acrid steam rose Like lazy smoke, Trees and grasses died; A smouldering mound we made Of Frustrations and Fear Higher than Kirinyaga+ Its fiery lips Licked the clouds, Heaven wept;

A hunter Sat in the shadow Of a rock, Rubbed two sticks A flash, Thunder roared, Flames Purified the Land!

Out of my way You cowardly fool Creep back and hide In your mother’s womb; Vex me no more With your hollow wailings And crocodile tears Over Uhuru!

You Pigmy men Skinning the elephant With rusty knives, I see your children Happy, dancing, Swinging from branch to branch Like naked hairless Black apes,

You dwarf

Rubbing two sticks To make fire, Which is the plant From which you extract Poison for the arrows?

You mukopi Carrying water For your landlord’s wife, You squatter . . . What is Uhuru to you? You Indian dukawallah Coughing spittle onto the floor, Your citizenship card Nailed on the wall, You prostitute Sowing syphilis in the nightclubs You unemployed . . .

You loyal Muganda

Dressed in white kanzu I see you kneeling Before another man, Trailing your kanzu In the mud, Like a priest But serving an altar of man Not God;

You man from Bunyoro And you from Toro What’s wrong with your knees That you lie on your bellies Eating dust? Are you earthworms?

When the naked Luo Through trickery, Established their rule Over you, And stole your cattle,

Your women, your land And made you serfs, For five hundred years You continued to show Your ‘loyalties’ By performing acts of servitude; What is Uhuru to you? You Bairu from Ankole You slaves in Ruanda and Burundi, Do I see you Holding a beer pot While your lofty master Sucks the beer Through the sucking tube?

Let that pot fall Beer and all Shatter and splash Over the chief’s head;

We will uproot Each tree From the Ituri forest And blow up Kilimanjaro, The rubble from Ruwenzori Will fill the Valleys Of the Rift, We will divert The mighty waters Of the Nile Into the Indian Ocean.

______

* ‘Killer of locusts’, Lake Albert in Uganda

+ Mount Kenya

8

Woman I see cups of tears Streaming down your cheeks, Your body shaking With anger and despair Like a mother Sitting by her dead son;

Let them raise the alarm, Sound the war drums And blow the war horns, Let the women make ululations, Call all the tribesmen And all the tribeswomen, Let them gather together For the last time; Let them put ash On their heads And on their bodies Let the women cry aloud

And beat their chests with stones, Let them throw themselves On the ground And roll in the dust And tear their hair In mourning! Let the men Polish their weapons And arm themselves with spears, Shields, bows, arrows And battle axes, Let them wear ostrich feathers On their heads And swishes On their arms,

Let them blow their horns And their wooden trumpets, Let the youths

Perform the mock fight And the women shout The praise names of their men And of their clans And of the clans of their husbands;

Let the drummers Play the rhythms Of the funeral dance, And let the people sing and dance And celebrate the ing of The Old Homestead!

Weep long, For the village world That you know And love so well, Is gone, Swept away By the fierce fires Of progress and civilisation! That walk to the well Before sunrise, The cool bath in the stream, The gathering of the family Around the evening fire . . .

That shady evergreen byeyo tree Under which I first met you And told you I wanted you, Do you The song of the ogilo bird

And the chorus Of the grey monkeys In the trees nearby?

Let the people drink Kwete beer and waragi, Let them suck lacoi beer With the sucking tubes’ As they mourn The death of The Old Homestead!

You village chief Sitting on the stool And learning on the central pole Of your hut, Mount the rostrum At the drum post, Let the people draw near And keep silence,

Deliver your farewell speech; Farewell to your friends And your age-mates,

To your sons and daughters And to your grandchildren, Let them bid farewell to you And to each other, For tomorrow morning As the cock crows For the first time, The people will disperse, Each following his or her route Pilgrims to the New City, And once they depart They will never meet again!

Say Goodbye For you will never Hunt together again, Nor dance the war dance Or the bwola dance . . .

Bid farewell

To your ancestral spirits Fleeing from the demolished Homestead, With their backs to you They can no longer hear Your prayers, Waste no more chicken or goat or sheep As sacrifices to them, They are gone with the wind, Blown away with the smoke Of the burnt Homestead! Stop crying You woman, Do you think those tears Can quench the flames Of civilisation? Wash your face with cold water, Here’s soap and towel . . . Take some aspirin It’ll clear your headache . . .

I see the great gate Of the City flung open, I see men and women Walking in . . .

And what are you doing there Under the tree? Why don’t you walk in With the others? Are you feeling homesick For the deserted Homestead? Or are you frightened Of the new City?

You have only two alternatives My sister, Either you come in Through the City Gate, Or take the rope And hang yourself!

9

Your Excellency Bwana President I salute you, And you Honourable Ministers Discussing the White Paper; Mister Speaker, Sir, You Backbenchers And Opposition chiefs, Greetings to you!

I rise For your Lordship, Robed, bespectacled, I see the learned attorney Addressing the jury, And his brother advocate Consulting a volume Of the Law Reports

A House of Lord’s judgment; Amen! The black Bishop At the altar Is blessing the people In Latin, Do you see his golden crown And scarlet robe?

Tell me You worshipful Mayors, Aldermen, Councillors, You Town Clerks in wigs, You trade union leader Organising the strike, You fat black capitalist In the dark suit, You sipping the Scotch, Bank manager computerising overdrafts, You surgeons and physicians At Mulago and Kenyatta Hospitals, Surveyors, architects, engineers, ants, broadcasters . . . You artists, novelists, Dramatists, poets,

Military men And you Police chiefs, I see you Studying the situation

And plotting the next move;

You Permanent Secretary Composing the Minister’s speech, You Party leader Standing on top of the Land Rover Addressing the market crowd,

You African Ambassador At the United Nations, Your Excellency Speak,

Tell the world In English or in French, Talk about The African foundation On which we are Building the new nations Of Africa.

You scholar seeking after truth I see the top Of your bald head Between mountains of books Gleaming with sweat, Can you explain The African philosophy On which we are reconstructing Our new societies?

I hear a faint flute Playing in the moonlight, It is Léopold Senghor’s tune Of African Socialism, Do you hear That distant drum? Is that not Mwalimu Nyerere’s Ujamaa?

The Osagyefo Is silent, The anthem of United Africa Is drowned by The sound of guns! Tell me You student of communism, And you Professor of History Did Senegalese blood Flow in the veins

Of Karl Marx? And Lenin, Was he born At Arusha?

We shall build A new City on the hill Overlooking the Lake, Concrete, steel, stone . . . The termite queen-mother Will starve to death . . . Broad avenues, spacious gardens, Parks, swimming pools . . . We will erect monuments To the founders Of modern Africa; Léopold II of Belgium, Bismarck . . .

Streets will be named After the great discoverers, David Livingstone, Henry Stanley, Speke . . . We will not forget Karl Peters . . .

‘Hannington Park’ To commemorate the Bishop Murdered by Mwanga’s men, If we can trace them We’ll hang them For the crime.

You young soldier Guarding the border post, Do you know When that sacred boundary Was down? Which of your ancestors Established the area Of your beloved Country? No street Will be named After Mansa Sulayman Of ancient Mali,

He is as irrelevant As the Greek goddess Artemmis, A miserly king He ed nothing on To us;

Mohammed Askia Great monarch of Songai, What a hollow sounding name? The Nilotic chiefs Labongo and Gipir Were famous for their quarrels Over a spear And for splitting open A baby’s belly To retrieve a bead!

Let the kings of Ghana Rot in the earth, We’ll forget The rulers of Monomotapa . . .

As for Shaka The Zulu General, How can we praise him When he was utterly defeated And killed by his own brothers?

What proud poem Can we write For the vanquished?