Acholi
Acholi (also
Acoli) are the people of the districts of
Gulu,
Kitgum and
Pader, a region known as
Acholiland in northern
Uganda and in Magwe County in southern
Sudan numbering about thirty to fifty thousand people.
The
Acholi language is a
Western Nilotic language, classified as
Luo, and is
mutually intelligible with
Lango and other Luo languages.
The
Song of Lawino, one of the most successful African literary works, was written by
Okot p'Bitek in Acholi, and later translated to
English.
The Acholi are a Luo people, who are said to have come to northern Uganda from the area now known as
Bahr el Ghazal in southern
Sudan. Starting in the late
seventeenth century, a new sociopolitical order developed among the Luo of northern Uganda, mainly characterized by the formation of chiefdoms headed by
Rwodi (sg. Rwot, 'ruler'). By the mid-
nineteenth century, about 60 small chiefdoms existed in eastern Acholiland. During the second half of the nineteenth century
Arabic-speaking traders from the north started to call them
Shooli, a term which transformed into 'Acholi'.
Their traditional dwelling-places were circular huts with a high peak, furnished with a mud sleeping-platform, jars of grain and a sunk fireplace, with the walls daubed with mud and decorated with geometrical or conventional designs in red, white or grey. They were skilled hunters, using nets and spears, and kept
goats,
sheep and
cattle. In war they used spears and long, narrow shields of giraffe or ox hide.
During Uganda's
colonial period, the
British encouraged political and economic development in the south of the country, in particular among the
Baganda. In contrast, the Acholi and other northern ethnic groups supplied much of the national manual labor and came to comprise a majority of the military, creating what some have called a "military ethnocracy." This reached its height with the
coup d'état of Acholi General
Tito Okello, and came to a crashing end with the defeat of Okello and the Acholi-dominated army by the
National Resistance Army led by now-President
Yoweri Museveni.
The Acholi are known to the outside world mainly because of the insurgency of the
Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) led by
Joseph Kony, an Acholi from Gulu. The LRA's activities have been concentrated within
Acholiland and many hundreds of thousands of Acholi remain
internally displaced persons.
Most Acholi are
Protestant,
Catholic and, in lesser numbers,
Muslim. Nevertheless, the traditional belief in guardian and ancestor spirits remains strong, though it is now often described in
Christian or
Islamic terms.
*
Akena P' Ojok, Former UNLF Vice President, Former Minister of Power In Obote II Regime
*
Betty Bigombe, former MP and conflict mediator
*
Joseph Kony, leader of the rebel
Lord's Resistance Army*
Tito Okello,
President of Uganda for six months in 1985
*
Geoffrey Oryema, exiled singer
*
Olara Otunnu, former
United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict
*
Okot p'Bitek, poet and author of the
Song of LawinoNotes
# Webster 1970.# According to Atkinson (1994).
References
* Atkinson, Ronald Raymond (1994)
The roots of ethnicity: the origins of the Acholi of Uganda before 1800. Kampala: Fountain Publishers. ISBN 9970-02156-7.
* Dwyer, John Orr (1972) 'The Acholi of Uganda: adjustment to imperialism'. (unpublished thesis) Ann Arbor, Michigan: University Microfilms International .
* Girling, F.K. (1960)
The Acholi of Uganda (Colonial Office / Colonial research studies vol. 30). London: Her majesty's stationery office.
* Webster, J. (1970) 'State formation and fragmentation in Agago, Eastern Acholi',
Provisional council for the social sciences in East Africa; 1st annual conference, vol 3., p. 168-197.
*
About The Acholi People*
Acholi portal*
Etop - Online news in Acholi and Lango (Luo)*
Acholi Sample at Language Museum*
Uganda Conflict Action Network working for peace in northern Uganda
*
Global Night Commute
