This trade brought new wealth into Acholi that was unevenly accumulated, with rwodi and interpreters (and eventually their sons and other kinsmen) the major beneficiaries. [1994], p. 80). Their traditional communities were organised hamlets of circular huts with high peaked roofs, furnished with a mud sleeping-platform, jars of grain and a sunken fireplace. In such a context, the land rights of those with the least power widows, the disabled, the elderly were very insecure. The full integration of the Acholi into the British colonial complex happened comparatively late. ." The system values peace over justice, and has retributive and restorative aspects. interpreters began to accumulate some of the new wealth brought into B. Webster, eds. This belief underlies the customary land tenure rule that prohibits women from having rights to land independent of their relationship with their father or husband. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press. Further tidying up and smoothing over the grave take place within the week. fight the Arab slave traders and his colonial administration was viewed as not very invasive //. Arab trading routes coming from the north, trading in goods, but also in slaves. Contemporary versions or amalgams of these practitioners continue to function in Acholi. 1679-1914." Retrieved February 23, 2023 from Encyclopedia.com: https://www.encyclopedia.com/humanities/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/acholi. Its current population is estimated to be around 2.155,000 individuals, or six percent of the total national population. Tito and Bazilio, who were Acholi by tribe, fled the country into exile. Until 1967 Uganda was a quasi-federal polity that included five subregional monarchies, non-monarchical districts, and a central government. Thanks for using our World Directory of Minorities and Indigenous Peoples! Once chiefdoms were established, Acholi religious beliefs focused on three types of spirits (jogi; sing. Ann Arbor: University Microfilms International. Given the low population densities and minimal land pressure, almost anyone who was willing to clear and work unused land has been welcomed by lineage heads responsible for such land and, while they functioned, by the rwodi of chiefdoms within whose domains the land lay. The account of the Acholi reaching into the independence era. Political Organization. Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. Led by Alice Auma, who claimed to During Uganda's colonial period, the British encouraged political and economic development in the south of the country, in particular among the Baganda. settle disputes that involved more than one lineage. members of royal lineages, and lineage heads all seem to have been However, during the dry season, as groups of families were forced to congregate around receding water sources, a greater degree of political organization developed. POLITICAL ORGANIZATION. 1.84 million people, mostly Acholi, lived in 251 different Internal Displaced Person camps. Identification. He has noted that the emphasis on the distinction among ethnic groups has even been part of the internal government dialogue." "In 1997, the Catholic, Anglican, Muslim, and later the Orthodox religious leaders of Acholi formalized their increasing cooperation on peace issues by setting up the Acholi Religious Leaders' Peace Initiative (ARLPI). Marriage has been typically patrilocal and patriarchal, with the husband and father as the undisputed head of the household. At the peak of the conflict, 90% of the Acholi population moved into IDP camps designed as protected villages. Social Control. Western Nilotic Eastern Nilotic Southern Nilotic, Burun Lwoo Nuer-Dinka Teso-Turkana Bari Maa-Lotuko, North South (UNHCR, 2012). Identification. Since the British had set up their administrational centre in the ETHNONYMS: Afipa, Wafipa Vincent (2012), a Gulu-based Organizational politics is a natural part of organizational life. Following the An Exploration of Linguistic Practices and Language Attitudes in Gulu, Northern Uganda. [26], In 2016, the multi award-winning film, A Brilliant Genocide was produced. ETHNONYMS: Mende (Men-day), Mendes, Huro, Wuro [25], Some of the groups in Acholi, like the UPDA, detested the Museveni regime because it had overthrown the government in which they served. Industrial Arts. Museveni has held absolute power since, surviving unrest, civil war, and numerous attempts at coups. This disorder in Acholi contrasts sharply with the solid organisation of Buganda, which always has a centralized, well-thought out and weighted responses to critical issues such as land and political contention that affect the kingdom. Because each style has its own formatting nuances that evolve over time and not all information is available for every reference entry or article, Encyclopedia.com cannot guarantee each citation it generates. Localized lineages have been the fundamental social units in Acholi, Orientation colonial times, were the Acholi stood often in opposition to the British colonial rule, the starting 20- The northerners also contributed to the further evolution of an Acholi identity, not only by introducing the name "Shuuli," which eventually became "Acholi," but by acting in ways that promoted Acholi as a meaningful ethnic and geographic entity. Administrative divisions within Acholi, however, both during colonial The Holy Spirit Movement and Its Fight against Evil in the North." The first leader was Kuturia as mentioned Okot p'Bitek (1971). second term, Acholi soldiers played key roles in the massive conflict in Religious Beliefs. them Shuuli, based on their language being similar to Shilluk from South Sudan. Orientation Encyclopedia.com. Therefore, its best to use Encyclopedia.com citations as a starting point before checking the style against your school or publications requirements and the most-recent information available at these sites: http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide.html. traditional local forms of organisation were based on smaller units, often only consisting of He was defeated in January 1986. More point to the most recent violent conflict was the overthrow of the Okello-led government by the The Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) under the leadership of Joseph Kony has waged a war against Yoweri Museveni's government. According to Latigo, prior to colonialism, "the Acholi people maintained a traditional government that was rooted firmly in their religious beliefs, norms, and customs, which demanded peace and stability in Acholiland at all times, based on their philosophy of life. Children are highly prized, and historically a couple did not set up their own household until the birth of their first child, living until then in the household of the husband's mother. Dwyer, John Orr (1972) 'The Acholi of Uganda: adjustment to imperialism'. A rebellion in 1911 in response to the British confiscation of Acholi guns was the last large-scale conflict in Acholi until Amin came to power in 1971. [7] During the second half of the nineteenth century, Arabic-speaking traders from the north started to call them Shooli, a term which was transformed into 'Acholi'.[8]. Okot p'Bitek (1963). Organizational politics are informal, unofficial, and sometimes behind-the-scenes efforts to sell ideas, influence an organization, increase power, or achieve other targeted objectives (Brandon & Seldman, 2004; Hochwarter, Witt, & Kacmar, 2000). the northern parts remained ignored for a long time. Marriage. In 2005, the new International Criminal Court in The Hague issued arrest warrants for Joseph Kony and other top LRA commanders. It was filmed by Australian director Ebony Butler, Simon Hardwidge and Ugandan author Frey Onen. Due to its central location and the close The council's representatives could mediate issues between clans, and essentially covered both civil and criminal functions, like a Supreme Court. Numbering between 400 and 500 by the turn of the twentieth century, these exogamous groups claim descent from a common ancestor (although means exist to incorporate many types of "outsiders" as well) and have special lineage shrines, ritual ceremonies, praise-calls, and totems. Acholi Quarter in Kampala, for example, is largely populated by formerly rural Acholi from Northern Uganda, uprooted by years of conflict and now caught in a situation of prolonged displacement. The results showed that students had, On the one hand, languages are translatable, which can be demonstrated from different perspectives such as the general characteristics of language, the parallel linguistic, The purpose of this study was to examine the language attitudes and language practices of Arabic-speaking families living in the United States. Localized lineages have been the fundamental social units in Acholi, with chiefdoms providing a layer of organization above the lineages from the late seventeenth to the early twentieth centuries. This structure was maintained by the real anointed chiefs of the Acholi, the rwodi moo. The first government chiefs, appointed from 1912 onwards, represented a measure of continuity with the pre-colonial order, since they were nearly all drawn from the ranks of the clan leaders. Historically, the most important public ceremonies were probably those associated with birth, planting, harvesting, and the killing of a large animal or another human being. Farming and hunting dominated the live in this rural Cite this article Pick a style below, and copy the text for your bibliography. The largest political unit was the tribal section, regarded as the geographical nation. Organizational Politics. Encyclopedia.com. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance". Colonial rule brought the penetration of a money economy into Acholi, along with the establishment of numerous rural and small-town trading centers and the two major urban centers of Gulu and Kitgum, where a range of local and imported goods are available. According to the The Acholi resisted the establishment of the Dwyer, John O. The civil war devastated the lives and livelihoods of the Acholi people of the north. The Age-set spokesmen handled affairs involving interclan cooperation. Movement. to the land by Kuturia caused a lot of death in the sub-region of Acholi. (p. 34). He had established the Equatorial Province in 1870 "At Home in the Village: Growing Up in Acholi." Orientation With higher population densities during the dry seasons, groups of families would fall under the rule of one person known as Jago, or clan chief (Cohen & Atieno-Odhiambo, 1968 , p . and created larger political Twentieth-century densities have been consistently the second lowest in all of Uganda (after Karamoja). Corrections? 2.4. thesis, University of Nairobi. [11], After defeating Okello and his Acholi-dominated Uganda National Liberation Army, now-President Yoweri Museveni and his National Resistance Army conducted revenge killings in the north. journalist who created an account of the history and traditions of the Acholi, wrote that the [6] While Acholi also lives north of the South Sudanese border, the Sudanese Acholi are often excluded from the political meaning of the term "Acholiland". 53- We hope you find it interesting. When the victorious NRA started violent acts of vengeance in the following years, The settlement of the Acholi in their current territory is compared to the ethnic groups in the The Acholi have a modified Iroquois kinship-terminology system, reflecting Acholi's patrilineal and patrilocal ideology. The Song of Lawino, one of the most successful African literary works, was written by Okot p'Bitek, published in 1966 in Acholi, and later translated to English. The word 'Acholi' is a misnomer that became adopted for convenience over the years. Social Organization. Administrative divisions within Acholi, however, both during colonial rule and since independence, have often reflected preexisting sociopolitical units: lineages at the parish level; chiefdoms at the subcounty level; and larger zones of the most intensive (and peaceful) interpolity interactions at the county level. Acholi chiefdoms ranged in population from under 1,000 to as many as 20,000 people and consisted of a number of fenced villages, each with recognized land rights vested in the patrilineal lineage (kaka ) at its core. Deep-rooted divisions and polarization remain between different ethnic groups, and these have been greatly exacerbated by the way in which the countrys leadership has developed since independence. areas of the Buganda Kingdom and their main trading routes extended eastwards towards Kenya, Identification. All procedures are conducted with care, to attempt to ensure that the spirit of the departed does not become angry. organisation to survive, a common identity had to form to support this new social structure of LRA, after losing support from the local population, also turned on the people of northern Since 1996 this policy has expanded to encompass the entire rural Acholi population of four districts, one million people. (unpublished thesis) Ann Arbor, Michigan: University Microfilms International . Odongo, J. M. Onyango-ku-, and J. The republican constitution adopted in 1967 abolished the monarchies and assigned ultimate political power to an elected president. The cookie is used by cdn services like CloudFare to identify individual clients behind a shared IP address and apply security settings on a per-client basis. Kasozi, A. Milton Obote, the independence leader, relied heavily on the support of his fellow Luo-speakers Acholi and Langi in government. Figure 5. London: James Currey. Although polygyny has often been presented as an ideal, limited means have always made it rare in practice. Extensive mission activity in Acholi by both Protestants and Catholics has attracted many followers since the second decade of the twentieth century. This article was most recently revised and updated by Amy McKenna. Arts. During Obote's first term as president, and especially during his second term, Acholi soldiers played key roles in the massive conflict in other parts of Uganda, where hundreds of thousands of peoplemany of them innocent civilianslost their lives; from the mid-1980s into the 1990s, Acholi was the scene of similar levels of conflict. With the coming of the ivory 116-25 Section 3101, requires electronic filing by exempt organizations in tax years beginning after July 1, 2019. Politics has been around for millennia. friendly, but after the inception of the British Protectorate of Uganda in 1894, which included Required electronic filing by tax-exempt political organizations. The third group of spirits were those of unknown persons and dangerous beasts; these were hostile, personified as ghosts, believed to cause sickness and other misfortunes, and dealt with by means of spirit possession. After weaning and up to the age of 5 or 6, however, much of the day-to-day caretaking of a child has customarily been done by an opposite-sex sibling or other preadolescent (often a member of the father's lineage), called lapidi (nurse-child).