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The Problem of the Lwo

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 May 2014

C.C. Wrigley
C.C. Wrigley*
Affiliation:
University of Sussex
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Extract

The Lwo language, a cluster of dialects belonging to the Western branch of the Nilotic family, was spoken as a mother tongue at the end of the colonial period by some two and a half million people scattered over a vast area of the Upper Nile basin from the Shilluk country in the Sudan to central Uganda and from northeast Zaire to western Kenya. The several components of this stock vary greatly in size, from the five thousand people who comprise the Bor groups of the western Bahr el Ghazal to the Kenya Luo group with well over a million members. Despite their extraordinary numbers, however, the Luo--like the Bor, the Shilluk, the Anywak, and other groups in the Sudan--form an enclave among peoples of quite different speech; the main continuous block of Lwo-speakers is in northern Uganda, consisting of the Alur, Acholi, and Langi peoples, together with the Jo-pa-Lwo (or Chope) group, who live in the corner of the Bunyoro district that is formed by the Victoria Nile as it flows north and then west from Lake Kyoga to the Albert confluence.

This peculiar configuration, very different from the normal pattern of linguistic fragmentation in sub-Saharan Africa, offers historians a problem and an opportunity, for it must be the residuum of an unusual event or series of events. Languages cannot travel unless people carry them; and so it is reasonable to assume that the Lwo-speakers of a few centuries ago lived as a compact community, which developed an exceptional capacity both for the incorporation of aliens and the propagation of its own genes.

Type
Research Article
Information
History in Africa , Volume 8 , 1981 , pp. 219 - 246
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1981

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References

NOTES

1. Following convention I reserve the spelling “Luo” for the Kenya section of the people generically referred to by most writers as Lwo (or Lwoo).

2. See, for instance, Ogot, B.A., History of the Southern Luo, vol. 1 (Nairobi, 1967), 31–62 Google Scholar; Cohen, D.W., “The River-Lake Nilotes from the Fifteenth to the Nineteenth Century” in Ogot, B.A. and Kieran, J.A., eds., Zamani; A Survey of East African History (Nairobi, 1968), 142–57Google Scholar; Oliver, R. in the Cambridge History of Africa, III (Cambridge, 1977), 634–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Contributors to two recent collections emanating from Makerere, The Central Lwo During the Aconya, ed. Onyango-ku-Odongo, J.M. and Webster, J.B. (Nairobi, 1976)Google Scholar, and Chronology, Migration and Drought in Interlacustrine Africa, ed. Webster, J.B. (London, 1979)Google Scholar, took these accounts as the starting-point for more detailed enquiries. The only significant reservations have been those expressed by Twaddle, Michael, “Towards an Early History of the East African Interior,” History in Africa, 2(1976), 147–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3. de Heusch, Luc, Le Rwanda et la civilisation interlacustre (Brussels, 1966), 29–41.Google Scholar

4. Crazzolara, J.P., The Lwoo (Verona, 1950–1954), 91.Google Scholar This, the dominating work in Lwo historical studies, was originally published in three parts but references here are to a single-volume edition.

5. Greenberg, Joseph H., The Languages of Africa (Bloomington, 1966), 85.Google Scholar

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7. Ehret, C., “Patterns of Bantu and Central Sudanic Settlement in Central and Southern Africa,” Transafrican Journal of History, 3(1973), 1–71.Google Scholar See also my own suggestion in “Linguistic Clues to African History,” JAH, 3(1962), 271.Google Scholar

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13. See however the criticism of his procedures by Henige, D., “A Snare and a Delusion,” History in Africa, 5(1978), 54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

14. Lwoo, 56. L. Lewis Wall makes the same point by implication when he writes: “I cannot conceive of a vast Nilotic exodus led by some towering Moses fanning out across tropical Africa.” “A Comparative Study of Some Nilotic Myths, Legends and Traditions,” B. Litt. Thesis, Oxford, 1974, 294.Google Scholar

15. Lwoo, 31.

16. Oyler, D.S., “Nikawng and the Shilluk Migration,” Sudan Notes and Records, 1(1918), 107–15Google Scholar; Hofmyr, Wilhelm, Die Schilluk (Mödling bei Wien, 1925), 14.Google Scholar

17. Oyler, “Nikawng.”

18. Pumphrey, M.E.C., “The Shilluk Tribe,” Sudan Notes and Records, 24(1941), 1.Google Scholar Cf. Hofmayr, , Schilluk, 10–12.Google Scholar

19. See de Heusch, Luc, Le roi ivre (Paris, 1972), 124ff.Google Scholar

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21. “Getting Your Own Back: Themes in Nilotic Myth” in Beattie, J. and Lienhardt, G., eds., Studies in Social Anthropology (Oxford, 1975), 213–37.Google Scholar This essay contains a full survey of the distribution of the story and its variations. Cf. Wall, , “Comparative Study,” 117ff., 212ff., 288ff.Google Scholar

22. Cf. the Acholi adverbial phrase li piir, “rashly” and the noun pfool, “ill luck.” These and other definitions are taken from Crazzolara, J.P., An Outline of the Acooli Language (London, 1938).Google Scholar

23. Crazzolara, , “The Lwoo People,” 13.Google Scholar

24. Were, Gideon S., A History of the Abaluyia of Western Kenya (Nairobi, 1967), 112f.Google Scholar

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26. Driberg, J.H., The Lango (London, 1925), 205n.Google Scholar The name of his wife Awiny is the feminine form of Owiny, which corresponds to the Nyoro Winyi, another recurrent royal name.

27. Lwoo, 533ff.

28. “Most of the Acooli clans [of Lwoo origin] and many Aluur clans claim to have come from loka at an early date” ( Crazzolara, , “The Lwoo People,” 12.Google Scholar) “Roughly… there is no important group in Acooli-land which could not claim a related group, large or small, in Pawiir,” (idem, The Lwoo, 79). For examples see The Lwoo, 256, 312, 443, 463, 474, 501, 521, 543, 546.

29. “The Peopling of Agago” in Odongo, and Webster, , Central Lwo, 231.Google Scholar

30. Central Lwo, 11-13, 18.

31. R.R. Atkinson, “State Formation and Development in Western Acholi” in ibid, 262.

32. Ibid. 267.

33. Cohen, D.W., “A Survey of Interlacustrine Chronology,” JAH, 11(1970), 177–201.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

34. In Central Lwo, 25-170.

35. Ibid, 1-19; Chronology, Migration and Drought, 1-37.

36. Webster, J.B., “Dating, Totems and Ancestor Spirits: Methods and Sources in Oral History,” Journal of Social Science [Malawi], 5(1976), 5–14.Google Scholar The reference is to the Acholi High God, who is explicitly compared with Jehovah. Likewise, in his essay, “The Reign of the Gods” in Chronology, Migration and Drought, 125–43 the interlacustrine Creator Nyamuhanga is credited with establishing an empire which is dated to the last quarter of the twelfth century.

37. For a fascinating study of the ramifications of this term see Southall, A.W., “Cross-Cultrual Meanings and Multilingualism” in Whiteley, W.H., ed., Language Use and Social Change (London, 1970), 376–93.Google Scholar In Bunyoro this name of God, like several others, has come to signify a separate and lesser deity. The relation between it and Ruhanga (or Nyamuhanga), the usual name for the Creator, is a puzzling one. They drive from different Bantu roots ( Guthrie, Malcolm, Comparative Bantu (4 vols.: Farnborough, 1967–1974)Google Scholar, s.v. *-bang- and *-pang-), which nevertheless seem to have a common concrete meaning: to fix or haft.

38. For some European examples see Littleton, C. Scott, The New Comparative Mythology (Berkeley, 1966)Google Scholar, and The Complete Grimms' Fairy Tales (New York, 1944), nos. 36, 54, 57, etc.Google Scholar In East Africa the formula is applied by many different peoples to a wide variety of social structures.

39. Odongo, , “Early History,” 100ff.Google Scholar

40. For Opodho (Podho, Apodtho) see Hobley, C.W., “British East Africa: Anthropological Studies in Kavirondo and Nandi,” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 33(1903), 325–59.Google Scholar

41. Odongo, , Central Lwo, 131–38.Google Scholar

42. Ibid, 89-95.

43. Lwoo, 498.

44. “Padibe During the Aconya” in The Central Lwo, 177–213.

45. Ibid, 182.

46. Chronology, Migration and Drought, 5, 32.Google Scholar

47. Crazzolara, , Lwoo, 223ff.Google Scholar; Webster, , Chronology, Migration and Drought, 29 Google Scholar; Atkinson, , “State Formation,” 275 Google Scholar; Girling, P.K., The Acholi of Uganda (London, 1960), 117.Google Scholar Girling reduces the age of Atiko by one generation, realizing that “Nyakaranga” was the (Bantu) nickname of Omor Lameny (G.3) and not his father as Crazzolara thought.

48. Lwoo, 179. Wall, , “Comparative Study,” 162 Google Scholar, quotes a similar Anywak myth.

49. “The erect one,” from cung, “to stand firm, erect.” Cf. the Shilluk founding hero Nyikaang, whose name appears to be related to the phrase li kaang, “firmly, strongly.”

50. See for instance Fisher, Ruth, Twilight Tales of the Black Baganda (London, 1911), 84–89.Google Scholar

51. Ocaak is usually derived from caak, “milk,” but is much more likely to come from the verb cako, “to begin” (in Dinka, “to create”). The name recurs as Ocaki, second Bito ‘king’ of Bunyoro, and surely also as Jaki, one of the two founding heroes of the Sudanic-speaking Lugbara, testifying to the wide influence of Lwo culture.

52. Chronology, Migration and Drought, 33.

53. There is a pun here since in Acholi kom rac means “the Ugly” or “the Unlucky.” But other examples confirm that Kamurasi is meant.

54. Wells, H.G., All Aboard for Ararat (London, 1940), 11.Google Scholar

55. Lwoo, 500, 543.

56. Wright, A.C.A., “Review of Crazzolara's Outline ,” Uganda Journal, 7(1940), 197–201.Google Scholar

57. Ehret, C., Southern Nilotic History (Evanston, 1971)Google Scholar; idem, Ethiopians and East Africans.

58. The following words, no doubt among others, common to Acholi and Nyoro appear to have proto-Bantu antecedents and therefore to be imports into Acholi: Acholi gano, proto-Bantu *-gan-, “tell a tale;” Acholi gonyo, “bivouac,” proto-Bantu *-gon-, “sleep;” Acholi nyenye, proto-Bantu *-yenje, “cockroach;” Acholi cako, Nyoro and Ganda -saka, “go to buy,” proto-Bantu *-saka, “seek;” Acholi kica, Nyoro and Ganda kisa, proto-Bantu *-sa, “kindness, mercy” (Acholi here keeps the Bantu prefix); Acholi reem, “be insufficient,” Nyoro, Ganda and proto-Bantu *-leem-, “fail.”

59. Kollmann, P., Der Nordwesten unserer ostafrikanischen Kolonie (Berlin, 1898), 120 Google Scholar; Bosch, F., Les Banyamwezi (Münster, 1930), 21–22.Google Scholar

60. N-gahi, a word which denotes the bushbuck only in the interlacustrine region and is clearly a nickname, presumably derives from oku-gaba, “to allocate” (tasks and spoils), whence also Nkore mugabe, “king” and Rwanda mugabe-kazi, “queen-mother.” Cf. the legend of Gihanga, founding hero of Rwanda, who pursued a “white antelope,” ingabe, which is glossed by Vansina as “reine” and did indeed lead him to his destined bride. Vansina, J., L'évolution du royaume rwanda dès origines à 1900 (Brussels, 1962), 44.Google Scholar

61. Crazzolara, , Lwoo, 97–98.Google Scholar

62. Ibid., 154.

63. Ibid, 115; Santandrea, Stefano, The Luo of the Bahr el Ghazal (Bologna, 1968), 37.Google Scholar

64. Ogot, , History of the Southern Luo, 159ff.Google Scholar

65. Ibid, 144, 158.

66. Ibid, 149.

67. Hobley, “British East Africa.”

68. Kenny, M.G., “The Stranger From the Lake,” unpublished manuscript, 53.Google Scholar I am grateful to Dr. Kenny for letting me see this important forthcoming study of myth and history in the coastlands and islands of northeast Lake Victoria.

69. Stigand, C.H., “The Legend of Kir and the White Spear,” Sudan Notes and Records, 2(1919), 224–26.Google Scholar

70. Ogot, , History, 162.Google Scholar

71. Early in this century the Luo said only that they “came from the north-west under one big chief.” Northcote, G.A.S., “The Nilotic Kavirondo,” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 37(1907), 58–66.Google Scholar

72. Southall, A.W., Alur Society (Nairobi, 1953), 229ff.Google Scholar

73. Goody, Jack, Technology, Tradition and the State in Precolonial Africa (London, 1971).Google Scholar

74. Sahlins, M., “The Segmentary Lineage as an Organization of Predatory Expansion,” American Anthropologist, 63(1961), 322–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

75. D.W. Phillipson, Later Prehistory, chapter 7.

76. Ibid., 226; Dalby, D., “The Prehistorical Implications of Guthrie's Comparative Bantu, II,” JAH, 17(1976), 25 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Möohlig, W.J.G., “The Bantu Nucleus: Its Conditional Nature and Its Prehistorical Significance,” Sprache und Geschichte in Afrika, 1(1979), 109–41.Google Scholar The suggested overlay corresponds to Möhlig's Stratum no. 4.

77. Cambridge History of Africa, III, 6–7, 628.Google Scholar

78. Cf. Gramly, R.M., “Expansion of Bantu-Speakers Versus Development of Bantu Language and African Culture in situ: an Archaeologist's Perspective,” South African Archaeological Bulletin, 33(1978), 107–12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Gramly, however, seems to link copper with the original spread of Bantu speech rather than with this secondary upheaval.

79. Southall, A.W., “Spirit Possession Among the Alur” in Beattie, John and Middleton, John, eds., Spirit Mediumship and Society in Africa (London, 1969), 232–72Google Scholar; Driberg, , Lango, 220 Google Scholar; Curley, R.T., Elders, Shades and Women (Berkeley, 1973), 152–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

80. Blount, B. and Curley, R.T., “The Southern Luo Languages: a Glottochronological Reconstruction,” Journal of African Languages, 9(1970), 1–18.Google Scholar

81. Coastal trade goods were found in the tomb of king Cyilima Rujugira of Rwanda, dated genealogically to the early eighteenth century and by radiocarbon to the seventeenth. van Noten, Francis, Les tombes du roi Cyirima Rujugira et de la reine-mère Nyirayuhi Kanjogera (Tervuren, 1972).Google Scholar

82. Detailed information is hard to come by on the Anywak dialect but according to Westermann, Diedrich, The Shilluk People (Berlin, 1912), 1 Google Scholar, it is “practically identical with Acholi.” Clan names seem to have southern rather than Shilluk affinities and traditions mostly point in the same direction. See Evans-Pritchard, E.E., “The Relationship Between the Anuak and the Fori (Sudan),” Man, 40(1940), 54–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar It is likely therefore that this section of the Lwo is the furthest extension of the second dispersal.

83. Crazzolara, , Lwoo, 170.Google Scholar

84. Oyler, “Nikawng,”; Westermann, , Shilluk People, 166 Google Scholar; Fisher, , Twilight Tales, 78–83.Google Scholar

85. Soper, Robert, “Cord Rouletted Pottery,” Nyame Akuma, no. 15 (1979), 9–12 Google Scholar distinguishes between the rouletting produced by twisted and by knotted cords. The latter technique, typical of modern Luo and Luyia pottery in Kenya, was practiced at Bigo in the fifteenth century. This seems to give some support to the hypothesis that Lwo culture was present in southwest Uganda, at any rate before the collapse of the Bigo system.