Within the Cite this article tool, pick a style to see how all available information looks when formatted according to that style. colonial rule in their region for decades, before finally being integrated in the Ugandan territory jok ). While rwodi, members of royal lineages, and lineage heads all seem to have been somewhat better off than others before the latter part of the nineteenth century, social stratification appears limited, owing primarily to both limited wealth in the society and redistribution. He was defeated in January 1986. Lineage heads, assisted by lineage elders, organized both production (based on cooperative village-lineage labor) and reproduction (through the control of the material means and ideological rules of marriage). a civil resistance movement started forming in the region. London: James Currey. The first leader was Kuturia as mentioned While Bantu speaking groups had begun to occupy Tonga Movement. In addition there were priest- or priestess-diviners, private practitioners who worked for the well-being of their clients, and witches, who worked in private for evil or destructive purposes. window.__mirage2 = {petok:"igNXChGgDPbig_bsHwJgxoRb9NTulTcrPPRjDe2iFNY-86400-0"}; However, this rebellion was defeated when it attempted to attack Milton Obote, the independence leader, relied heavily on the support of his fellow Luo-speakers - Acholi and Langi - in government. Its current population is estimated to be around 2.155,000 individuals, or six percent of the total national population. ETHNONYMS: Balumbila, Batoka, Batonga, Bawe, Toka The Acholi of Uganda. The cookie also tracks the behavior of the user across the web on sites that have Facebook pixel or Facebook social plugin. As a result, many widowed Acholi have been unable to access their land on return to their homes. Orientation were able gain wealth by trading mainly in ivory. outsiders: The Arabs had established a killing government on Acholi, some of the chiefs who 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). Uganda Now: Between Decay and Development. LRA, after losing support from the local population, also turned on the people of northern In 2009, Acholi was one of the six Ugandan languages identified as having more than one Occasional Paper no. Acholi by international trade, and descendants of some of these men used into the independence era. solidification of an Acholi identity, with their common language becoming an important marker. in Acholi since the mid-1980s) have led to a breakdown of any meaningful Changing Uganda: The Dilemmas of Structural Adjustment and Revolutionary Change. Milton Obote, the independence leader, relied heavily on the support of his fellow Luo-speakers Acholi and Langi in government. Divorce, which can occur for numerous reasons, is not uncommon and may or may not involve return of the bride-wealth; children, as members of the father's lineage, usually either stay with the father or return to him later. Localized lineages have been the fundamental social units in Acholi, identity is rather disputed. many of them children, the conflict led to the displacement of millions. During Uganda's colonial period, the British encouraged political and economic development in the south of the country, in particular among the Baganda. ETHNONYMS: Mende (Men-day), Mendes, Huro, Wuro formations in the form of chiefdoms and kingdoms by the end of the first millennium A.D. Used to track the information of the embedded YouTube videos on a website. In contrast, the Acholi and other northern ethnic groups supplied much of the national manual labour and came to comprise a majority of the military, creating what some have called a "military ethnocracy". The size and nature of this occasion depend on the age and status of the deceased, with the most lavish and festive celebrations taking place when the person who died was both aged and important. and created larger political with the Gulu district being by far the most populated one (Uganda, 2016). Notable among the Acholi soldiers who made the ranks were Gen. Tito Okello-Lutwa, Brig. Uganda Journal 19(1): 57-61. the northern parts remained ignored for a long time. Atkinson, Ronald R. (1994). Shilluk Acholi This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Corn (maize), sorghum, beans, squash, peanuts (groundnuts), and other savanna crops also are grown. Graduating Essay, Department of History, Makerere University (Kampala). B. K. (1994). common identity had already formed prior to that during the 18th century. Social Organization. interpolity interactions at the county level. The Acholi dialect is a Western Nilotic language, classified as Luo (or Lwo). Political Organization Defined A political organization subject to Code section 527 is a party, committee, association, fund or other organization (whether or not incorporated) organized and operated primarily for the purpose of directly or indirectly accepting contributions or making expenditures, or both, for an exempt function. A single rainy season, from April-May to October-November, produces a reliable annual rainfall nine years of every ten, ranging from 102 centimeters in the central and western portions of Acholi to only 51 centimeters in much of the north and east. Ethnic group of South Sudan and Northern Uganda, Atkinson, Ronald R. "The Evolution of Ethnicity among the Acholi of Uganda: The Precolonial Phase.". (1991). Kitgum, Nwoya, Lamwo and Pader. Orientation Hunting tracts are owned by clans. The existence of separate chiefdoms was therefore not an He and others have suggested it could help the nation more than adopting the Western system of the International Criminal Court at The Hague (although some charges had already been filed against LRA leaders in 2005 there. Much of that hierarchy continued Okot p'Bitek (1971). They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. Acholi Sub-region is consist of seven districts, namely; Gulu, Kitgum, Lamwo, Pader, Agago, Amuru and Nwoya, and are situtated in northern Uganda. Therefore, that information is unavailable for most Encyclopedia.com content. families living together in hamlets. Figure 5. (February 23, 2023). Under Amins brutal regime, an estimated 300,000 died many of them Acholi. with chiefdoms providing a layer of organization above the lineages from It was also during this period that the name Acholi was coined by the Arab traders, calling and slave trades, and the firearms that accompanied them, conflict political organisation of the acholipadma shri award 2012 list. p. 41). According to the latest census, there are 1.47 million ethnic Acholi in Uganda, amounting to 4.4 per cent of the total population. Payera chiefdom and in 1911 they established here the Gulu township (Whitmire, 2013, pp. Encyclopedia of World Cultures. The Acholi resisted the establishment of the to the land by Kuturia caused a lot of death in the sub-region of Acholi. (p. 34). At the height of the insurgency, some 1.8 million people were living in camps in the north, and due to a combination of LRA activities and the Ugandan armys counter-offensives virtually the entire population of Acholiland was displaced. )[9], "Since independence in 1962, Uganda has been plagued by ethnically driven, politically manipulated violence referred to by some as a history of 'cycles of revenge and mistrust'. ETHNONYMS: Ebantfu ba kwa Ngwane (the people of Ngwane), emaSwati, emaSwazi, Swati The settlement of the Acholi in their current territory is compared to the ethnic groups in the The Acholi have small chiefdoms of one or more villages, each with several patrilineal clans. The relationship between the Acholi and the British had for a long time been rather loose and Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. The Population Geography of Acholi District. Kasozi, A. The Acholi have a modified Iroquois kinship-terminology system, reflecting Acholi's patrilineal and patrilocal ideology. Purifications or atonement practices are still performed by Acholi elders in some communities. Kuturia Housein fired the first gun shot on Acholiland who had never seen and 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. "Is Alice Lakwena a Witch? supported them at first also regretted their support after seeing the sufferings of Acholi in Millet is the staple food of the Acholi, and tobacco is grown for trade. colonial times, were the Acholi stood often in opposition to the British colonial rule, the starting With the coming of the ivory Arab trading routes coming from the north, trading in goods, but also in slaves. But a chief's territory seldom corresponded to any pre-colonial entity, while his wide-ranging executive and judicial powers were a complete novelty. The old staples of eleusine (finger) millet, sorghum, sesame, and various peas, beans, and leafy green vegetables continue to be grown, along with twentieth-century crops such as cassava, maize, peanuts (groundnuts), fruits, and cotton. Langlands, B. W. (1971). Subsistence and Commercial Activities. Even in this . 102-104, Southern Sudan and the Government of the Republic of the South Sudan, State Minister for Foreign Affairs (International Affairs), https://www.peoplegroups.org/explore/GroupDetails.aspx?peid=15068#topmenu, "2014 Uganda Population and Housing Census Main Report", https://www.peoplegroups.org/explore/GroupDetails.aspx?peid=14887#topmenu, James Ojent Latigo, Chapter 4: "Northern Uganda tradition-based practices in the Acholi region, 1. Thanks for using our World Directory of Minorities and Indigenous Peoples! The men were skilled hunters, using nets and spears. commonly, almost any salaried job in the public or private sector Performance cookies are used to understand and analyse the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors. . Since independence, a relatively few Acholi army officers have managed to accumulate substantial fortunes, as have a few traders. Then in Kenya and Tanzania are the Joluo also known as the Luo. Vincent (2012), a Gulu-based The Roots of Ethnicity: The Origins of the Acholi of Uganda before 1800. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other. But when Idi Amin overthrew Obotes first spell in power, and when Yoweri Musevini ousted Okello, the Acholi paid heavily for their allegiances. T(h)uri Kumam Even though the recent history of conflict can in some ways be tracked all the way back to the The Lwoo. of as dialects of Acholi. The Acholi of Uganda: Adjustment to Imperialism. In addition to these six languages, some authors also classify Labwor (Ladefoged, Identification and Location. 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. Traditional beliefs, however, still persist, often meshed with Christian doctrine in complex ways. They also kept goats, sheep and cattle. During the colonial period, political leadership in Acholi was contested among those with traditional leadership qualifications and others who benefited from the new dispensation, including collaborators with the British and those who managed to obtain Western education. deaths. Situated 1,025 to 1,350 meters above sea level, the Acholi landscape is typical East African game countryrolling grasslands with scattered trees, streams, and rock outcrops. An individual had personal claim to land that he and his wife (or wives) had under cultivation or that had been cultivated but was lying fallow, and such rights passed from father to son. Girling (1960) notes that as late as 1950 there was still no system of individual land tenure in Acholi; however, such tenure has become increasingly common since independence. In Changing Uganda: The Dilemmas of Structural Adjustment and Revolutionary Change, edited by Holger B. Hansen and Michael Twaddle, 162-177. [25], Some of the groups in Acholi, like the UPDA, detested the Museveni regime because it had overthrown the government in which they served. The Acholi were considered a martial people by the British, and many joined the military. Traditionally, lineage heads and elders were the most knowledgeable aboutand involved withthe lineage and chiefdom jogi, although rwodi also had a role to play in ceremonies involving the latter. The conflict", UGANDA: 1,000 displaced die every week in war-torn north - report | Uganda | Refugees/IDPs, UGANDA/DRC: OPERATION RUDIA II UPDATE 2009-06-29, "The Anguish of Northern Uganda - Section 1 - Uganda", Sample of written Acholi from the Language Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Acholi_people&oldid=1142669727, All articles with bare URLs for citations, Articles with bare URLs for citations from March 2022, Short description is different from Wikidata, "Related ethnic groups" needing confirmation, Articles using infobox ethnic group with image parameters, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0. Political organizations are those engaged in political activities (e.g., lobbying, community organizing, campaign advertising, etc.) The Acholi, a Nilotic Lwo-speaking ethnic group, live predominantly in the central region of northern Uganda, an space collectively named to known as Acholiland. Idi Amin was also from north Uganda, but was of the Kakwa people. "At Home in the Village: Growing Up in Acholi." It has similarity with Alur, Padhola language, and other Luo languages in South Sudan Shilluk, Anuak,Pari, Balanda, Boor, Thuri. the northern regions, this relationship changed.