![Sample our Area Studies journals, sign in here to start your access, latest two full volumes FREE to you for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5922/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Area-Studies.jpg"})
Abstract
Using a range of oral and documentary sources, this article presents a detailed account of how Karamojong traditions have varied over time according to historical contingencies, while retaining a strong commitment to communal will even when this runs counter to perceived global trends. The very dominance of the global discourses surrounding issues of development in the Karamojong country may sometimes drown out local voices and can seem to relegate African agency to a matter of little importance. Despite this appearance of globalizing trends, African agency in Karamojong does in fact remain robustly active in a variety of important social contracts. In marriage, for instance, while the girl's freedom of choice has in some senses reduced, in others it can recently be shown to have increased; similarly, the quantity of bridewealth paid or pledged upon marriage has undergone fluctuations in the recent past, with implications for social relations. In warriorhood, too, new weapons have been acquired in recent times but the gun has long been part of the pastoralist arsenal for Karamojong. It is shown here that the aim and rôle of raiding have changed little over time, and the associated rituals have not atrophied with any secularisation due to the possession of Western technology. The power of Karamojong elders has been challenged by that of government administration and by the cyclical disequilibria of the age-class system, but traditional politics remain more sovereign than the state. African institutions have their history, too, and while it is a history of change it is not necessarily a history of decline.
Notes
1. Karamojong is used as a generic term for the dominant plains tribes of Karamoja: 
, Jie, and Karimojong, who all share a significant degree of original and cultural, if not political, unity. Raiding repeatedly breaks out these and between Karimojong territorial sections.
2. Mkutu, ‘Pastoralism and Conflict’, 7.
3. A series of essays presented at a session of the Association of Social Anthropologists’ conference on ‘New Directions in Social Anthropology’, Oxford, July 1973, was subtitled ‘The Social Anthropology of Tradition’: see CitationJain ed., Text and Context. The problem comes when traditions are presumed to be fixed.
4. Ranger, ‘The Invention of Tradition Revisited’.
5. See CitationConnerton, How Societies Remember; CitationJames, The Ceremonial Animal, 102–118.
6. Educated commentators may easily succumb to the nostalgia of older informants, taking their memory as established history. Gray, having cited other developmentalists, claims that ‘[a]utomatic weapons assuredly are responsible for the lethality of modern Karimojong violence’: Gray, ‘A Memory of Loss’, 407. Raiding with automatic weapons is a ‘capricious driver’ and has a ‘negative impact’ on ‘human welfare’: CitationGray et al . eds, ‘Cattle Raiding, Cultural Survival’, 22.
7. Knighton, ‘Karamojong: Criminals or Warriors?’
8. Gray, ‘A Memory of Loss’, 402.
9. As it was put to me by a development worker in Moroto in 1985, the Karamojong have in the adoption of modern weapons forfeited the right to be respected for their traditions. Modernity can do with them what it wills.
10. CitationHastrup, Other Histories, 4.
11. CitationHutchinson, Nuer Dilemmas.
12. Hutchinson, ‘Rising Divorce among the Nuer’.
13. Hutchinson, Nuer Dilemmas, 27, 107f., 123, 157, 345.
14. Even Hastrup still held ‘that contemporary event registration is always the baseline’: Hastrup, Other Histories, 10.
15. Gulliver, The Family Herds; Dyson-Hudson, Karimojong Politics; CitationLamphear, Traditional History of the Jie.
16. For instance CitationBroch-Due shows that Gulliver undervalued women in his account of the Turkana, but this does not render all his data useless: Broch-Due, ‘The Fertility of Houses and Herds’.
17. Mirzeler and Young, ‘Pastoral Politics’; Gray, ‘A Memory of Loss’.
18. Okudi, ‘Pastoral Crisis’.
19. Mirzeler and Young, ‘Pastoral Politics’, 424.
20. Locap, ‘Marriage and Bride Price’, MS (c.1989), printed in Knighton, ‘Christian Enculturation’, 79; Novelli, Karimojong Traditional Religion, .235; also interviews P5 and J23.
21. Persse, ‘Ethnological Notes’, 114; Dyson-Hudson, Karimojong Politics, 134. The Mogos are noted here as having a birthwealth of only 20 smallstock, which again indicates their distinct origin.
22. Interview P5.
23. Interview D7.
24. Interview D11.
25. CitationMacdonald, ‘Journeys to the North’, 137.
26. CitationPersse, ‘Ethnological Notes’, 111.
27. CitationWayland, ‘Preliminary Studies’, 224.
28. CitationClark, ‘Death and Burial Ceremonies’, 75; Dyson-Hudson, ‘Marriage Economy’, 48.
29. Interview J7.
30. CitationUNDP, ‘Uganda Census’, 2001.
31. Interview P5.
32. Clark, ‘A Karamojong Wedding’, 177; Gulliver, Family Herds, 229; CitationDocherty, ‘The Karamojong and the Suk’, 31; CitationBataringaya, Report of the Karamoja Security Committee, 11; CitationDyson-Hudson, ‘Marriage Economy’, 46f.; CitationBrasnett, ‘Basic Administration’, 25.
33. Locap, ‘Marriage and Bride Price’, in Knighton, ‘Christian Enculturation’.
34. Interview J22.
35. Interviews D1 and J20.
36. Interview J7.
37. Hastrup, Other Histories, 3.
38. Interview J7.
39. Interview M2.
40. Interview P5.
41. Interview P5.
42. CitationPaget Wilkes ed., Lokong, 8; Docherty, ‘The Karamojong and the Suk’, 33. See also Dyson-Hudson, ‘The Karamojong and the Suk’, 177; CitationGourlay, ‘Studies in Karimojong Musical Culture’, 144.
43. Interviews J13 and P11.
44. Interview P11.
45. Tornay, ‘Un Système Générationnel’, 866ff.
46. J. R. J. Rowland, ‘Jie Ritual’, mimeo (1983), Rhodes House Library, Oxford (hereafter RHO), 9.
47. e- is the masculine gender marker, -ta- is a strong causative infix in the Karamojong verb, while –u denotes an abstract noun. Thus e-ta-u is the quality that causes a person to be, so is that which is lost at death. As with animals, this life-force is not annihilated at death, but released with cosmic potential.
48. Interview P5.
49. Rowland, ‘Jie Ritual’, 9.
50. CitationMarshall Thomas, Warrior Herdsmen, 119.
51. Knighton, ‘Christian Enculturation’, I, 133f.
52. CitationNovelli, Karimojong Traditional Religion, 279, gives details of Karimojong cuts. Ngamunyen on oxen are there to be seen today.
53. Alwyn, ‘Gun for Sale’, BBC television programme broadcast 22 January 1998, as part of the series ‘Under the Sun’.
54. Novelli, Karimojong Traditional Religion, 279; Macdonald, ‘Notes on the Ethnology’, 236. Bell's first journey was in 1902, related in Wanderings of an Elephant Hunter, 37; also Entebbe Archives (hereafter EA) 19/1911 Jackson to Secretary of State for the Colonies, 4 July 1911. P. H. G. Powell-Cotton's first journey was in 1903: see his In Unknown Africa, 365. The Karamojong's neighbours to the south, the Southern Nilotic Sabawot cut a 2.5–3 inch scar on one side of the chest or other.
55. Yet see Knighton, ‘Christian Enculturation’,I, 54–226.
56. CitationGray, ‘A Memory of Loss’; Gray et al., ‘Cattle Raiding’; Mkutu, Pastoral Conflict.
57. CitationKnighton, ‘Christian Enculturation’,I, 85–99, 143.
58. CitationBollig, ‘Staging Social Structures’, 360.
59. CitationWeatherby, ‘Intertribal Warfare on Mount Elgon’, 200.
60. Macdonald, ‘Journeys to the North’, 136f.
61. Harry Johnston quoted in CitationBarber, Imperial Frontier, 57.
62. Knighton, ‘Christian Enculturation’,I, 122–148.
63. CitationBell, Wanderings, 36; also by Bell, Karamojo Safari, 111. Bell was a rare eye-witness writer in Karamoja 1902–09, and Lamphear, Traditional History, 243, 248, makes use of him, although he appears to confuse his books, safaris, and dates, ibid., 49, 236n, 252, 254f. A letter of Bell's gives detailed information of Swahili activities to government; RHO MSS.Afr.s.1018 Bell to Ormsby 28.2.06. Frederick Jackson, the East African veteran and Governor of Uganda, found him more credible than his own police report, and there is no need to doubt Bell's testimony here. In fact Jackson corroborates the massacre of Chambi bin Musa's caravan; EA 19/1911 Jackson to Secretary of State for the Colonies, 4 November 1911. The caravans, at least of Coutlis and Simba, undertook punitive expeditions for personal grievances; others combined with a tribe to raided ivory and cattle, or slaves and traded guns. Caravans went north regularly from the base, where Shundi alone kept a harem of over 80 women, bearing 120 rifles and 3–4,000 rounds of ammunition: see Barber, Imperial Frontier, 91–102.
64. CitationBarber, ‘The Moving Frontier’, 34.
65. CitationOba, Ecological Factors, 9.
66. Dyson-Hudson, Karimojong Politics, 247–249.
67. Bataringaya, Report, 37.
68. Lamphear, ‘The Evolution of Ateker’, 80.
69. Interview J23.
70. Interview J20.
71. New Vision (Kampala), 22 June 2000.
72. The East African (Kampala), 16 February 2000. I was living among the Pian at the time, and have no reason to doubt the unusually high mortality.
73. The Monitor (Kampala), 30 March 2000.
74. The Monitor (Kampala), 5 April 2000. The number of dead will have been given by the army to the press, and is not likely to be an overestimate, because of the embarrassment caused.
75. Gray, ‘A Memory of Loss’, 401.
76. Knighton, ‘Christian Enculturation’,I, 121–174; CitationGarretson, ‘Vicious Cycles’.
77. Interview D10.
78. Interview D3.
79. ‘The tribe has a great reputation as warriors … as this is a warlike tribe and the women are allowed a voice in matrimonial arrangements, it is more or less a custom that a young man must distinguish himself in war before marrying’: Macdonald, ‘Notes’, 234f.
80. Hussein et al., ‘Increasing Violent Conflict’, 413.
81. Gray, ‘A Memory of Loss’, 402; Oxfam, ‘Conflict's Children’, 25. Disembowelling pregnant women seems no more likely in the past than now. It happens rarely, being motivated by a rage to reduce the production of more enemies to raid one's own herds. At this point, violence is decidedly ethnic.
82. Okudi, ‘Pastoral Crisis’; CitationBelshaw and Malinga, ‘The Kalashnikov Economies’; CitationGalaty, ‘Pastoralists and Forced Migration’.
83. CitationMkutu, Pastoral Conflict, 9.
84. The proportions are derived from the figures in Wayland, ‘Preliminary Studies’, 222–227. Paget Wilkes also attests that the practice was long established at the time: Lokong, 11.
85. Karamojong women are hardly shy and can express themselves forcibly, even in a raid by the Sabawot in 1909: ‘Four Karamojong were called and then the women came after them crying, and two of them were killed’: Weatherby, ‘Intertribal Warfare’, 211. Sabawot women had to defend themselves when raiders came to their homes with bow and arrows.
86. CitationBell, Karamojo Safari, 38.
87. RHO MSS.Afr.s.1018 Bell to Ormsby, 28 February 1906.
88. Lamphear, Traditional History, 244.
89. Paget Wilkes, Lokong, 9.
90. Both missionaries and District Commissioners were known to join in traditional dancing there: interview M1.
91. Dyson-Hudson, Karimojong Politics, 247.
92. CitationGulliver, ‘Jie Marriage’, 155.
93. Interview J23.
94. ‘Raider’ is a much more accurate popular term than rustler, which infers that cattle are quietly stolen with no-one really noticing. The good herder is always aware of loss, and is frequently in the way of the raiders, hence the immediate danger to his person.
95. Mirzeler and Young, ‘Pastoral Politics’, 419.
96. Mirzeler and Young, ‘Pastoral Politics’, 426.
97. Mirzeler and Young, ‘Pastoral Politics’, 419.
98. Interview P5.
99. Exemplifying what became a strong feature of Turkana politics, the Turkana-born alomar leader in Najie, Apaloris (master of the leopard), was an emuron, who made decisions on moving camp and finding grazing based on his reading of the intestines of sacrificial oxen; Banks, 3 April 1990, p.1f., letter.
100. Macdonald, ‘Journeys to the North’, 137.
101. Banks, 3 April 1990, 2, letter.
102. Docherty, ‘The Karamojong and the Suk’, 40.
103. Knighton, ‘Karamojong’; Gray, ‘A Memory of Loss’, 408.
104. Interview J22.
105. Interviews D1, J13 and J22.
106. One diligent Sub-County Chief said, ‘Government fears local custom. Court is rare’: interview J8.
107. Interview J31.
108. Gulliver, ‘Jie Marriage’, 155.
109. Interview P5.
110. Akujů is best translated as the word God as popularly used. The final vowel is breathed, not voiced. See Knighton, ‘Christian Enculturation’, I, pp. 247–256; also Knighton, ‘The Meaning of God’.
111. 19 June 1990, letter.
112. Interview J31.
113. Interview P5.
114. Interview P3.
115. Interview P5.
116. Dyson-Hudson, Karimojong Politics, 188, 198f.
117. Dyson-Hudson, Karimojong Politics, 199.
118. Docherty, ‘The Karamojong and the Suk’, 40.
119. Interview D6.
120. Interview J31.
121. Marshall Thomas, Warrior Herdsmen, 146.
122. Gulliver, Family Herds, 155.
123. Interview P3. The qualification may vary among the Karamojong, but it does signify a pastoralist identity.
124. Interview P3. The qualification may vary among the Karamojong, but it does signify a pastoralist identity.
125. Novelli, Karimojong Traditional Religion, 328.
126. Interview P5.
127. Interviews N1 and P7; Docherty, ‘The Karamojong and the Suk’, 33f.; Knighton, ‘How Far Does the Western Rationality of Economics’.
128. The raiders would prefer to be able to keep the cattle, and would do so without government interference. It is not the same business as much cattle-raiding in the southern half of Kenya. ‘The Kuria have been in it for the money for 80 years’: CitationFleisher, ‘Cattle Raiding’, 241.
129. Oxfam, ‘Conflict's Children’, 35.
130. The Monitor (Kampala), 24 October 1999.
131. This is my translation of Pellerino's informant: Novelli, Karimojong Traditional Religion, 311 n.13.
132. Mirzeler and Young, ‘Pastoral Politics’, 423.
133. Mirzeler and Young, ‘Pastoral Polotics’, 424.
134. Marshall Thomas, Warrior Herdsmen, 61.
135. Knighton, ‘The State as Raider’ and The Vitality of Karamojong Religion.
136. Radcliffe-Brown and Forde, African Systems of Kinship, 2. Radcliffe-Brown (1881–1955) was the first President of the Association of Anthropologists. In 1972, lectures after his name were established by the Association of Social Anthropologists. Neville Dyson-Hudson was a recipient of his legacy at Oxford.