Acholi Culture: The Music, Dance and Traditions of Northern Uganda

Bwola is the royal dance of the Acholi people and one of the most important ceremonial performing arts of northern Uganda. UNESCO recognition: Bwola was inscribed on the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2014 — only the second Ugandan cultural practice to receive this recognition after bark cloth production. The dance format: Bwola is performed in a circle around the rwot (chief) who sits at the centre; male dancers carry decorated drums and wear feather headdresses of guinea fowl and ostrich feathers; the dancing is continuous and highly coordinated; the drumming is complex, with multiple simultaneous rhythms from drums of different sizes. When it is performed: Bwola is performed at the installation of a new chief, at major community celebrations, at the return of war parties, and at funerals of senior figures; it is a statement of community cohesion and of the chief’s central role in community life. The LRA disruption: the LRA insurgency killed, abducted, and displaced Acholi community leaders including many traditional chiefs and cultural custodians; the Bwola tradition was severely disrupted; the post-2006 revival has been supported by cultural institutions and by the returned displaced population who maintained the tradition in IDP camps through the conflict.

Larakaraka is the Acholi courtship dance and one of the most visually spectacular and socially significant performing arts traditions of northern Uganda. The format: Larakaraka involves two lines of dancers — one of young men, one of young women — facing each other; the dancers perform in competitive sequence, with individual dancers stepping out to display their skill, beauty, and energy; the audience observes and appreciates. The courtship function: larakaraka is simultaneously a performance and a matchmaking event; young people display themselves to potential partners and to the community that will assess their suitability as spouses; a girl who dances particularly well will attract attention from families seeking brides for their sons. The music: larakaraka is accompanied by specific drumming and by singing in Acholi; the songs for larakaraka reference the qualities the community values in young men and women — strength, beauty, generosity, and dancing ability. Contemporary larakaraka: larakaraka is performed at weddings, at cultural festivals, and increasingly as a cultural tourism performance in Gulu town and at lodges in northern Uganda.

The Lord’s Resistance Army insurgency (1986-2006) was the most catastrophic event in modern Acholi cultural history and its effects on cultural practice were profound and lasting. The displacement: at the peak of the conflict (2002-2006), approximately 1.8 million Acholi people lived in internally displaced person (IDP) camps in a forced resettlement policy (“protected villages”) designed to separate the civilian population from LRA fighters; this uprooting broke the village-based cultural transmission system where elders taught young people dance, song, and custom. Cultural loss: specific clans, specific chiefs, specific knowledge-holders were killed or abducted; entire bodies of oral knowledge — lineage genealogies, specific song cycles, healing knowledge — were lost with individual deaths. The recovery: since the return from camps (2006-2012), Acholi cultural organisations (Ker Kwaro Acholi — the Acholi cultural institution — and NGOs including Gulu-based arts organisations) have invested in cultural revival; Bwola troupes have reformed; cultural festivals have restarted; a new generation is learning practices that were nearly lost. The residual trauma: the cultural recovery cannot recover the specific individuals who carried unique knowledge; what has been recovered is the surviving portion of a once-richer tradition.

Gulu town has developed a remarkable contemporary arts scene in the post-conflict period that blends Acholi traditional culture with contemporary African performance and visual arts. Gulu town: the regional capital of the Acholi sub-region; approximately 200,000 people; a 4-5 hour drive north of Kampala on the Kampala-Gulu highway; the town has transformed from a conflict-scarred administrative centre to a visible arts hub. GUSCO (Gulu Support the Children Organisation): one of the pioneering post-conflict rehabilitation organisations that used music and dance therapy to reintegrate LRA-abducted children; their cultural programme contributed significantly to the post-conflict arts revival. Theatre La Bonheur: a Gulu-based theatre and arts organisation producing contemporary drama that engages with the LRA conflict, displacement, and recovery themes. Visual arts: Gulu has a growing community of visual artists who have gained national and international exhibition; several working in materials associated with conflict — bullet casings, IDP camp debris — as a form of post-conflict witness. For visitors: a day in Gulu on the way north is a meaningful addition to any Uganda itinerary that includes Murchison Falls or the northern parks.

The Acholi cultural tradition extends beyond the most visible dance forms to encompass a rich material and spiritual culture. Orak (hunting songs): the Acholi hunting tradition produced a specific song form that recorded specific hunts with precise geographic and animal detail; the orak singer was a cultural historian as much as a musician; the songs were historically sung at the return from a successful hunt and at celebrations; they survive in modified form in contemporary Acholi music. Praise poetry (olo): Acholi chiefs and warriors had personal praise singers who composed and performed praise poetry recording their subject’s deeds; this is analogous to the griot tradition of West Africa. The Acholi rwot (chief) institution: the Ker Kwaro Acholi (the cultural institution of the Acholi people) headed by a paramount chief (rwot) is the living institutional expression of Acholi political and cultural identity; it survived the LRA period and has been active in post-conflict cultural revival. Mato oput (reconciliation ceremony): the Acholi reconciliation ceremony is one of Uganda’s most sophisticated traditional justice mechanisms; it involves the sharing of a bitter herb drink between perpetrator and victim clans as a symbolic acceptance of restored relationship; it has been studied extensively as a model for post-conflict transitional justice.