Alice Lakwena and the Holy Spirits. Heike Behrend
Even under Obote, a process set in that would prove extremely significant for the later history of Uganda: the militarization of politics. During the colonial period, the British had actually managed to demilitarize Uganda (Mazrui, 1975:55ff.) and to reduce, or even end, the endemic intra- and inter-ethnic wars. But already under Obote, with the destruction of the palace of the Kabaka (see, for example, Karugire, 1988:49), the military became an instrument of domestic politics, until finally Amin set up the first of a series of military dictatorships.
In January 1986, when Museveni violently seized power, many Acholi soldiers of the former government’s army fled to their homeland in the North. There, as ‘internal strangers’ (Werbner, 1989:236), they caused unrest and conflict; only a few of them managed to reintegrate themselves into peasant life. The Holy Spirit Movement, which incorporated many of these ‘unemployed’ soldiers, can thus also be seen as an attempt to rehabilitate soldiers who had become internal strangers and to regain participation in the central power.
Notes
1. It would be better if I were to speak, not of the Acholi culture, but, like the Comaroffs, of a ‘cultural field’ of the Acholi (Comaroff and Comaroff, 1991:27), in order to make it clear that we are dealing not with a homogeneous unit neatly shut off from the outside, but with something constantly moving, a contradictory field hosting a diversity of ‘cultures’ within itself. But since the Acholi themselves have meanwhile adopted the old concept of culture and speak of an Acholi culture, which they define in opposition to other cultures, I have retained the term.
2. The Lango or Langi are neighbours of the Acholi and, like them, speak a Lwo language (a subdivision of the Nilotic language group).
3. In a competition carried out by the colonial government in 1953, one participant and prizewinner wrote on the origin of the Acholi chiefdom: ‘A long time ago, the various Acholi clans roamed from place to place. They were nomads and did not care who the land belonged to. They hunted. One day they followed an antelope, which escaped from them along with a herd of cattle. But the hunters didn’t give up, and they managed to surround and catch the herd of cattle. They divided them among themselves, making cattle the property of humans for the first time. But among these hunters was a man who could not run fast enough and who had remained behind on top of a termite nest. Since he couldn’t claim any cattle for himself, he took the land as his property and told the others: “You have taken the cattle, I take the land, and from now on your cattle will graze on my land.” One of the men answered, “Truly, the land belongs to you, and we will share the cattle with you. You shall receive half the cattle from each of us.” In this way, the owner of the land grew rich and thus became the rwot’ (Bere, 1955:49).
4. The sources (for example Girling, 1960:125ff.; Okot p’Bitek, 1980:10ff; Atkinson, 1984:92ff.) provide no unambiguous description of the relationship between the various chiefdoms in Acholi and the Kingdom of Bunyoro. Some reports speak of an almost feudal dependency, others merely of ritual recognition.
5. On the history of the Nubians, see Kokole, 1985.
6. On Awich, see the biography by Reuben S. Anywar, an Acholi ethnographer and historian (1948).
7. On the history of the Acholi in the colonial period, see Dwyer (1972).
8. There are fragments of evidence showing how, in Uganda’s history, the stereotype of the warlike Nilotics arose in contrast to that of the peaceful Bantu peasants. The establishment of the one stereotype produced the other like a mirror. Both entered into scholarly discourse and became part of mute practices (Habermas, 1985:284) that entered that discourse in turn. Thus, the Annual Report of 1905 maintained that it was almost impossible to recruit soldiers in Acholi because the chiefs did not want to lose the service of their men.
The Annual Report of the Northern Province of 1911–12 notes: ‘Experience, when circumstances recently necessitated our using Acholi as native levies, has proved that the Acholi is not a brave man; but when drilled and disciplined, and a rifle on his shoulder, he may subsequently prove of use . . . I would advocate his being drafted to any unit other than those that may be stationed in Acholi country, as from experience I know the Acholi are unreliable when it comes to police measures to be taken against their own kith and kin. The Acholi youth has a wonderful ear for martial music.’ (26; emphasis added). Here ‘the Acholi’ is not yet brave, but at least he already likes to listen to martial music.
In 1916, a Northern Recruiting Depot was established in Gulu to recruit soldiers for the King’s African Rifles. In July 1916, 113 soldiers were recruited from the whole district and hundreds of others who volunteered were turned down (Northern Province Monthly Report, July 1916). In May 1917, 400 KAR recruits left Gulu; thereafter, due to a meningitis epidemic, the depot was transferred from Gulu to Arua and men were recruited less from Gulu than from Kitgum, called Chua at the time, and from the West Nile District. In 1918, only a few isolated Acholi were recruited from Gulu on 18 April, 2 May, and 12 July; but these were mustered out again due to chickenpox.
In 1919 and 1920, the KAR soldiers who had fought in and survived the First World War returned to Acholi; trade boomed due to the money they brought back with them, for ‘large sums have been paid as war gratuities to the natives of the district who served during the Great War in the KAR’.
In the 1911–12 Report, ‘the future possible utility of the Acholi as material for police’ is noted.
At the beginning of the Second World War, the Annual Reports of the Provincial Commissioners on Native Administration 1939–46 noted: ‘Although in all Districts the native rulers, governments and chiefs and people all immediately expressed their loyalties to the Empire and their willingness to help in any way possible, it was the able-bodied men of the Nilotic area who put this into practical effect by coming forward in large numbers as recruits for essentially fighting units of the Army.’
And in 1946 it was determined that the Nilotics were ‘a more fighting race’, although in fact the number of men taken into the army was higher for the Bantu region than for the Nilotic area. While the Bantu, with a population of about 1,075,000, provided about 20,000 men, the Nilotes, with 777,000, provided only 13,000.
Three
The Crisis 1
At particular times, single individuals are able to gain a certain freedom, detachment, or separation from hitherto dominant ideas and practices. Ardener calls such times ‘periods of singularity’ (1989:148). They are characterized by paradigm shifts and epistemological fragmentation. At such times, prophets become noticeable, ‘because a category for the registration of the condition then becomes a necessity’ (ibid). Prophets appear at other times as well, but find no, or only limited, recognition; they remain silent.
This chapter elaborates on some characteristics of the ‘period of singularity’ that led to the emergence of the Holy Spirit Movement. First it describes the political history that provided the preconditions for the catastrophic situation in Acholi, and thus for the emergence of the HSM. Then – in contrast – it presents two discourses which attempt to explain the misfortunes and violence in northern Uganda from a local perspective. In a sense, they are local crisis theories. At the heart of the first are ideas of witchcraft that pin the blame for the misfortunes on relatives or neighbours. At the centre of the second, carried on primarily by the elders, are ideas of purity and impurity, the latter originating in violations of the moral order.
The third part of the chapter relates a story which became the official myth of the origin of the Holy Spirit Movement. In this ‘Story of the Journey to Paraa’, Alice – or rather the spirit Lakwena,2 who took possession of Alice – describes the crisis in Acholi. Reinhart Koselleck has elucidated in an essay the semantic field of the term ‘crisis’ (1982:617ff.), including its juridical, theological, and medical usage. In the story of the journey to Paraa, crisis is used primarily in its juridical meaning, as a decision in the sense of administering justice and judging, in a manner properly termed critique. In Paraa, Lakwena sat in judgement, like a rwot or chief, over man and nature, handing