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T r i b e 1, p p . 1^9,153; D y s o n - H u d s o n ,o p .c i t . p p .188-91.

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arum organisation and the etogo ceremonies ifas limited both by their very restricted social context (dry-season hunting and funeral ceremonies) and by their narrowly local basis. By contrast the age organisation entailed cooperation over a very wide area, and it was specifically concerned with smoothing

out inter-clan tensions and enjoining high standards of social behaviour. The reasons for its decline are therefore of

special interest.

As was mentioned earlier, the age organisation was already in decline by the time it was finally suppressed by the Baganda and the British. The conciliatory and didactic aspects had been much curtailed, and its functions had by t»riberg's day become almost exclusively ritual and symbolic. The reasons for this decline are not easy to ascertain, but they should probably be seen in the context of what is clearly a crucial aspect of the early evolution of Tango society - the fusion of Lwo and P a r a - N i l o t e s . On this topic Lango tradition is con­

spicuously silent, which is hardly surprising if the recon­

struction offered in the first chapter is correct - that the fusion of Lwo and P a r a —Nilotes was well advanced by the time that the Langi began to colonise their present country. A l ­ though explicit oral evidence is lacking, it is nevertheless possible to infer from the social organisation of other Lwo and Para-Nilotic peoples the broad outlines of adaption and change

among the Langi. The most striking difference bwtween the Lwo

1. According to Crazzolara, the arrival of 'Lango-Teso' groups at the end of the l8th century caused the stable rule of the Lwo to be replaced by conditions of q u a s i - a n a r c h y . This suggestion is made on the assumption that most of Lango country was at that time inhabited by Lwo and Madi and that the easterners were of alien stock. Crazzolara, 'Notes on the Lango-Omiru'

p p .2 0 0-0 1.

xl4

and the Para-Nilotes lies in the respective importance of* clans and age groups as the bases of social organisation. Among the Lwo, corporate age groups are not nearly so important as the segmentary lineage structure. Among the Central Para-Nilotes of the 'Karimojong Cluster' on the other hand, links between clansmen have little practical significance compared with the all-embracing age organisation.'*'

The evolution of Lango society during the 1 9th century can up to a point be interpreted in terms of the interplay between these two principles, corresponding to the respective contri­

butions of Lwo'and Iseera. So far as the age organisation;is concerned, it would of course be very misleading to assume an identity of social organisation between the Iseera and the present-day peoples of the 'Karimojong Cluster'. Since the latter were so heavily infiltrated by the pastoral Para-Nilotes from Koten and M a g o s , while the Iseera who migrated to the west were hardly affected at all, a substantial discrepancy is more likely. 2 Nevertheless, whatever the ultimate derivation of the Lango age system may have been, it certainly did not lie with

the Lwo. The age organisation is most easily explained as the distinctive contribution of the Iseera. Its decline can be attributed to the westward migration of the Langi, which not only took them further away from Para-Nilotic influence, but also entailed the absorption of additional Lwo groups already resident in Lango, to w hom the age organisation was quite alien.

1. For the limited role of clans in these societies, see D y s o n - H u d s o n ,o p .c i t . p p .87“ 9 0 ; P . H . G u l l i v e r , The Family Herds

(London,1955),pp* 76-77,212 (for Jie and T u r k a n a ) . Cf also L a w r a n c e ,o p .c i t . p p .5^-55 (for Teso).

2. J .E .L a m p h e a r , 'The Traditional History of the Jie of Uganda unpublished PhD thesis, London U n i v e r s i t y ,1972, p . 250.

A similar perspective can be brought to bear upon the problem of the fragmented lineage structure found in 1 9th cen­

tury Lango. By the end of the century, clans and lineages were certainly the most important social groups in Lango - much more so than among the Para-Nilotic peoples to the east. But lineage organisation in Lango was far removed from the segmentary sys­

tems found among the Kenya Luo and the Alur. It provided no social framework above the level of the clan section living in a handful of adjacent villages. As Tarantino has pointed out, the cohesion of the clan in Lango was much less than among other Lwo-speaking peoples, its readiness to break up into separate exogamous units being quite uncharacteristic of the Lwo."*' This marked 'dilution* of Lwo culture can be seen as a consequence of the combination of Lwo and Iseera groups, in the same way that the diminishing vigour of the age organisation can.

Taking into account the ethnic composition of the Lango people, the distinctive aggregate of social institutions found

in 1 9th century Lango readily lends itself to explanation along these lines. But the danger of generalisation at this level is that it may imply a greater degree of homogeneity in Lango

society than was actually the case. In concluding this survey of social groups in 1 9th century Lango, it is more enlightening to stress the diversity on the ground, than to construct a valid model for the tvhole society. This diversity is striking in two ways. Firstly, localised clan sections varied considerably in size and cohesion. A broad distinction could be drawn between east and west, with the east tending towards greater fragmenta­

tion. North of the Moroto river, for example, the sparse

1. A.Tarantino, 'The Origin of the Lango', Uganda J l . 10

(1946), p . 15. -

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population at the end of the century was distributed among a multitude of clans, and this fragmentation was reflected in the small size of the villages there. 1 Near the Nile-Toci confluence on the other hand, the Jo Arak of Aber were the largest clan

section in Lango; their members were spread over, at least seven large villages, and their political organisation in some ways approximated to the hereditary clan chiefdoms of the Acholi. 2

In the second place, there was a comparable variation in the strength of the age organisation, though here the continuum followed a north-south, rather than an east-west axis. When Driberg studied the question during the first decade of colonial rule, he found that the further south he travelled in Lango, the more entrenched ewor ceremonies appeared to b e , while in

'Z

the north-west they were not practised at all. The existence of these variations shows that within Lango society the fusion of Lwo and Iseera was not uniform, but varied according to both local settlement history and geographical position vis-a-vis neighbouring peoples.

The essential elements of social organisation common to all Lango during the 1 9th century were those described at the beginning of this chapter - the localised clan section, the wang: tic and the village. These were the units which dominated

the outlook of the ordinary Lango. It was at this level that

1. Interviews: Okelo Olet, Festo O d w e , Adonia Owuco, Yosua Odongo Opio, Joseph Orama, Onyanga Ewoi, Ogwel Qkolla. Driberg, entries for 17»2.l8, Moroto Tour Book (1 9 1 8-2 6), LDA.

2. For a full account of pre-colonial Aber, see below, pp * 10(3 “^3*|

3. Driberg, The Lango , pp . 2^3 , 2(t5 ,25^. M y own experience bears out Driberg* s. Of all my Lango informants, those in Aber and Icenie were the most ignorant of the defunct age organisation (even

though their historical knowledge in other respects tended to be above the average for Lango as a whole).