in motion complex processes of accommodation and adjustment in the Acholi cosmology (Behrend 1999, 22; Harlacher 2009, 40). As a result, the majority of Acholi identify today as Christians, but the local values and cultural understandings keep shaping the interpretations of Christian teachings (Harlacher 2009, 40). However, before I move on to examine the origins of Christianity in Acholiland, I would like to draw attention to researcher Henni Alava’s (2017, 52) notion that religious syncretism is a normatively laden analytical term as all religions which operate within any cultural settings are by definition syncretistic whether we are discussing the Acholi ‘clan practice’ or Christianity in its different forms. This is why I abstain from using the term ‘religious syncretism’ to express the manner in which the two originally separate world views – one imported by the European Christian missionaries and the other predating colonisation – have over time become fused and embedded in the contemporary Acholi world view, which in turn has blurred the ontological boundaries between the two practices in the sphere of healing. In order to understand these processes, we need to look at the language with which Christianity and its concepts were first introduced to the Acholi. The missionaries who were sent to proselytise the Acholi people had to find appropriate Acholi Luo terms to equate with the Christian concepts to be able to preach about them. This posed a problem with the Acholi who did not have a clear-cut concept for an omnipotent deity equal to how God is understood in Christianity. Instead, the Acholi cosmology acknowledged the existence of plural jogi. However, the missionaries insisted upon selecting a supreme being from among the jogi to be promoted as the equivalent of Christian God. Therefore, and apparently partly because of a mistake in translation, the term (jok) Lubanga (also Rubanga) – a not-so-benevolent jok responsible for spinal tuberculosis – was selected to represent God, and the other jogi were reserved to represent Satan in Christian theology by the name of jogi satani to complicate matters even further (Alava 2017, 53–54; Behrend 1999, 22).
In a similar manner, the Holy Spirit became known in Acholi Luo language by the concept of tipu maleng, which stood for both the third person of the Trinity and the local notions of benevolent, ‘clean’ spirits, which muddled the connections between Christianity and the pre-Christian Acholi practices further, as Allen (2006, 153) notes (see also Behrend 1999, 23). Satan, on the other hand, became known as tipu marac (bad spirit), a term
which also encompassed cen (Allen 2006, 33). Nowadays, there are various ways to discuss the Christian God and the benevolent Acholi spirits which include concepts such as tipu maleng, jogi maber (good spirits), and malaika (angels). Furthermore, to distinguish between the negative cosmological forces – Satan, demons, and evil spirits – words like tipu or jogi marac (bad spirits), satani, cen, and so forth are used often interchangeably (Allen 2006, 33).
This is something that puzzled me during my fieldwork, as in my mind the Acholi spirits and Christian cosmology still belonged to separate ontological categories. However, during the interviews with my formerly abducted research participants, I noticed that they sought readily help for their psychological ailments from both the local and Christian belief systems even when it contradicted their own religious affiliations. I found it extremely intriguing when someone who identified as a staunch Christian was happy to seek help for her demons from the ajwaki or for his cen possession from the PC/C church, especially as the symptoms were often translated to me simply with the all-encompassing term ‘evil spirits’. I relentlessly asked questions from Isaac about the Acholi cosmology, as he had assumed the role of my patient teacher in things that most Acholi learn already as children. He recounted me a story about the cen and Christian God that, according to him, is taught to most Acholi already in childhood, which is not surprising considering the moral of the story. Isaac’s story goes as follows:
When we were young, this doctrine has been passing around that God created the earth. But before he created the earth, he had given birth to two sons. One was called Satan, one was Jesus Christ – not any other Jesus, but Jesus Christ. But later, Satan was a very bad child. He used to misbehave around. Just like any other parent, if you have a child who is too cunning and he doesn’t listen, you send him away from home. In our tradition, we [Acholi] always send those who misbehave and cause harm to other people to go off home and to look where they can stay. Now, Satan was sent to come back to earth while God and Jesus Christ were in heaven. Jesus was left there, and Satan came back to the earth. Now up to today he still disturbs people. [...] Satan is now the cen. We believe that he is the cen – and Jesus Christ can be like the jok.
In my view, this story is a good example of how deeply the notions of Christianity and Acholi cosmology have intertwined into each other over time, especially when this story is told in Acholi Luo and the words used for Satan, Jesus, and God can be translated and conceptualised in multiple ways. No wonder then that my research participants did not
see any contradiction in their search for healing from different instances. As Harlacher (2009, 40) remarks in his PhD dissertation on trauma in Acholiland, when one examines the concepts of ‘traditional’ Acholi cosmology today, one is inevitably confronted with limits of understanding that arise from the long period of interaction and mutual influence of ‘traditional’ and Christian beliefs. This is why I think that narrowing down the scope of this study to one or the other of these two cosmologies would have been somewhat artificial.
Victor and Porter (2017, 590–591) help us understand the puzzle of the evil Christian and Acholi spirits further in the context of trauma and healing with their conceptualisation of the idiom ‘dirty things’ – or ajwani – an umbrella term used by the Acholi for all “stuff of a polluted cosmos”. This means that ajwani encompasses all forms of cosmological transgressions brought forward by the breaking of taboos or deviance from normative behaviour by tying together satani, demons, and cen as well as other agents of misfortune (ibid., 594). The ajwani is a useful term as in it manifests the uncertainty and doubt felt by many sufferers about the cosmological origins and nature of their afflictions which, despite all ambiguity, demand actions to overcome them (ibid., 595). The actions and remedies chosen are in turn affected by the sufferer’s personal conviction, subjective experience of the cause of the illness, the consulted cosmological expert’s (ajwaka or pastor) views on the matter as well as the close relationships’ – especially parents’ and spouses’ – influence and opinions on the best way forward (ibid., 599).
This is the case with my research participants as well since they needed to navigate the wishes and demands of others before they could engage in any form of treatment to find out which cosmological forces were bothering them. I return to these matters in chapters 4 and 5, but before that, I will further examine the theoretical framework of trauma and subjectivity through the three-dimensional concept of inner subjectivity, structural subjugation, and intersubjective relations and explain what I mean when I discuss war trauma or psychological after-effects of war experienced by my research participants. The anthropological study of trauma has shown that it is not a clear-cut term, but instead, trauma encompasses a plethora of different sociopolitically, historically, and culturally embedded meanings which need to be taken into account when using the term for research purposes. I will next turn to these topics.