EL VENDEDOR DEBE:

If a person was murdered, the deceased person’s lineage could demand culo kwor (payment of blood feud) from the murderer and his clan to pacify the resultant

rucurucu. Culu kwor also took place if a person who was not a lineage member died in

one’s home – including death from a sickness or a pregnancy-related complication. The host clan was expected to pay kwor to the lineage/clan of the dead person. At the time of the study, respondents explained that lineage leaders uttered the rule of kwor (blood feud) to underline the need to comply with affiliation rules. Respondents explained that the fear of kwor often caused families and their clans to regulate who could live in their homes. Individuals who did not have affiliation to a lineage were often not welcome; the reason a divorced woman often left her offspring with their father’s family. This helped a mother’s family and clan to avoid culo kwor in the event that a death or injury occurred to the children while with them. It did not matter whether death or injury was a result of natural causes.

But it was also possible that both patriclans applied the rule of kwor simply to safeguard their rights to the social and economic assets. Female children are seen as a potential source of bridewealth. Boys could be relied upon by a dying lineage to ensure                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

shows separate demands for nyom (marrying the mother) from that of luk of the mother and luk of the child.

continuity of a family line. But male children could also be seen as a source of tension in families that have large numbers of sons and scarcity of land and cattle. Respondents argued that once they grow into adults, boys were a liability. They would expect to have a share of these resources so they can marry and settle their families.

Once kwor occurs, members of the offending group often share the responsibility of generating the compensation. If they failed to pay, they also jointly face the wrath of the offended. Any compensation paid would ‘belong’ not to the offended person or family, but to the clan (see also Tosh, 1978). The portrayal of ‘common’ ownership of such proceeds however would on the one hand be misleading, and on the other, defeat the purpose of reciprocity as discussed in section 3.4 above.

At least six kwor came to my notice between January and May 2013 in Lango. Clan heads were obliged to use the available radio stations in Lira to mobilise their respective membership for clan gatherings that were aimed at raising compensation to pacify the offended clans. Other clans like the Ocukuru Ogora frequently sent out calls to their youths who had eloped with girls to marry. Marriage, the leaders explained, would prevent the misfortune of culo kwor should a girl die. A similar practice in neighbouring Acholi, also called kwor, was reported to have failed and flared a revenge attack that left fifty four huts torched and 200 people displaced in March 2013.147

The study found that male respondents who honoured luk of children born outside wedlock also linked their compliance to the fear of having to culo kwor (pay compensation for the dead) or face blood feud, should death occur of a mother or her child during pregnancy or at birth.148 They explained that should an unmarried pregnant lover die, her family was liable for compensation of seven herds of cattle by her lover. A similar payment was also exerted separately for her baby should it die. A lover and                                                                                                                

147 _{See The Monitor. 2013. Children miss school over inter clan fights. The Monitor, 25. Available from:}

www. http://www.monitor.co.ug/News/National/Children-miss-school-over-inter-clan-fights/- /688334/1729546/-/exlh15z/-/index.html. [Accessed 22 April 2014].

148 _{E.g. Interview with Jennifer Ogali, forty five year-old woman who paid luk which was imposed on her}

21 year old son for making a girl pregnant, Aputi village, Abeli parish, Akalo, Kole district, Uganda. 15 December 2014.

his family were targets of blood feud raids, also called culo kwor if they failed to meet the costs in herds of cattle. At the time of the field study, there were local radio announcements by heads of several clans appealing for financial contributions from clan members to enable them meet the costs of cattle for culo kwor of individuals that had died or been killed at the hands or homes of members of their respective clans.149 Both of these practices are rooted in the jural principle that recognises both the unmarried mother and her child as affiliates of her natal family. A death associated with a pregnancy or birth was seen and treated as murder by her family, ushering in a case of

kwor (blood payment). For it was his attempt at usurping the woman’s fertility right that

led to her death and the loss of her child.

To underline the seriousness of this practice, many families sent their pregnant daughters away to stay with their lovers until after a successful birth, even if their luk was not yet sanctioned. After birth, the new mother would then return to her natal family, leaving behind her child should the payment of luk of the child be concluded. An example was seen in the case of Okabo’s mother Agonga, an unmarried ex- combatant who lived in Barlonyo in Lira and was carrying her fourth pregnancy with a new lover.150 Her brother who was also the figurehead of her natal family had ordered her lover to keep her until she was able to deliver her child safely, even if he did not intend to marry her.

The researcher witnessed a similar case of luk, which was brought upon the family of Ogali of the Ocukuru Ogora clan in Aputi village, Abeli parish in Akalo sub county in November 2014.151 Ongel, their twenty one-year-old son, made pregnant Kia (anonymised), a nineteen-year-old girl of the Okarowok Atar clan. Her family and members of her patriclan then descended upon Ogali’s family home and demanded for

luk. Ogali and his wife asked for more time to enable them put together the payment.

149 _{E.g. Radio Unity, Voice of Lango and Radio Rhino, all of which were based in Lira read out not less}

than four appeals for culo kwor contributions for four different clans between April 2013 and July 2013.

150 _{Interview: Agonga, Okabo’s mother, Barlonyo, Ogur, Lira district, Uganda. 16 April 2013.}

151 _{Field notes: Luk proceedings at the home of Ogali Patrick, forty two years old, Aputi village, Abeli}

The girl’s family accepted and, as customs demanded, ceded the girl to the care of Ogali and his family – in case anything should happen to her and her unborn child. Ogali and his wife explained to the researcher that customs provided for kwor compensation (blood payment) by the patriclan of the boy to a girl’s patriclan to avert a feud should either or both mother and child die before or during childbirth. After a month, they paid one cow for the girl’s luk and another for the luk of her unborn child. Ogali and the girl’s family hoped that after a safe birth, Kia would leave the baby with Ogali’s family and then return to her own natal family since her suitor had not shown any further interest in marrying her. But should she continue staying with Ogali and his family without a marriage and a death occurred of her, Ogali’s family would be charged with

culo kwor. This, Ogali explained, was a situation they would try to avoid by sending

Kia back to her parents after the birth of her child.

Respondents, including ex-combatants, said they knew more fathers in their villages that opted to pay for only the luk of the child compared to those who also went ahead to marry the mothers. The study also found that fulfillment of luk protected a lover from

culo kwor of a baby should it die during pregnancy or its birth. But it did not offer the

same protection upon the death of a pregnant mother. In the event of her death therefore, a lover was liable to paying both the luk and the kwor. As seen in the cases of Ogali and Agonga, parties to luk often underlined the seriousness of culo kwor by handing over a pregnant mother to her lover and his family for the entire duration of her pregnancy.

Where and with whom individuals lived was therefore dictated by the descent affiliation status with compliance safeguarded by such stringent policies as culo kwor. As will be later seen, this underlying interpretation of kwor formed an important framework for the understanding of why individuals and groups in Lango could not easily embrace and settle with a child whose descent affiliation was ambiguous or confirmed to be of another clan. Insofar as individuals and groups in Lango associate culo kwor with lineage/clan affiliation, culo kwor can be seen as mutually re-enforcing the policy of

The underpinning policy of descent therefore streamlined the right of affiliating a luk child also physically (where and with whom a child lived). It safeguarded the principle of transferring rights to a woman’s sexuality and reproductive potential, ensuring that it was not hijacked by biological fathers who might take their luk offspring to live with them without first invoking luk. For example, the study found that all of the peacetime

otino luk of the five ex-combatant mothers lived with their maternal families. But as

seen in the case of Okabo of Barlonyo, respondents also identified cases where individuals attempted to affiliate children without honoring the luk policy, an act which some elders attributed to the decrease in the influence of cultural norms and institutions within the legal pluralism of contemporary Uganda.