Acholiland, Uganda

Children in an IDP camp in Kitgum

The Acholi are an ethnolinguistic group of the upper Nile valley dwelling on the east bank of the White Nile, about a hundred miles north of Lake Albert. The Acholi in Uganda live predominantly in the districts of Gulu, Kitgum, and Pader, a region known as Acholiland. Their language is called Acholi and is closely related to other Western Nilotic languages like Lango, Alur and Luo. By early explorers the Acholi were called Shuli, a name now obsolete. Tailor in Labuje IDP camp in Uganda An internally displaced person (IDP) is someone who has been forced to leave their home for reasons such as religious or political persecution or war, but has not crossed an international border. ... Kitgum is a district in northern Uganda of 9,773. ... There is also Nile, a death metal band from South Carolina, USA. The Nile in Egypt Length 6 695 km Elevation of the source 1 134 m Average discharge 2 830 m³/s Area watershed 3 400 000 km² Origin Africa Mouth the Mediterranean Basin countries Uganda - Sudan - Egypt The... (White Nile is also a state of Sudan) The White Nile is a river of Africa, one of the two main branches of the Nile, the other being the Blue Nile. ... For the lake of the same name in South Australia, see Lake Albert, South Australia. ... Gulu is a district in northern Uganda. ... Kitgum is a district in northern Uganda of 9,773. ... Pader is a district in northern Uganda with a population of 325,885 (2002 census). ... Categories: Stub | Uganda ...

They frequently decorated the temples or cheeks with wavy or zigzag scars, and also the thighs with scrolls; some pierced the ears. Their traditional dwelling-places are circular huts with a high peak, furnished with a mud sleeping-platform, jars of grain and a sunk fireplace. The interior walls are daubed with mud and decorated with geometrical or conventional designs in red, white or grey. The Acholi were good traditional hunters, using nets and spears, and keep goats, sheep and cattle. In war they used spears and long, narrow shields of giraffe or ox hide. Most Acholi identify themselves as Protestant, Catholic or, in lesser numbers, Muslim. Nevertheless, the traditional belief in guardian and ancestor spirits remains strong, though it is now often described in Christian or Muslim terms. Categories: Animal stubs ... This article is about the animal, sheep; for other meanings of Sheep, see Sheep (disambiguation). ... Binomial name Bos taurus Linnaeus, 1758 Cattle are domesticated ungulates, a member of the subfamily Bovinae of the family Bovidae. ... This article is about the religious people known as Christians. ... A Muslim is a believer in or follower of Islam. ...

During Uganda's colonial period, the British encouraged political and economic development in the south of the country, in particular among the Buganda. In contrast, the Acholi and other northern ethnic groups supplied much of the national manual labor and came to comprise a majority of the military, creating what some have called a "military ethnocracy." This reached its height with the coup d'état of Acholi General Tito Okello, and came to a crashing end with the defeat of Okello and the Acholi-dominated army by the National Resistance Army led by now-President Yoweri Museveni. Uganda before 1900 When Arab traders moved inland from their enclaves along the Indian Ocean coast of East Africa and reached the interior of Uganda in the 1830s, they found several African kingdoms with well-developed political institutions dating back several centuries. ... Buganda is the kingdom of the 52 clans of the Baganda people, the largest of the four traditional kingdoms in present-day Uganda. ... A coup détat, or simply a coup, is the sudden overthrow of a government, usually done by a small group that just replaces the top power figures. ... Tito Okello (1914 - June 3, 1996) was the leader of Uganda from July 1985 until January 1986. ... The National Resistance Army (NRA) began as a guerilla army of Uganda in the 1980s, led by Yoweri Museveni. ... Museveni is viewed as part of a new generation of African leaders. ...

The Acholi are known to the outside world mainly because of the insurgency of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) led by Joseph Kony, an Acholi from Gulu. The LRA's activities have been concentrated within Acholiland and many hundreds of thousands of Acholi remain internally displaced persons. The prominent poet Okot p'Bitek is commonly considered to be Acholi. Labuje IDP camp near Kitgum Town The Lords Resistance Army (LRA), formed in 1987, is a rebel paramilitary group operating in northern Uganda, and as of April 2005 is engaged in an armed conflict against the Ugandan government. ... Joseph Kony is the primary leader of the Ugandan Lords Resistance Army (LRA). ... Categories: Stub | Uganda ... Tailor in Labuje IDP camp in Uganda An internally displaced person (IDP) is someone who has been forced to leave their home for reasons such as religious or political persecution or war, but has not crossed an international border. ... Okot pBitek (1931 – 1982) was a Ugandan poet, who achieved wide international recognition for the English version of his Song of Lawino, a long poem dealing with the tribulations of a rural African wife whose husband has taken up the urban life and wishes everything to be Westernised. ...

Bibliography

• Atkinson, Ronald Raymond (1999) The roots of ethnicity: the origins of the Acholi of Uganda before 1800. Kampala: Fountain Publishers. ISBN 9970-02156-7.
• Dwyer, John Orr (1972) 'The Acholi of Uganda: adjustment to imperialism'. (unpublished thesis) Ann Arbor, Michigan: University Microfilms International .
• Girling, F.K. (1960) The Acholi of Uganda (Colonial Office / Colonial research studies vol. 30). London: Her majesty's stationery office.

External links

Acholi Sample at Language Museum (http://www.language-museum.com/a/acholi.php) This article incorporates text from the public domain 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica. The public domain comprises the body of all creative works and other knowledge—writing, artwork, music, science, inventions, and others—in which no person or organization has any proprietary interest. ... The Eleventh Edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica ( 1911) in many ways represents the sum of knowledge at the beginning of the 20th century. ...