Originally published in 1947, this book attempts to reach a greater understanding of group psychology through a comprehensive study of the Lango people.

Collects almost five hundred entries that cover the African response to spirituality, taboos, ethics, sacred space, and objects.

Uganda: A Modern History (1981) provides a comprehensive political, social and economic history of Uganda from the beginnings of colonial rule in 1888. It focuses particularly on the development of the Ugandan economy and demonstrates how the economy became structurally dependent on world capitalism during the colonial period and how this has affected its subsequent development. The book also deals with the political and social tendencies which shaped Ugandan society in both the colonial and postcolonial period. The first four chapters examine the initial colonial occupation and the colonial state’s role in the rural nexus of chiefs, peasants and migrant workers. They also look at the colonial state and the context of the wider national, regional and international economy and analyse the African nationalist response and the formation of political parties to take control of the postcolonial state. The second part of the book considers the political alliances and economic strategies of the Obote regime and the events of Amin’s military regime. The epilogue looks at events since the fall of the Amin regime and suggests ways in which Uganda may be able to tackle its underlying economic problems.

Routledge is proud to be re-issuing this landmark series in association with the International African Institute. The series, originally published between 1950 and 1977, collected ethnographic information on the peoples of Africa, using all available sources: archives, memoirs and reports as well as anthropological research which, in 1945, had only just begun. Concise, critical and (for its time) accurate, the Ethnographic Survey contains sections as follows: Physical Environment Linguistic Data Demography History & Traditions of Origin Nomenclature Grouping Cultural Features: Religion, Witchcraft, Birth, Initiation, Burial Social & Political Organization: Kinship, Marriage, Inheritance, Slavery, Land Tenure, Warfare & Justice Economy & Trade Domestic Architecture Each of the 50 volumes will be available to buy individually, and these are organized into regional sub-groups: East Central Africa, North-Eastern Africa, Southern Africa, West Central Africa, Western Africa, and Central Africa Belgian Congo. The volumes are supplemented with maps, available to view on routledge.com or available as a pdf from the publishers.

Describes the moral teachings (values, norms and principles to follow so that life might be abundant for all) of the African religion as it relates to individuals and community.

In Elders, Shades, and Women, Richard T. Curley describes the ceremonial life of a Nilotic community in northern Uganda and traces the alterations in its ceremonial activities from the turn of the twentieth century to the beginning of extensive contact between the Langi and Europeans in the 1960s. Setting his analysis within the broad context of Lango social organization, Curley discusses the makeup of the community and shows how the innovations of the colonial period led to changes in kinship relations and residential patterns. He is particularly attentive to the husband-wife relationship and to the changing status of women within a patrilineal system. After describing Lango social organization and the changes that it has undergone, Curley turns to the three complexes of Lango ceremonial activity. One of these, traditionally performed by older men, has virtually disappeared, a victim of altered political relationships. The second set, comprising eight separate ceremonies performed for married women, concerns the problem of incorporating a women into her husband's lineage while recognizing that she was born in her father's. The third complex, centering on spirit possession, has become increasingly popular, and women participate to a much greater extent than men. The author treats his religious material within the framework of structural-functionalism by concentrating on ceremonial activities rather than on belief and by relating the ceremonies to social processes. He departs from structural-functionalism, however, in borrowing heavily from work on the analysis of symbols, and he attempts to describe change rather than analyzing Lango religious activity at a single point in time. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1973.

Okot p'Bitek's epic poem, Song of Lawino, debates Acholi customs around the time that Uganda became independent. This book presents seminal anthropological works from that period by p'Bitek himself and by Frank Girling, who was researching among the Acholi when p'Bitek was a teenager. They were both introduced to anthropology in Oxford by Edward Evan Evans-Pritchard, and they both faced difficulties writing up their fieldwork. Girling, a veteran of the Spanish Civil War, was a suspected communist activist, and was expelled from Uganda in 1950. Against the odds, he managed to complete his doctorate, but the Colonial Office demanded cuts to the published version. Okot p'Bitek is a famous African creative writer, but his engaging anthropological studies have been unjustly neglected. He found academic ideas about Africans taught at Oxford misconceived and offensive. He rejected established analytical approaches and, consequently, the university failed his doctorate in 1970."

How long can a traditional religion survive the impact of world religions, state hegemony, and globalization? The ’Karamoja problem’ is one that has perplexed colonial and independent governments alike. Now Karamojong notoriety for armed cattle raiding has attracted the attention of the UN and USAID since the proliferation of small arms in the pastoralist belt across Africa from Sudan to stateless Somalia is deemed a threat to world security. The consequences are ethnocidal, but what makes African peoples stand out against state and global governance? The traditional African religion of the Karamojong, despite the multiple external influences of the twentieth century and earlier, has remained at the heart of their culture as it has changed through time. Drawing on oral accounts and the language itself, as well as his extensive experience of living and working in the region, Knighton avoids Western perspectivism to highlight the successful reassertion of African beliefs and values over repeated attempts by interventionists to replace or subvert them. Knighton argues that the religious aspect of Karamojong culture, with its persistent faith dimension, is one of the key factors that have enabled them to maintain their amazing degree of religious, political, and military autonomy in the postmodern world. Using historical and anthropological approaches, the real continuities within the culture and the reasons for mysterious vitality of Karamojong religion are explored.