Understanding my 'Poetic Verses...'

Understanding my ‘Poetic Verses…'
My Tribe, Acholi is in North Uganda. We are the inheritors of the original ‘Luo’culture – other Luo clan-tribes proceed from us and through us to form the clusters that – spread over Sudan, Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania and cross with other Bantu clusters – to form other tribes of Southern Africa.
Luo is best known for its ancient migrations that started from slavery fields of Aswan in Egypt – a process that took five centuries of recorded history, and perhaps even more centuries before 1400AD.
Now due to this vast migratory movement (mostly back and forth) and then doubling-back, when recurrent slave snatching always recurred to pull the stock backwards – leaving the very old to actually die away (as too old and undesirable to slavery) – and always those re-migrating back whenever Egypt was in turmoil… and Egypt had a fair share of troubles over all those centuries.
Now to understand my poetic verses, that is what you need as background – and to cap-it, my tribe has produced poets like writers Prof. Okot’p Bitek (rip), Prof. Okello Oculi, Prof. JB Ocitti. And many other writers who now all live in the Diasporas; those are the highly educated, but then, there is tremendous under-developed, untapped raw-talent in my tribe Acholi, the producer of elusive rebel Joseph Kony.
In my poetic verses… which I am developing into a small booklet – I depict a small litany of Acholi old people’s sayings of the wise…
And narrate it in a background setting relevant to its formative characteristics – and translate that into English, with certain Acholi-lwo words that are untranslatable written in their original form.
In the first ‘stanza’
The ancient old had warned the younger generation of the ‘rumble in the belly of the world’ – this means that, ancient people had seen, from long ago that this world we lived in would experience turmoil’s, upheavals, commotions and un-peace.
‘Tomorrow, tomorrow someday’ in Acholi-lwo language ‘diki, diki wang ca’ would mean that; in the recurrent tomorrows – it shall come-to-pass… and when it does happen, the root of the Pumpkin shall dry-up.
In the second ‘stanza’
The bag of ‘Ataany’ depicts the taxidermists-farers’ bits and hold. What became popular during the great-tracking migrations and really very important was the survival-kit; made out of squirrels, wildcats, moles, giant wild edible-rats etcetera.
In the process of the wild-wild walking – mostly fueled by gathering and picking, up-rooting and wild fruits collecting. The migrations had worked and actually survived.
‘Ataany’ was some later-day restless-foot; some ‘strongie’ who still played the migrating walk-about long after the tracks had gone cold.
‘Ataany’ carried his bits and hold – and tracked back to Sudan or forward… actually within the Acholiland; visiting the past and interacting with the future.
As time went-by, the settling Acholi people had their first baby-boom – the younger generation were often fascinated by the wise-crack old man who seasonally passed-by often cooling his feet in their villages – telling lots of funny-funny stories and liked by all the clan parents, always talking of faraway furlong places and peoples; You want to cry – sort of tales of ancient nostalgia young mothers and fathers loved. To the young ones ‘Ataany’ eventually became a mystique-character with lots of stuffed-up heavy loads of his bits and hold. And when the young were hungry – they often joked that they were walking ‘Murodo’ famished - referring to themselves as being empty like ‘Ataany’s bags’ after a long cross-country walking.
While ‘Ataany’ always went away ‘grandma’ who was fond of him gnashed her teeth… in her isolated little homestead of a thatched hut and granary – there she someday dies.
In the third ‘stanza’
‘Man otyeno’ translate as ‘testicle of the evening’ and for the Acholi people, it only means trouble – at twilight, you keep indoors because that is when the evening’s testicle abandons itself, waylaying you, like the later-day landmine… at twilight watch your steps least you step on it.
In the forth ‘stanza’
The bulldog rules over his rubbish dumpy, where he jettisons his piss… that is where he eats. Like when the English says ‘trot,’ ‘trot’, ’trot – the Acholi people say ‘cwek,’ ‘cwek’, ‘cwek’ - and when the bull dog trot about unleashed – the bull dog might spread the rabies…
But don’t envy the bull-dog, for when you do… the rabies catch you – and when you can’t castrate the bulldog, and the moon went high you might - howl!

In the fifth ‘stanza’
At ‘twilight’ the mother hen pecks and drops not, for as darkness falls, chicken see nothing and that is when it was time to pack it in. And every last little peck carries through the night, till the cock crow at day break.
In the sixth ‘stanza’
As a new comer, the young rooster cock has a serious challenge to meet – the gigantic home rooster won’t ever allow the newcomer rooster chance to crow or mount a hen – till his spurs were tested in a decisive duel.
Mere flap-flapping of the new-comer’s wings brings the old rooster racing sidelong proud and self confident… spoiling for the flying side-kick.
‘Twon-gweno pe kok paAyaa’ – translates that ‘the cock don’t crow at Ayaa’s place’. To the Acholi paAyaa is when you have gone (to play) away.
In the Seventh ‘stanza’
‘Lawinos of today’ – are the younger generation Acholi women (from a character in Okot’p’Bitek’s “Song of Lawino”) – who may have put-down the ‘Abiinu’ some small round long-necked pot, ancient Acholi women pottered for keeping honey.
In this lamentation, these young women may have deviated from the traditional norm and abandoning the honey-pot…
To instead carry ripe yellow bananas – rwic-rwic, rwic-rwic, rwic-rwic, rwic-rwic –
Doing the walkabout banana marketing. What actually tally with some old innocent days particular old ‘boy and girl’ play – where the boy places his palms on the girl’s shoulders, and stoops his head down, walking behind her looking down her backside and heels, asking;
The boy - “Labolo ocek-oceki?”
The girl – Labolo pud numu
The boy – Labolo ocek-oceki?
The girl – Labolo numu-numu
He asks is the banana ripe and the girl says the banana was not yet ripe – which actually means – we haven’t arrived where we are going. And when eventually she says the banana was ripe – she meant that we have arrived where we are going... which was always home. In Acholiland of the innocent days, children played this banana game up till adolescence when mothers begin to rebuke the kids. Even then – innocence was innocence then. $$$