You are on page 1of 3

In Song of Lawino, Okot pBitek tells the story of an Acoli woman, Lawino, whose husband, Ocol, has returned

to their village having received a Western education. Along with his education, Ocol has also adopted many aspects of Western culture. He no longer finds Lawino attractive, he says she is filthy, and he complains that her traditional Acoli beliefs are so primitive that he cannot respect her. The narrative is in free verse, told from the point of view of Lawino. Much of the text is spent with Lawino comparing the Acoli traditions and attitudes that she cherishes to the unfamiliar Western attitudes that Ocol claims are superior. This clash of the assimilated and unassimilated can be seen in Lawinos discussion of religion in the chapters I am Ignorant of the Good Word in the Clean Book, and From the Mouth of Which River? In I am Ignorant, we see that Lawino rejects Christian teaching because it lacks the meaning that Acoli traditions have for her; in From the Mouth, we understand further that this lack of meaning results from her non-Western cultural reference points. First, in I am Ignorant, Lawino speaks of her encounters with Christianity. She begins by saying that Ocol looks down upon [her] (73), because she is ignorant of Christianityshe believes in the Acoli god Jok (73), and she does not understand the confession (74). She also describes unsuccessful attempts to learn about Christianity. For example, she attends church, but the idea of Communion makes her feel very sick (75). Much of the chapter is also spent discussing her experience in the Catholic Evening Speakers Class (75). Lawino says, They shout anyhow / They shout like mad people. / The padre shouts words / You cannot understand (75). This meaningless class is juxtaposed with an Acoli ceremony happening at the same time: The drums of the get-stuck dance / Thundered in the distance / . / In the arena / They began to sing my song (76). To Lawino, these are meaningful songs, (79). Similarly, Lawino speaks of Ocols rejecting her because she has no Christian name. Ocol believes that Acoli names are Jok names// They are primitive, he insists. (81). On the other hand, to Lawino, Acoli names are Meaningful names/ Names that [she] can pronounce (81). Indeed, she relates that she has a Bull name, (82) which is given to Chiefs of girls (82), and that many other non-Christian names have meaning to the Acoli as well (83-84).

Throughout From the Mouth, Lawino describes her various questions about Christianity as well as Ocols refusal to answer them. First, Lawino says, The teachers / Of the Evening Speakers Class / Hate questions. / If you go to the Padre / You provoke a fight (85). Further, she says that she does not understand the prayers they were reciting in the class, and that no one would help explain them to her (86). Indeed, she has many questions about God, such as Where is the pot / He dug the clay / For moulding Skyland, / And the clay for moulding Earth? / From the mouth of which River? (86). But, when she speaks with Ocol about her questions, he simply spurns her. He says that hers are Questions of uneducated people, / Useless questions from untutored minds (87). He looks down upon Lawino and thinks that she must be stupid because she cannot understand the Western ideas that he has adopted. According to Ocol, A university man / Can only have useful talk / With another university man or woman (88). The chapter ends with Lawino pondering the Christian idea of a virgin birthit makes no sense to her in terms of Acoli traditions. In combining these two chapters, we see that teachings about Christianity are meaningless to Lawino and that this is so because she tries to understand Christianity through her basis of Acoli culture. Throughout I am Ignorant, Lawino emphasizes the fact that Christian teachers are meaningless. She uses the word again and againI ran away from shouting / Meaninglessly in the evenings (75), Then you look at the teacher / Barking meaninglessly (76), and The teacher drummed his meaningless phrases//Drummed his meaningless words (78). The fact that Christianity lacks meaning for her is obviously a key issue to Lawino. However, when she uses the word meaningless, it does not simply mean that she does not understand the words the priests are saying. Indeed, during the Evening Class, she describes that upon hearing the Acoli songs in the distance, The milk / In our ripe breasts boiled, / And little drops of sweat / Appeared on our foreheads, / You think of the pleasures / Of the girls / Dancing before their lovers (76). Unlike Christian teachings, the Acoli ceremonies have deep cultural significance to Lawino. They move her so much that she experiences a physical response to the drumbeat, whereas as the words of the priest do nothing except perhaps disgust her. With this idea of cultural significance, we can see why Christianity is so meaningless to Lawino. For example, she is completely unfamiliar with the concept of Communion. A ceremony

that has deep value to Christians makes her sick because she does not understand the cultural meaning of consuming the flesh and blood of Jesus (75). To her, it simply sounds like cannibalism. We see further examples of Lawinos attempts to understand Christianity in terms of her own culture in From What Mouth. When she considers the idea of God creating the world, she tries to understand it in terms of a physical being molding the universe out of clay, as her mother had molded clay into dishes. She asks, Where did the Hunchback dig the clay for moulding things / The Clay for moulding Skyland / the clay for moulding Earth? (87), and How did he mould his hands / Before he had any hands? (89). Lawino is, in fact, asking deep epistemological questions, but she can only understand and phrase them in terms of the culture that she knows. Consequently, the Christian idea of creation is almost impossible for her to understand because she was not raised in a Western environment. Further, because she and Ocol no longer share the same cultural reference points, he cannot answer her questions; they cannot communicate. Indeed, he says that she would not understand his answers, Because the language he speaks / Is different from [hers] / So that even if he / Spoke to [her] in Acoli / [She] would still need an interpreter (87). Their cultural foundations are too differentOcol has become Westernized while Lawino maintains her African heritage. Thus, Lawinos inability to find meaning in and adopt Western traditions and beliefs is a result of her Acoli cultural understanding. We thus see the origin of clashes between Western-assimilated Africans, like Ocol, and nonassimilated Africans, like Lawino. The resulting cultural mismatch causes assimilated Africans to look down upon their traditional countrymen, and unassimilated Africans, knowing only traditional African ways, cannot understand the appeal of Western culture. As with Lawino and Ocol, this cultural clash can tear apart families, as they lose the ability to understand each others world views and to believe in the same traditions, religions, and ceremonies.

You might also like