We talked, told stories, and laughed through the night,” Opiyo Oloya writes.  .

Opinion

This past weekend was a long one in Canada to celebrate Family Day. I spent time with my cousin Jacob Oulanyah, Speaker of Uganda Parliament.  He is recuperating, and he is filled with gratitude for all the support, well-wishes, and prayers he is receiving from Ugandans and beyond. We talked, told stories, and laughed through the night. 

Culture was in, so was philosophy except nary a discussion about politics. Like me, Oulanyah grew up surrounded by culture and loves talking about Acholi culture.  

He is animated when discussing various Acholi dances. In his exuberance he wants to jump up to dance a jig. The art of participating in laraka-raka youth dance is in friendly rivalry between groups from various villages—who can beat the half-gourd more energetically and rhythmically than the others.  

Each group arriving fresh into the arena starts a new song that soon overpowers the one that was going before.  He tells me. I knew all that, I tell him. As teenagers growing up in Alero, I used to sneak out with my brothers in the middle of the night to go dance laraka-raka.

My father Alipayo Oloya believed (wrongly) that laraka-raka detracted from studying. He forbade us from attending the dances during the dry seasons when they were held, but we went anyway.

When the topic turns to otole, the war-dance, he tells me there was a man from Purongo in Nwoya district who could sing a storm. So talented, the man could beat two drums at the same time. 

Oulanyah however marvels at the otole dancers from Madi Opei. He thinks they have retained the most authentic version of the war dance. “I have not seen the Madi Opei group so I cannot speak to what they can and cannot do during the dance,” I tell him.  

There would need to be a competition bringing groups from different corners of Acholi to decide which has retained and preserved the art of otole. 

But I learn something for the first time from Oulanyah—in ancient times when interclan wars were fought, the commander leading his charge into battle wore a headdress with a red feather attached to it, and never retreated, always moving ahead, and when he was injured, his second-in-command took over, wearing the headdress with the red feather. 

That is new for me, I tell him. “There is a lot you don’t know,” he chides. We laugh at that.

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