kuku and Hebrew culture

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A COMPARATIVE STUDY of THE KUKU CULTURE and THE HEBREW CULTURE: M.M.NINAN _________________________________________________________________________________ Sokare escarpment--this is a range of mountains that stretch north, south, and west on the West Bank of the river, covering parts of the Bari, Madi, and Kuku territories. (Poggo, Scopas, “personal observation”). Generally speaking, the Kuku people crossed the Nile and entered Kajo-Keji as invaders. They came in small waves, sometimes displacing or absorbing the previous inhabitants of the country, the Moru-Madi group. Thus, the first Kuku invaders were the Kinyi’ba and Kande’ba clans which displaced the Madi people, the original owners of the land. They laid claim to the most fertile and productive land, and called themselves monye kak (landlords), known as the people who ate their food with salt (Hodnebo, 93; Duku, Lobunek, n.d. 1). Meanwhile, the final wave of Kuku migrants in Kajo-Keji was that of the Kasurak clan. This group owned cattle, and also brought with them the institution of rain-making. They did not lay claim to any land, and were therefore not labeled as monye kak or landlords. Their new home was established at Kikiji Hill several miles west of the Sokare escarpment. It was from here that the rest of the rain-making clans in Kuku society received their “rain powers” (ibid.). The Kuku are generally comprised of more than one hundred clans whose backgrounds can be traced to the various immigrant groups in the Kukuland (Tomilyan, 1999, 3). The Kuku, for instance, borrowed some of the marriage rituals, traditional dances, and songs from the Madi people along the east and west banks of the Nile. Meanwhile, the Kuku language carries a large Bari vocabulary. The institution of rain-making and the nature of independent chieftaincies among the Kuku people were borrowed directly from the Bari. Each chieftaincy, headed by a rain-maker, covered a large territory (Jale, 2002/60; Tete, 2002/55). The people in each chieftaincy carried out their political, economic, and social activities independent of the other chieftaincies. There were occasional raids or skirmishes between neighboring villages or chieftaincies, which lasted for only a short time (Mulukwat, 2003/60). In the event that the entire Kukuland was threatened by powerful foreign armies such as the Bari, Madi, Lugbara and the Acholi (ethnic groups of Uganda), all the Kuku chieftaincies would unite together to fight and defeat such an enemy. For example, in ancient times, the Bari, Madi, Lugbara, and Acholi warriors invaded the Kuku homeland, but they were defeated by the Kuku armies. These waves of invasion resulted in the capture of prisoners of war. Thus, the names such as Gamba, Alia, Nagamba, Lonyuru, and many others are not indigenous names—this is testament to the Lugbara-Kuku wars (Tete, 2002/55). Before the advent of the knowledge of iron working in the Kukuland in ancient times, the Kuku peasants used pointed sticks fashioned from branches of a tree called payat. This 50
A COMPARATIVE STUDY of THE KUKU CULTURE and THE HEBREW CULTURE: M.M.NINAN _________________________________________________________________________________ was a special type of hard wood tree—it was not only used for cultivation, hunting, and fishing, it also served as an offensive weapon. The gardens of the Kuku people were small in size, which meant that food production was minimal. Nonetheless, the food they produced, and the wild vegetables and fruits that they collected, helped sustain their livelihood. The Kuku population continued to grow steadily over time, and small groups of families moved further away from their original settlements in search of more fertile land. Hence, the Kuku word kukutoro, which literally means “keep on moving.” The name Kuku was derived from that word (Taban/Y, 2002/67; Modi, 2002/57). Most Kuku families settled in places that were in close proximity to streams or rivers. Some large rivers like the Nile, Kigwo, Ki’bo, Nyawa, and Kaya, and a few other seasonal streams may have provided fish that supplemented their diet (Wani-Buluk; 2002/69). In 1797, Jagira and his wife Keji discovered the art of iron smelting in Nyepu area of Kajo-Keji. Iron revolutionized agriculture, warfare, hunting, fishing, and marriage. The Kuku blacksmiths made iron tools such as hoes, wukit (v-shaped tool), knives, spears, arrows, etc. Thus, the Kuku people were able to cultivate large acres of land, produce a variety of food crops, and engage in fishing and hunting. Spears and arrows became important offensive weapons for the Kuku armies. The blacksmith tools also became an integral part of the Kuku bride-wealth during marriage ceremonies. The inter-mixing of the various Bari, Madi, Pojulu, Kuku, and Kakwa clans, and Lugbara families and individuals, resulted in the formation of a unique cultural and linguistic group of people that constitutes the present day Kuku society. On August 18, 1955, the soldiers of the Equatoria Corp organized the Torit Mutiny against the Sudan government. Because of the fear of persecution, hundreds of thousands of South Sudanese sought refuge in the Congo, Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia, and elsewhere. It is important to note that as the war intensified, many Kuku people migrated to, and settled in the West Nile and Buganda regions of Uganda in the late 1950’s. A case in point is the author’s mother, Anna Poni Wani-Buluk, who, like many other Kuku people, fled Kajo-Keji and found sanctuary in Madi District of the West Nile region. She and her family subsequently relocated to the Buganda region in Central Uganda (Wani- Buluk, Jan. 1985/52). In the 1960’s, her family ultimately settled in Gulu in Northern Uganda. 51
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