Firewood
Lawino takes Ocol to the fire where her mother has different types of firewood and here, she scientifically identifies and discusses the properties of each firewood. She confidently and with humble pride says:
If you ask me
About firewood
I can describe them to you in detail
I know their names
And leaves
And seeds and barks.
For example, Labwori:
…is alright
If it is perfectly dry.
But if it is still green
The smoke it produces
Is like spear!
It is useful for
Chasing men from the hut
Men who sit close
To the cooking pot!
Their eyes fixed into the pot!
Odure[5] who does not
Listen when others sing
Odure, come out
From the kitchen
Fire from the stove (cooking stones)
Will burn your penis! (SoL, 63)
The good firewood includes: Opok which ‘is easy/To split with the axe’; ‘Yaa [shea nut tree] burns gently/It burns like oil’; but ‘Poi is no use for firewood/It is rock;/It is useful only/As walking staff/For the aged (pp. 63-4). Lawino cannot be faulted in her knowledge of firewood properties. Okot’s creative use of indigenous knowledge is poetically enhanced by use of Acoli similes. For example, ‘Yaa burns like oil’ and the smoke produced by green Labwori is ‘Like spear! /It is useful for /Chasing men from the hut (cooking hut)…’ In normal life, a man who is angry with another man would use a spear to chase him. In both examples, the similes are appropriately used based on Okot’s indigenous knowledge.
[5] Odure is the name of a small boy who was fond of sitting by the fireside in the ‘cooking hut’ of his mother. One day a spark of fire burnt his testicles. This incident became known throughout the village and a composer-singer turned it into a song. The song warns those who frequent the cooking hut that they might suffer the same fate like Odure.