Seasons
Okot’s creative use of the resources of Acoli culture extends to two main seasons: wet and dry seasons in Acoli social and agricultural calendars.
Wet season means
Hard work in the field
Sowing, weeding, harvesting
It means waking up early before dawn
It means mud
And the thick dew.
Herdboys dislike it.
Lazy people hate it.
Dry season means pleasure,
It means dancing,
It means hunting
In freshly burnt plains.
…
Dry season means wooing
And eloping with girls.
It means the moko dance
When youths and girls
Get stuck to one another. (SoL, 74-5)
Age and names
The Acoli women remember the births of their children not by dates but by the particular season or events that took place at the time of birth. Ocol abuses Lawino that she does not know when their children were born but remembers by recalling the season/events when she gave birth. Some children’s names too depend on the season or events at the time of their birth. A combination of birth and naming of children is therefore based on indigenous knowledge and Okot poetically presents them in Song of Lawino to counteract Ocol’s accusation of Lawino having a head which is ‘numb and empty’ (p 75). In addition to the seasons and naming, an important distinction which Okot makes is between the indigenous knowledge of a person’s age and numerical age:
A person’s age
Is seen by looking at him or her
A girl is grown up
When her breasts have come;
A young man’s voice breaks
And hair appears
On his face
And below his belly button.
…