One of the Rwodi (clan chiefs) in Pader district in eastern Acholi told me in an interview that he had to sacrifice a bull and two cows to celebrate the last funeral rites of his late father, which also marked his own accession to the throne. Without such livestock, he said, such a ceremony could not have been held. There was another Rwot in Paicho sub county, Gulu district, who was feeling psychologically tormented because he had so far failed to raise a cow, some goats, and a sheep, to be able to exhume the remains of his late wife in order to accord her a befitting burial. He said that she had died during the war and had to be buried in the internally displaced people’s camp at the trading centre, but that he had since failed to transfer her remains to his own ancestral land, as many often struggled to do (Meinert & Whyte 2013; Jahn 2016). He lamented that it was not only psychological but also social torture to feel so inadequate among his own subjects.
Then, of course, there are other rituals such as mat-oput which is performed to reconcile individuals, families, clans, or communities in the case of violence that ends up in death. Without livestock, such aspects of Acholi culture cannot continue to be respected. The lack of livestock in the aftermath of the war, therefore, has both socio-cultural and economic significance. The implication is that the absence of livestock, especially cows, has the potential to alter the Acholi cultural traditions and practices; hence, the importance attached to cattle in the war reparations claims.
The position of cattle in Acholi culture was so special that villages had a specially designated place called ulet, away from the settled areas, where cows were taken for grazing instead of leaving each family to graze on its own land. So, just as they had the communal kitar, a large tract of land away from the village for crop production, so did they have the ulet for livestock, especially, cows. The principle used in the establishment of kitar and ulet was the same – that families should be able to graze their animals on lands that were far from the gardens of crops to minimise conflicts that were likely to arise when cows or goats stray into crop gardens of neighbours or relatives.
As already mentioned above, cows were also used as a measure and store of wealth and status; hence, the presence and number of cows in a family indicated its socio-economic status. This was further enhanced by the new economic possibilities that gave cattle a new significance after the war. For example, some development agencies that came to rural Acholi when peace returned promoted the idea of using oxen to encourage peasant farmers to plough larger portions of land in order to produce more, both for sale (income) and for food (food security). In a key informant interview, the resident district commissioner told me the subregion was likely to become the food basket of the whole country if its small-scale farmers could increase their acreage using the new technologies being introduced to them.
Thus, both from the empirical data as well as the literature, the multi-purpose nature of livestock in Acholi is clearly demonstrated. They are not only of economic but of cultural and social value as well, which goes to explain why cows became the Association’s rallying call for reparations.
Visible and Invisible Resources
It should be noted that while AWDCA claimed for war reparations in the form of livestock, the compensation made by the government was not made in form of physical animals. Claimants were paid the equivalent in money terms instead, which made the expected cows quite invisible. At the beginning, the money was paid through the Association’s bank account, and the Association would then pay it out to individual claimants in cash.