In Uganda, a parallel universe of rainforests and humid mountain heights opens up in the north-east of the country. A region of barren plateaus and savannahs, where water is scarce and the local population, dedicated to pastoralism and transhumance, has always had to fight for the supply of the ungenerous resources and the maintenance of their herds, their only source of livelihood. This is the boundless and desolate land of Karamoja, inhabited by the Karamojong people of Nilo-Saharan origin.
As poor in resources as they are rich in traditions and history, they are peoples who migrated hundreds of years ago from the Nile Valley to escape wars and famine, settling in the northern highlands and savannahs of Uganda, vying for vast but arid territory with the neighbouring Pokot people and Turkana tribes on the border with present-day Kenya, with whom they therefore have some cultural affinities.
It’s a different face of Uganda, but just as fascinating in its ruggedness.
Entirely related to ancestral cults, such as initiation rites, the traditional and complex ethno-sociology of the Karamojong people was studied by an Italian Combonian father, Bruno Novelli, who dedicated his entire life to collecting material on their language and culture, living among them for a long time.
While the main camps of the clans are fixed (manyatta), the young men, with their herds of zebu and goats, continue to move incessantly in the seasonal search for pastures in neighbouring areas, building nomadic encampments from time to time, surrounded by bramble fences to protect the livestock (kraal). This has often led to inter-ethnic clashes for supremacy over pastures and the supply of land resources, causing the traditional warrior attitude of the Karamojong, who were also peaceful and hospitable, to reappear, especially in times of famine in past decades.
We are talking about people who remained largely isolated and free of colonial influences. It was only in recent times that an amendment by the dictator Amin Dada forced them to dress themselves, so much so that even in the 1970s, the famous Polish journalist Kapuscinski recalls that many of the Karamojong used to carry cloth in their saddlebags to cover themselves in case of control by the army.
Particular are the ostrich feather headdresses and leopard skins worn on the shoulders of the men-warriors, while the women sport colourful beaded, leather or rubber sets.
A plunge into the everyday life, but also into the traditions of the Karamoja people, is offered by a visit to one of the colourful markets of the region, the main one of which takes place in Moroto. A riot of ostrich feathers, raw tobacco, necklaces and bracelets, and the beautiful traditional textiles called nakatukok. But it is also a crossroads of Pokot women with their beautiful disc necklaces and large earrings, of Tepeth, Jie, Dodoth people and their herds, all subgroups of the large Karamojong family, and of Ik, a small, still little-known people living in small fenced villages with granaries. Hunters by origin, they had to abandon their lands with the creation of the Kidepo National Park, settling in the vicinity of Mount Morungole, where they engage in animal husbandry.
