Okot p'Bitek

Okot p'Bitek (born June 7, 1931 in Gulu , † July 20, 1982 in Kampala ) was a Ugandan poet , teacher and ethnologist . His most important work is Lawinos Lied .

Life

Childhood and school

Okot p'Bitek was born on June 7th, 1931 into an enthusiastic and innovative family. His Christian name was Jekeri, a corruption of the prophet's name Ezekiel. Okot's mother was a well-known dancer and songwriter, also called Lawino, and his father was a recognized storyteller and dancer. It was in this atmosphere that little Okot's creativity blossomed. The parents sent Okot to Gulu Elementary School, then to Gulu High School.

Then Okot attended King's College , Budo, in Kampala, founded in 1906 . The college, actually intended for the sons and daughters of the Baganda nobility, had two branches: one taught in Kiganda , the other in English. Regardless of his musical interests, Okot discovered that the college also had a lovely choir director who was also fond of poetry. Like sooner or later they talked Okot by private readings from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's "The Song of Hiawatha" ( The Song of Hiawatha ). Using metaphysical powers, she believed Hiawatha to be reborn in Okot. He gladly took on the role of hero intended for him. His participation in the college performance of Mozart's "Magic Flute" influenced him so much that he immediately composed an opera called "Achan", which was also performed at his college. "Achan" is a simple story in which a young man comes to town to earn the bride price. No further information is known about this composition.

Okot founded a choir with some of his classmates, the "Budo Nightingales". He composed some songs for this choir. Some of them became quite popular in Uganda, for example "Rip Kipe" and "Can-na". Both songs were about a girl who shamefully abandoned her boyfriend because he was poor. Okot's family philosophy emerges in one of the songs: Ento anyaka, kare na pudi (Know, my friend, my time has not yet come. Do not judge me by my past). For his literary and musical activities, Okot won a college book award, Alan Paton's novel "Cry, The Beloved Country".

Teachers seminar

From 1951 to 1952 Okot attended the Teachers Training College (TTC) in Mbarara / West Uganda. He could not attend Makerere University in Kampala because his parents did not have the necessary money. Two important events in Okot's life occurred during this time: On the one hand, he was appointed to the Ugandan national football team, with which he represented his country for several years, and, on the other hand, he completed his first and only novel in Acholi, “Lak Tar Miyo Kinyero wi Lobo ”(my mouth is laughing but my heart is bleeding). Okot's earliest literary work in manuscript form, however, a poem "The Lost Spear", which tells the Luo story of the spear, the pearl and the bean, was unfortunately lost and was therefore never published. This poem was strongly influenced by Longfellow, who has been very much appreciated by him since his college days, or his work " Hiawatha ". However, in 1953 "Lak Tar ..." was published.

Okot deals here with the question of the bride price in the Acholi society, which introduced the money. He tells the story of Okeca Ladwong, a boy whose father dies early. Grown up, this boy falls in love with the girl Cecilia Laliya, who would like to marry him. But he cannot pay the very high bride price. Stepfather and his father's brothers refuse to support him. He has no choice but to move to Kampala and try his luck there. He fails to find work. So he moves on to the Jinja sugar plantations . All sorts of things go wrong over the course of two years, he doesn't even have the whole bride price. Nevertheless, he decides to move home. He is robbed on the way. So he has to walk the last part of the journey. Under every third tree he lies in the shade and thinks about his life. Finally he arrives at home, miserable and destitute.

This work was first published in 1989 by Heinemann / Nairobi under the title “White Teeth” in English. Many motifs are developed in it, which Okot later takes up again in "Lawino" and develops further.

Teacher

In 1954, Okot was sent to Gulu as a teacher at the newly founded Sir Samuel Baker School, which at that time had three black teachers. In addition to teaching (English and religion), he directed the school's cultural program, which included sports, scouting, choir and theater. During the same period, many Africans began to be politically active in Uganda. Okot was a founding member of the Ugandan National Congress ( UNC ), Gulu, and was put up as a candidate for the Acholi District Council.

In addition to school, politics and cultural work, Okot was an avid soccer player. He played for his school and college, for village clubs and in the district team and later also in the Ugandan national team. He traveled widely and often around the country for football. He made many new experiences and made good friends. In 1956 he traveled to Great Britain with the national team and played in London - barefoot! At the end of the football tour, he decided to stay in England to complete a university degree in Bristol.

Studied in Bristol

He enrolled in a postgraduate diploma course in the educational science institute, so to speak to give his previous teaching post an academic consecration. In Bristol he met two professors who recognized and greatly encouraged his alert spirit: the Quaker and pacifist M. Wilson and the philosopher and Catholic theologian S. John. Okot began to be critical of Christianity, both faith and history. Eventually he left the church and dropped his Christian name Jekeri entirely.

In those days of incipient independence, studying law seemed like an excellent foundation for any African who wanted to get into politics and advance the process of decolonization. So Okot went to Wales to study law. And there must have been something else that drove him: a colonial administrator in Gulu named Barber once mocked him, as Okot himself says, that he, as an African, would never conquer the Jura. In order to prove himself and to shame the mocker, Okot picked up the gauntlet, studied hard and successfully graduated from law. Immediately he wired Barber the positive result.

Lawyer

Okot was admitted to the bar in England and was preparing to wear the black robe. At the same time he spent three months at the International Court of Justice in The Hague to study international law. But slowly the great enthusiasm with which Okot had started the profession of lawyer disappeared. In fact, he never went on trial. Perhaps it was enough for Okot to prove that he graduated from Law with very good results. Perhaps, however, his professional path as a lawyer in Africa was unclear to him. Working with the UNC as a politician would have been an option. During this time he wrote a political pamphlet : "Paths to Uganda Freedom". The other: to lead a comfortable life as a successful lawyer in Uganda. But imagining him with a stiff wig and dignified robe is difficult. Because Okot was too freedom-loving, too independent and too playful and eager to experiment. In this apparently unclear life situation, Okot made a powerful step in development. In place of enthusiasm for the law, there was clearly a new - and old - passion: the culture of his people and all of Africa. One day in The Hague a professor of legal history was discussing the phenomenon of divine judgment , an ancient method of finding out guilt or innocence by exposing the person to fire, water, or some other hazard. The result was considered a divine hint. Okot remembers the same method in his homeland. The professor advised Okot to enroll at Oxford in social anthropology to deepen his knowledge of the subject.

Studied at Oxford

Okot followed the advice and during his three years in Wales experienced not just a university but a people passionate about their Welsh music and songs. In pubs or in the football arenas it happened again and again that the Welsh enthusiasts would sing one of their songs. While listening to these hymns, Ugandan hymns rose from Okot's memory. Most of all, however, he was impressed by Eisteddford, the annual festival of the bards. Poets, musicians and other artists from all over Wales gathered to celebrate life with music, poetry and songs. Okot also attended the annual International Festival of Edinburgh / Scotland, where artists come together around the world. It is very likely that Okot's idea of organizing such festivals later in Uganda and Kenya originated in the experiences of Wales and Scotland.

From 1960 Okot studied at the founded St. Peter's College at Oxford University . This college had a troubled relationship with Uganda because it had funded Bishop James Hannington's fateful missionary trip to Uganda in 1885 . Hannington was then murdered on the orders of the Baganda king Kabaka Mwanga II . In 1960, a black student in Oxford was still a curiosity in the "Temple of Science", all the more so since it came from problematic Uganda. Okot writes about it: "If one of us entered the university with pride and curiosity, then the first few months were quickly filled with shock, anger and confusion, yes, with the feeling of being in the completely wrong place."

Social anthropology

The Institute for Social Anthropology was headed by the social anthropologist Edward E. Evans-Pritchard , who himself had conducted field research in East Africa. One of the lecturers was Dr. Godfrey Lienhardt , who had studied the Dinka of South Sudan, and another was John M. Beattie, who had become known for his work on the banyoros . All these scientists had published extensively and Okot - now at least equipped with an English teacher and law diploma - was excited to be able to study again under their guidance.

But he was bitterly disappointed. It is precisely from this time that many of his views and attitudes come from, which he expresses so clearly in his chants and scientific books. In the foreword to “African Religions in Western Science” he writes about the conflict with his teachers: “In the very first lecture, the lecturer named all Africans or non-Western people barbarians, savages, primitive tribes, etc. I contradicted unsuccessfully.” Obviously it had not been clear to Okot that the institutes of social anthropology, both in the British universities and in those of the other colonial powers, had the primary function of training future colonial administrators. This task was at least not conducive to an unbiased approach to the scientific subject. The basis of the scientific understanding of the colonial rulers was the deep conviction of the superiority of western urban culture and the inferiority of the colonized. In his publications, Okot took an extremely critical point of view of social anthropology as a science. He accused her of not only supporting colonialism, but - worse - providing its justification. At Oxford, Okot asked his professors to do the impossible - at least at the time: he wanted social anthropology to take the African stand. A position as represented by Leo Frobenius or Janheinz Jahn . But that was not the function of these institutes.

As Okot moved away from Western traditions and beliefs, so did his tendency to find African forms for his poetry. He was dissatisfied with the theoretical knowledge with which he was overwhelmed. Even so, he continued to study in the hope that through field study of African songs, stories, proverbs, and dances, he would learn what his people saw as real life. It was his anthropological knowledge that drove him more and more to study his own people: the Central Luo, the Acholi , the Jo-Palwo and sometimes the Jo-Lang'o. In 1960 he turned his back on Christianity by leaving the church.

In 1962 - the year of independence - Okot returned to his homeland for a short time. He had initially intended to be a candidate for the UPC in Gulu, but then changed his mind. Instead, he undertook numerous field studies that he needed to be able to complete his thesis "Oral literature and its background with the Acholi and Lang'o". Returning to England, Okot continued to argue with his professors. The research was carried out on an irritated note, the result was moderate. Nevertheless, the work was accepted. In 1963 Okot received the title of bachelor (B.Litt.) For this.

Oxford was the most renowned institute for African studies at that time. Okot had gone through the most famous school of his time, owned by the most qualified teachers. All that he had read, all that he had learned and all that he had personally experienced, all of that, created a rich treasure trove of images of memory. This rich treasure was found when he wrote "Song of Lawino" ( Lawino's song ).

Return to Uganda, Makerere

Okot returned to Uganda. He took up a teaching position at Makerere University , Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology. During this time he was moved by the question of what kind of sociology the Africans should develop from the ruins of the colonial era. The question of the goal was not only evident in the political or economic development, but also in the cultural field. And here - according to Okot - the university has a leading role. After eight years of academic debate, it was clear to Okot that Africa could never adopt a foreign culture without destroying its own - and with it the African identity. Culturally, Africans could never become Europeans, perhaps it would be possible to ape the Europeans. But that meant that Africa had to design its own culture. Okot believed that the opportunity for Africa to be itself was ready for university and others. It just depends on everyone who is ready to tackle this task.

Gulu

After a few months of teaching in Kampala, Okot moved to the “Extra Mural Department”, a branch of the university, consistently in pursuit of his goal of “watching the people's mouths”. He found himself unable to teach at university what he had recently fought against in England, because he considered it harmful to African society. He went to Gulu and was responsible for northern Uganda, which included the areas of Bunyoro, Lang'o, Acholi, Karamoja and West Nile. With this step he had the unique opportunity to conduct intensive research into the religious systems of the peoples in this deserted area. He published the result of these studies as the "Religion of the central Luo". And it was here in his hometown of Gulu that the experiences of Scotland and Wales broke through. With a group of friends he started in 1965 to create the "Gulu Festival of Acholi Culture". The preparations took months and attracted artists from the city, but also from the flat country. Okot was a real all-rounder: he performed as an artist, he organized, he danced and sang. He also studied new forms of performance with others. He was director and discussant, teacher and student in one person.

Song of Lawino

The revival of the work “Wer pa Lawino” ( Lawinos song ) , which had been left behind in 1956, also fell during this period of preparation . In long discussions with his artist friends, he transformed the 30-page manuscript (1st version) into an approx. 140-page work (2nd version) in Acholi. The performance was a complete success. The success encouraged him to translate an excerpt into English and present it at a writers' congress in Nairobi. Here, too, the work aroused so much enthusiasm that Okot decided to publish the entire song in English at the East African Printing House in 1966. The (2nd) Acholi version came out in 1969 by the same publisher. In the same year (1966) Okot was appointed the first African director of the National Cultural Center (UCC) in Kampala. This institution has so far been a social playground for non-Africans, be they Europeans or Indians. Okot worked hard to Africanize it. This succeeded against numerous small and large opposition within two years. Ugandan theater, sculpture, poetry, dances, games, paintings and carvings flourished. Okot's whole love belonged from the beginning to building up a large and professional traditional dance group, the "Heartbeat of Africa". This troupe successfully toured large parts of the world.

Exile in Kenya

In October 1968, Okot organized a week-long festival to mark the five-year independence celebrations. Shortly afterwards he traveled to Zambia. When he returned he found himself removed from his post without comment by President Milton Obote . He then went into exile in Kenya for 11 years.

Nairobi

During his eleven years of exile in Kenya - until 1971 under the regime of Milton Obote , then under Idi Amin - Okot experienced his most fruitful period as a writer. But his teaching activities at various universities were also reflected in essays and academic books. First he taught in Kisumu on Lake Victoria, at the branch of the University of Nairobi. It is not surprising that he immediately resumed his work there and organized the Kisumu Arts Festival. In 1969 he took part in the "International Writing Program" at the University of Iowa (USA). From September 1971 on he was senior research fellow and lecturer at the University College in Nairobi, where he prepared numerous teachers for their work at the grammar school. Today several literary teachers in Nairobi are his former students. He also taught at the University of Texas at Austin , USA, and from 1978–79 at the University of Ife in Nigeria , now Obafemi Awolowo University in Ife .

1967 (some sources mention 1970) followed the publication of "Song of Ocol" in English.
1971 came out "Song of Malaya" (song of the prostitutes) and "Song of Prisoner" together under the title "Two Songs", for which Okot won the 1972 "Kenyatta Prize for Literature".
In 1973, Africa's Cultural Revolution, a collection of essays, came out.
In 1974 “Horn of My Love” was published, Heinemann International Literature and Textbooks, London 1974, ISBN 0-435901478 .
1978 "Hare and The Hornbil".
In 1979 he wrote "Mere Words", which, along with many other things, was not published.

“Song of Soldier” was probably also a great work, which Okot never completed because, as he said, working on this topic was “a tearful thing”. Okot's publications, interviews, lectures, conference papers, etc. are all carried on the ardent conviction that Africa's culture and nations can only be built on an African foundation. Okot wanted to "borrow" white technology, but not the culture of the Occident.

Kampala

Okot returned to Kampala in 1979 after being appointed to the post of research assistant. This position seemed degrading to him, as the university treated him like a "broken down truck". In an open letter to the university management titled “Jesus, Respect and Makerere”, Okot accusingly stated: “When I applied for a position after eleven years of forced exile at the university, it was a little more than just a two-year contract for a research assistant. I know there has been stiff opposition in the department I want to join. There was this wrong and sometimes annoying argument: 'Okot, but where do you belong? In sociology or literature or religion or philosophy or law? ' I think that the answer to the question is whether there was any big name in the social sciences that didn't take a multidisciplinary approach. Don't let Makerere - today again one of the leading institutions on the continent - become a place of learning where intellect and science are paralyzed. Let the thinking blossom, because this is the only way Makerere can train thinkers… ”He did not receive a call to the University of Ife / Nigeria that he expected.

Finally, in 1982, Makerere University recognized Okot's contribution as a poet and scientist and appointed him as the first professor to the chair for creative writing that had been newly established in the Department of Literature. However, shortly after the appointment, Okot passed away peacefully in the bed of his house.

Two weeks before his death on July 20, 1982, he had just finished a new work that was to appear post mortem in 1986 as a collection on art, culture and values: “Artist the Ruler”. He would not live to see the publication of his novel “Lak Tar” either, although he had worked on it continuously until his death, but without having completed it. His friend Lubwa P'chong translated the missing parts, so that the work could appear in the translation "White teeth" in 1989 by Heinemann / Nairobi.

The poet Okot p'Bitek

Okot's life is unusually rich in experience. In the seven years of his student days in England, as later as a university teacher and cultural activist, he sought a philosophical and cultural standpoint as an African. He rejected the pessimistic view that gave no meaning to concrete life. He believed in the beautiful and constructive life, in full participation in the cultural life of his people. He loved to sit with men and women, and to eat and drink well. In Nairobi, he particularly loved the Veranda Bar of the Norfolk Hotel, whose inspiring atmosphere had been enjoyed by so many other writers before him. Robert Ruark e.g. B. used to take his typewriter with him and type his big game hunter novels. Drinking became Okot's undoing - just like other greats. Okot liked cheeky girls or young women who were beautiful, happy and not averse to a little flirtation. In this creative and encouraging atmosphere, he loved to sing his songs and at the same time sensitively took in what was going on around him. He was married twice and had four daughters. One of them, Jane, recently followed in his footsteps with the "Song of farewell". Okot has made a major contribution to the cultural awareness of Uganda. For this he renounced comfort, wealth, prestige and his fatherland. Because at the end of his life he wanted to be able to ask himself: "What have I done useful with my life?"

Okot doesn't fit easily into a scheme, be it a political or a scientific one. He was talented in many areas, and was humble, sensitive, and sharp-tongued. This brought him envious and enemies from among those who saw their benefices wobble. It must have been extremely shocking for him to see that it was not the white elite who opposed creative openness, brotherhood and tradition, but his own black people. He fought the good fight for the awareness of the common people, as far as the ancestors would lead the people. As a young man he had already formulated his basic conviction in the school anthem of Sir Baker's School: "Leave the world better than you found it!" But a fighter, although constantly fighting, he was not first. First of all, he was a dancer and a "laugher". Taban lo Liyong , his former colleague, says that when Okot once entered Tanzania, he wrote: “Laugh” on the entry form under “Job information”. Okot was a real man, full of life.

Okot's approach of wanting to borrow technology from Europe while at the same time maintaining African culture also proves him to be a romantic, perhaps even a tragic figure.

The following anecdote is told about him, which is a good illustration of his daily contradiction. One day Okot was attending college near Nairobi to give a lecture. He heard the student choir rehearse the song "My Bonny is Over the Ocean" and then went mad. He urged the students to sing their own African songs, because what could it mean to them that some "Bonny" was in the USA. The boys were silent about the older man, but they had noticed very well that Okot had come with his beloved 12-cylinder Jaguar.

Okot's effect on the literature of East Africa can be demonstrated, even if not too many authors have followed his path. Examples are Joseph Burunga with “The Abandoned Hut” and Okello Oculi with “Orphan” (The Orphan) and with “Malak” (The Prostitute). Okot's influence also spread to Burundi relatively early . The priest poet Michel Kayoya , who was killed by Tutsi in 1972, wrote two chants in French that were also translated into German: “Sur la trace de mon père” (In the footsteps of my father) and “Entre deux mondes” (“Speak your language, Africa!”). From Tanzania a satirical song in English "The Black-Eaters" is recently (The Black-eaters) of Nchim-bi . In 1994, the Kenyan Micere Githae Mugo published “My mother's poems and other songs” and again in the subtitle “Songs and poems”, in the Okot tradition, points out the difference between songs and poems. Also new in 1994 was Okot's daughter, Jane Okot p'Bitek , with her first work “Song of farewell”, in which she continues her father's school. With his style, Okot became the founder of the "East African Song School".

Short biography

The following short biography contains most of the data on Okot's publications. However, completeness is not possible because the material position is not yet completely clear.

1931 Born in Gulu, Northern Uganda, attended Gulu High School, King's College, Budo / Kampala
1950 - Composition of the school opera Achan
1951 - 1956: Training and teaching
1952 Government Teacher Training College, Mbarara, Western Uganda
1953 - First publication of the novel Lak Tar in Acholi language (1995)
1954 teacher of English and religion as well as choir director
1956 - Wer pa Lawino (Song of Lawino), 1st version in acholi; Publication rejected
1956-1957: Bristol University
1956 as a member of the Ugandan national football team Tour of Great Britain, Okot stays there, studies
1957 Diploma in Education, Bristol University
1957-1960: Wales University, Aberystwyth
1960 Diploma in Law, Aberystwyth, leaving the Church - Paths to Uganda's Freedom
1960-1964: Oxford University
1962 Field research in Uganda for his thesis
1963 Diploma (B.Litt.) In Social Anthropology, Oxford University - Oral literature and its social background among the Acholi and Lang'o
1964 - 1968: Makerere University, Kampala / Uganda
1964 return to Gulu, teaching there at the branch of Makerere University in Gulu
1965 Gulu Festival - Wer pa Lawino is thoroughly revised in discourse with friends (2nd version) and performed with great enthusiasm
1966 Kampala, Director of the Uganda Cultural Center (UCC)
1966 - Song of Lawino, East African Printing House (EAPH), Nairobi 1967 - Song of Ocol (engl.) Is published in Nairobi
1967 - Religion of the Central Luo
1968 Exclusion from his post at the UCC for criticizing the black elite under President Milton Obote
1968 - 1979: Exile: Nairobi University / Kenya
1968 teaching position at the University of Nairobi, Kisumu branch
1969 - Wer pa Lawino (acholi) appears in Nairobi
1971 teaching at the University of Nairobi
1971 - Song of Malaya. Song of Prisoner. appeared as Two songs. EAPH,
1972 winning the "Kenyatta Prize for Literature" for this
1971 - African Religions in Western Scholarship. East African Literature Bureau (EALB) 1973 - Africa's Cultural Revolution, Macmillan Books For Africa, Nairobi
1974 - The Horn Of My Love. Heinemann, London, ISBN 0-435-90147-8
1978 - Hare and The Hornbil. Heinemann, London
1979 - 1982: Makerere University, Kampala / Uganda
1979 Research Associate in Makerere
1982 Chair of Creative Writing, Makerere. Okot dies in Kampala at the age of 52.

Works

Published post mortem:

1986 - Artist the Ruler: Essays on Art, Culture and Values 1988 -
1989 - White Teeth (English translation of Lak Tar), Heinemann / Nairobi

Still unclear:

Other Men's God

Web links

Literature by and about Okot p'Bitek in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

↑ Lara Rosenoff Gauvin: In and Out of Culture: Okot p'Bitek's Work and Social Repair in Post-Conflict Acoliland . In: Oral Tradition , Vol. 28, No. 1 (2013), pp. 35-54.

personal data
SURNAME	Bitek, Okot p '
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Ugandan poet, teacher and ethnologist
DATE OF BIRTH	June 7, 1931
PLACE OF BIRTH	Gulu , Uganda
DATE OF DEATH	July 20, 1982
Place of death	Kampala , Uganda

[1] Lara Rosenoff Gauvin: In and Out of Culture: Okot p'Bitek's Work and Social Repair in Post-Conflict Acoliland . In: Oral Tradition , Vol. 28, No. 1 (2013), pp. 35-54.