FOODWAYS: CATTLE AND SORGHUM GRAIN IN JIE COSMOLOGY (UGANDA)

The Jie people, who live on the central Karamoja Plateau in northern Uganda, have a mixed economy of agriculture and animal husbandry, with a strong emphasis placed upon the latter. In 1996, the Jie population numbered about 50,000, and they lived within the borders  of Najie, a flat land of approximately 1,300 square miles, situated in a dry and warm high plateau zone.
As a distinct ecological zone, Najie has thin wild vegetation and a dry climate. Sorghum is cultivated as the most important crop in the Jie peoples’ diet and economy. Varieties of sorghum grow well in the cotton soil of Najie, as do numerous varieties of fruits, bushes, and thorny plants that are all important to the economy of the Jie people.The historical dependence of the Jie on sorghum and cattle for their livelihood plays a special role in creating a dual and complementary cosmology, which informs social and political relations. While cattle signifies male food, sorghum signifies female food.
In the Jie culture in general, cattle are the primary source of conflict and resentment within the family as well as between communities. When conflict over cattle occurs, women offer their sorghum grain and sorghum beer as a sign of peace. While the cattle brand (Amachar) regulates relationships between fathers and sons and between older and younger brothers, sorghum regulates relationships between mothers and daughters, and between older and younger sisters.

The Jie Deities

Jie Village

This dual and complementary nature of cattle and sorghum grain can perhaps be better understood by learning about the Jie cosmology. A predominant interpretation of the Jie deities is characterized by the dual and complementary nature of cattle and grain metaphors. According to the Jie storytellers Rianoro, Logwee, and Lodoch (interviewed by the author in the village of Jimos in 1996), the Jie people have two deities: Akuj, a male deity, and his counterpart Ekipe, a female deity, who live in the sacred hills in the wilderness. While Akuj is associated with the sun, Ekipe is associated with the moon. Akuj and Ekipe periodically visit the villages from the world that is located behind the clouds in the deep sky, where there is no death, hunger, or aging.
When Akuj visits the people in the villages, he burns the land and causes the crops to fail and the cattle to die, thus creating prolonged drought and famine. When Ekipe visits the people, incessant winds blow and the rains pour, causing people to suffer from the cold. The Jie world is harmonious when Akuj and Ekipe achieve a balanced relationship. According to most Jie storytellers’ interpretation, Akuj and Ekipe are the projection of the sun and the moon, respectively. The dual and complementary qualities of the Jie deities are attributed to their dual ancestors Orwakol (the male ancestor) and Losilang (the female ancestor), who gave cattle and grain to the Jie people as gifts. The dual qualities of the Jie deities are also projected in their staple foods of cattle and sorghum. It is in this sense that cattle and sorghum occupy a special place in the Jie people’s diet.
Cattle products such as milk, blood, and meat, and sorghum products, such as sorghum bread, and sorghum beer, are not only staple food in a practical sense, they are also the food used on ceremonial occasions when ritual performances require their consumption.
The Jie historical traditions show a gradual development of the symbolic powers of cattle and sorghum. The development of the supremacy of cattle and sorghum are closely associated with their symbolic equation with the Jie ancestors and their relationships with the ancient Jie politico-religious system. In a number of traditions, cattle and sorghum are assigned special significance, which reveals how cattle and sorghum gained supremacy over other food staples.
Various traditions demonstrate a gradual process whereby agricultural-pastoral cosmology and its ritual performance became the bulwark of the ancient Jie politico-religious system. According to the Jie storytellers, the politico-religious leadership was founded on cattle keeping and a sorghum-based agriculture, which gradually developed during the preceding centuries. The early agricultural leaders were also political leaders, whose power stemmed from their ability to solicit powers from the ancestors in order to ensure good sorghum crops and green pastures.
Thus, the annual agriculturally oriented ritual served, and continues to serve, to legitimize and rejuvenate the politico-religious leaders and their power. For this reason, many Jie storytellers consider the ekeworon, or fire maker, to be the original leadership figure; he and his eldest wife serve as the first and foremost officials of agricultural ceremonies, which are performed to ensure the blessings of the ancestors for new crops and the safe return of the cattle from the grazing lands.

The dominant ritual that marks the appropriation of symbolic power by the cattle is a male initiation ritual known as the asapan, which is performed approximately every forty years. The appropriation of power by sorghum, however, takes place through the performance of the harvest ritual called ngitalio a ngimomwa (customs of sorghum), and it is based on the annual movement of the sorghum grains from the granary of the fire maker’s eldest wife to the Jie gardens and back to her granary, ritually.
These rituals embody the most important social roles of cattle and sorghum grains. The performance of both the asapan and the harvest ritual is an enactment of myths, and it constitutes a cosmic gift exchange. These rituals represent a cosmological gift exchange between the deities and humankind. The symbolic power of cattle and grain is derived from the everyday sharing of cattle and grain among the people and from their practical use in the discourses of everyday life. In both the male initiation and in the harvest rituals, eating is the dominant metaphorical act in appropriating symbolic power.

By Mustafa Kemal Mirzeler in the book "African Folklore- An encyclopedia" Philip M.Peek and Kwesi Yankah, Editors, Routledge, New York- London, 2004, p. 274-276. Adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa.

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