Okot p'Bitek

Okot p'Bitek (7 June 1931 – 19 July 1982) was a Ugandan poet, who achieved wide international recognition for Song of Lawino, a long poem dealing with the tribulations of a rural African wife whose husband has taken up urban life and wishes everything to be westernised.

Quotes

Song of Lawino and Song of Ocol (1966)

• He says Black people are primitive. And their ways are utterly harmful. Their dances are mortal sins. They are ignorant, poor and diseased!
  • Page 36

• My husband abuses me together with my parents. He says terrible things about my mother. And I am so ashamed! ...
  • Page 35

• Ocol is no longer in love with; The old type; He is in love with a modern girl; The name of the beautiful one; Is Clementine; Brother, when you see Clementine! The beautiful one aspires; To look like a white woman; Her lips are red-hot; Like glowing charcoal; She resembles the wild cat; That has dipped its mouth in blood; Her mouth is like raw yaws; Tina dusts powder on her face; And it looks so pale ;...
  • Page 37

• The smell of carbolic soap; Makes me sick; And the smell of powder; Provokes the ghosts in my head; It is then necessary to fetch a goat; From my mother's brother; The sacrifice over; The ghost -dance drum must sound; The ghost be laid; And my peace restored.
  • Page 37

• Perhaps she has aborted many children, or maybe she has even thrown her twins into the pit latrine!
  • Page 39

• Forgive me, brother, for I am not insulting the woman with whom I share my husband. Do not think that my words are sharpened by jealousy. It is the sight of Tina that stirs sympathy in my heart.
  • Page 39

• I admit that I am a little jealous; there's no use denying it, as we all suffer from jealousy at times. It sneaks up on you like ghosts bringing fevers and surprises you like earth tremors. However, when you see the beautiful woman with whom I share my husband, you can't help but feel a little pity for her.
  • Page 39

• I may not fully understand the ways of foreigners, but I do not despise their customs.
  • Page 41

• The pumpkin in the old homestead. Must not be uprooted.
  • Page 41

• I don't know how to dance the rumba or samba, as my mother taught me the traditional dances of the Acoli people. I haven't learned the dances of the white people. I won't deceive you; you once saw me participate in the Orak dance, the dance for youths, the dance of our people.
  • Page 42

• When the drums beat, and the black youths kick up dust, they dance with energy and vigor. They dance with a healthy spirit, naughtily with pride, and full of life. It's a dance filled with competition, provocation, and challenges, showcasing their youthful exuberance and cultural pride.
  • Page 42

• Each man, though not necessarily with his wife, dances inside a dark house. They shamelessly hold each other tightly, so tightly that it feels as if they can barely breathe.
  • Page 44

• You kiss her on the cheek, as white people do. You kiss her lips, even if they have open sores, as white people do. You exchange slimy saliva from each other's mouths, just like white people do.
  • Page 44

• My husband says he no longer desires a woman with a gap in her teeth. He has fallen in love with a woman whose teeth completely fill her mouth, like those of war captives and slaves.
  • Page 49

• He says that I look extremely ugly when I am fully adorned for the dance, and that I make his bed-sheets dirty and his bed smelly.
  • Page 53

• I am proud of the hair with which I was born and as no white woman wishes to do her hair like mine, because she is proud of the hair with which she was born.
  • Page 56

• When the beautiful one with whom I share my husband returns from cooking her hair, she resembles a chicken that has fallen into a pond; her hair looks like the python's discarded skin.
  • Page 54

• I have no wish. To look like a white woman.
  • Page 56

• No leopard would change into a hyena, and the crested crane would hate to be changed into the bold-headed. Dung-eating vulture, The long-necked and graceful giraffe. Cannot become a monkey. Let no one. Uproot the pumkin.
  • Page 56

• Ocol says black people's foods are primitive, but what is backward about them? He says black people's foods are dirty: he means, some clumsy and dirty black women prepare food clumsily and put them in dirty containers
  • Page 62

• Look, straight before you is the central pole, that shiny stool... At the foot of the pole is my father's revered stool. Further on, the rows of pots placed one on top of the other are stores and cupboards. Millet flour, dried carcasses of various animals, beans, peas, fish, dried cucumber...
  • Page 59

• I really hate the charcoal stove! Your hand is always charcoal-dirty and anything you touch is blackened; and your finger nails resemble those of a poison woman.
  • Page 57

• I am terribly afraid of the electric stove, I do not like using it because you stand up when you cook.
  • Page 58

• The electric fire kills people: they say it is lightning...
  • Page 57

• I do not know how to cook like white women; I do not enjoy white men's foods; and how they eat, how could I know? And why should I know it?
  • Page 62

• I do not complain that you eat white men's foods. If you enjoy them, go ahead. Shall we just agree to have freedom to eat what one likes?
  • Page 63

• I confess, I do not deny! I do not know how to cook like a white woman.
  • Page 57

• In the wisdom of the Acoli, time is not stupidly split up into seconds and minutes. It does not flow like beer in a pot that is sucked until it is finished.
  • Page 69

• Ocol, in his arrogance, does not know how to welcome visitors. When they appear at his door, he tries to get rid of them quickly with the question: 'What can I do for you?
  • Page 68