Uganda culture

Karimajong grass thatched houses and kraals of cattel in the middle

Karamoja with the Karamajong also known as Karamajong/Karimajong speaking people  is more than 1,000 metres above sea level, and four main mountains overlook the region’s savannah, highlands and river valleys:  Mount Morungole in the north, Mount Moroto in the east, Mount Kadam in the south and Mount Napak in the west. They have pastoral life as well as the scarcity of rain, keeps people on the move and well dispersed. It is no wonder that this amazing one of the sixty eight tribes in Uganda that live in the dry area dedicate their pastoral economy with crop cultivation, which is commonly practiced by women. Millet is their staple, but many people also grow corn and peanuts. Grazing is done by men and grazing areas are common ground outside the stockade, although milk cows sometimes stay near the homestead. During the driest months, usually February and March, cattle are moved to seasonal camps or to areas of water and grass a distance from the homestead. In these areas, men live almost entirely on milk and blood drawn from live cattle, and, occasionally, meat. In the homestead, women, children, and old people forage for food, including flying ants, if stores of grain are depleted. In very lean times, milk is reserved for children and calves before adults. Tobacco is grown within the stockade that surrounds most homesteads. The homestead is usually a circular configuration, and within this enclosure, each married woman has a house built of mud and brushwood walls with a thatched roof and it is more likely that if you visit this area, you find women building houses even on top of roofs thatching their roofs. The center of this is a cattle kraal, usually with only one opening to the outside

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A akaramajong woman practising a caltural dancing

Oh the pearl of Africa that welcomes everybody to enjoy a tour exploring the life of  Karamojong that has a unique marriage which is polygamous with the number of wives is being limited solely by financial circumstances.  After marriage, Wives live in their husband's homestead. Each wife has a separate, small house that serves as a kitchen, and some women also cultivate plots of ground several hours' walk away from their homes. Men were traditionally scornful of widowers and old men who cared for their own gardens, but after plows were introduced in the 1950s and farming became more financially rewarding, many young men claimed plots of ground for their own use and hired women to work in them.   No boy is allowed to marry until he is admitted by the elders to the status of manhood. Up to this time a boy must pluck out all his pubic hair. When the time comes (usually as one of the groups) his father gives him a bull, which the boy kills sharing it with his male relatives. Smearing himself with dang from the entrails and gives his mother the head, neck, hump, stomach, and ribs. His hair is cut by an adult male friend, leaving a tuft at the back to which a shot string is attached. Traditionally, when the hair grows back, he moulds it into two buns, one on top of the head and one at the back with coloured clay.
In attaining manhood, he may seek a wife. It is usual that he will already have at least one lover and if his father approves his lover may be taken as his wife. When a woman is about to give birth she is assisted by her   female relatives. The umbilical cord is tied with fiber and cut near to the body. If the baby is a boy the cord is cut with the arrow used for bleeding cattle but if it is a girl, a knife is used. The cord is buried in the cattle enclosure.
When someone dies, the body is wrapped up in a hide and buried in a goat enclosure. If the person is pauper without friends the body is simply thrown outside the kraal and left to the wild animals.
When a husband dies the widow passes into the possession of his principal brother. He will then kill, and, they will smear themselves with dung from its entrails. From this time onwards she belongs to him. If there is no brother then she will pass to the son of a co-wife.
The karamajong language, Nga karamojong, is complicated and subtle. 

 Oh what an amazing tribe, I wish i was a Karamojong but then what an amazing tribe is mine also??