Etogo: the festival of “buying adulthood”

Etogo me wilo dongo, “the festival of buying adulthood”, was held by some clans for boys who had reached puberty. Driberg described it among the Jo Akarawok and neighbouring clans.

• It took place every alternate year.
• The boys killed chickens in the village pasture and gave them to their elders, and whipped each other with withies cut from the tree epobo. The chickens and the lashes were the “price” paid for manhood, and a test of courage.
• When it was over, the withies were broken up and thrown into a nearby stream, where the boys bathed.
• Having taken part entitled a boy to dress his hair in the style called tweyo tok, “to tie the occiput”.

Several clans joined together for the festival, among them the Jo Arakit me Oki, Jo Akarawok me Oki, Jo Inomo, Jo Oki and Jo Akidi. Among the Jo Atekit a similar ceremony with feasts of bulls was called epet me wilo dongo.

Source: J. H. Driberg, The Lango: A Nilotic Tribe of Uganda (London, 1923), pp. 191–193; public domain. It describes life about a hundred years ago as a colonial administrator saw it, so customs have changed and some may be told differently today. Elders and families are invited to correct it and add what they know.