Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article.Join Britannica's Publishing Partner Program and our community of experts to gain a global audience for your work!
The Lango cultivate millet for food and for making beer and also grow numerous vegetables. Men and women share the agricultural work, but men have sole custody of cattle.
The population was traditionally divided into a number of patrilineal clans, each having its own territory and inhabiting a compact and usually stockaded village. Marriage involved a substantial bride-price in livestock. Hereditary chiefs had authority over all inhabitants of their clan areas, regardless of kinship. There was, however, no hereditary aristocracy. Above these chiefs were senior chiefs (rwot) who won their positions by personal merit, each controlling from three to six hereditary chiefs. Men also were divided into a series of age grades.
Lango traditionally believed that every human had a guardian spirit (winyo; literally, “bird”) that attended him during life and that must be ritually liberated from the corpse. There was also a belief in a shadow self, or immaterial soul (tipo), that after death eventually was merged into a vague entity called jok, a pervasive power, or supreme force. Ancestors, of whom jok was held the universal sublimation, were worshiped along with jok at shrines and sacred trees by prayer and sacrifice. Occurrences or things of unusual or unexplained nature were associated with jok, and jok can serve as a force for good or ill.
Milton Obote, the first president of the Republic of Uganda (1966–71; 1980–85), was a member of the Lango people.
Learn More in these related Britannica articles:
eastern Africa: The Nilotic migrations…in the 17th century, the Lango began moving southwestward (and became much affected by their River-Lake Nilotic neighbours, the Acholi). Then, in the 18th century, the Teso, Karimojong, and others began also to move in various southward directions.…
Uganda: Ethnic groupsby Acholi (Acoli), Lango (Langi), Alur, Padhola, Kumam, Teso, Karimojong, Kakwa, and Sebei—are spoken by more than one-tenth of the population. Central Sudanic peoples—including the Lendu, Lugbara, and Madi—are also found in the north.…
Eastern Sudanic languages
Eastern Sudanic languages, a group of languages representing the most diverse of the major divisions within the Nilo-Saharan language family. These languages are spoken from southern Egypt in the north to Tanzania in the south and from Ethiopia and Eritrea in the east to Chad in the west. During the…