Okot p'Bitek Quotes (1931-1982)

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

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

“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.”

“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?”

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

“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?”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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?”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”