An Acoli prayer from Uganda. It is addressed to the ancestors who are offered as sacrifice a goat, a chicken and some beer. The prayer is for good health, for protection from disease and warfare, and for good crops and many children. It is led by an elder, and the people respond in chorus at the end
The ancestors have spoken today:
Bring forth a brown billy goat,
Chicken and beer.
My father, you have asked for food;
Your food is here today,
Come to it now.
Call all your brothers,
Your food is here!
You my clansmen and clanswomen,
I have called you
Because of the food I have cooked for our fathers.
Come, let us give them food.
Today I hold a goat in my hand:
Let us give it to my father.
You, our fathers,
Accept the food we give you today:
Here is your food.
Why should we fear you?
You are our fathers.
Your billy goat is here,
Drink its blood today.
The fiends that are coming
let them pass far away!
Your food is here today.
Let your children have good health,
Let the women have good childbirth
So that your name may not be obliterated.
Your chicken is here;
Today we give you blood.
Let us have good health,
Let there be no deaths in the homestead.
If we were not here
There would be no food for you.
Here, we give you beer;
Let us have good health,
Diseases that are coming,
let them pass far away!
Today, I give you a goat,
Today, I give you blood,
Today, I give you beer,
I give you beer to quench your thirst:
Let us have good health.
Let there be silence, oh,
Let there be silence.
Today, we have cooked a feast for my father,
Today, I have given him food,
But, let there be silence:
Let the people have good health.
Let the people have good health!
Let the lions be killed.
Let them be killed, killed, killed!
Let our spears be sharp and straight.
Let them be sharp, sharp and straight!
Let the women have good childbirth.
Let them have good childbirth!
Let the crops germinate well,
let the crops ripen well.
Let the crops germinate and ripen well!
Let the children’s cries be heard.
Let them be heard, heard, heard!
The evil things that are in the homestead,
Let the setting sun take them down in the west.
Let it take, take, take!
Let the setting sun take them.
Let it take!
Let it take.
Let it take!
Let the setting sun take them.
And so it has taken them!
from The Horn of My Love (1974),
by Okot p’Bitek
