Quote by Okot p'Bitek: “Let no one uproot the Pumpkin.”

The pumpkin, rooted in African soil and culture, stands for everything indigenous that colonial and modern forces tried to tear away. This is a plea to preserve what is native — language, custom, ways of being — against the pressure to replace them with something foreign and imposed.

Song of Lawino was published in 1966 as Uganda navigated its early years of independence under Milton Obote. Across East Africa, educated elites were adopting Western manners and values, and debates about cultural authenticity versus modernity were urgent. P'Bitek gave voice to those left behind by that cultural shift.

Ugandan poet and anthropologist whose 1966 long poem Song of Lawino is a foundational text in African literature, presenting an Acholi woman's lament against a husband who abandons his culture for Western ways. P'Bitek championed Acholi oral tradition and taught across East Africa and beyond.