PeterPaulinoTwong_songPakangMarchingSong

Abstract

The song at the center of this item is a Shilluk song. Marching songs are about the courage and strength of a village or a group. They are warriors’ songs that are sung when people are marching for war, or going to fight a fierce animal like a lion, elephant or leopard. People had no guns, so when an animal killed a cow, people start a war call, and everybody runs there with his shield and spears. Men from nearby villages come running. When all the people arrive, they divide themselves into smaller groups. And go to attack the animal that will be hiding in the grass. This Pakang Marching Song is about a lion that ate a cow near the village and then went away into the Forest of Abayo. Then Pakang and Obay villages decided to follow the lion. They followed its foot-prints in the ashes of the burnt grass. When they found it in Abayo Forest, the fighting began; the lion wounded many people from the two villages, but they killed it. Pakang and its neighbour Obay, were enemies, but they went together to fight with the lion. So, the composer called the two villages "Ágag" crow that ate the lion. And nobody will separate them after that war with the lion. True, Pakang and Obay remained friends since that time; 1917 which was the first year of King Gwang in power.