SOCIAL SET UP

The social system of the Karimojong was centered around the clan system and they shared similar cultural elements with the langi and the Iteso. Marriage Before the boy could announce his intention to marry, he had to prove to the elders o the village that he was already a man. In early times when lions and elephants still teemed across the southern Karamoja plains, the boy had to set out alone armed only with a spear to hunt and kill single-handed a lion or an elephant that roamed the plains. The worrier would prove the achievement by reporting to the clan/family elders at a formal meeting called a Baraza. He would show blood on his spear blade and also present the animal's tail. The remaining problem now would be to fund sufficient cattle to pay the bride's wealth. A bull was always killed and shared among the boys upon proving his manhood to his father. From then on he was considered to have attained marriageable age and with the permission of the elders, he could begin to wear ostrich feathers. And the boy's father would instruct him to look for a girl to marry. Sexual contact was a usual prerequisite for the actual marriage and cases were few in which the bride's wealth was paid before such contact had taken place