Acholi

The Acholi of the Achwa district are the only people living in Samu, primitive, superstitious and unwilling to leave despite their terror of the Afiti. They honor a pantheon of Old Gods and hundreds of lesser powers, from nymphs and spirits to familiars and the Afiti, whom they take for gods, and believe that abandoning the Achwa would doom the whole tribe.

Once through the rite of adulthood, an Acholi will neither accept a gift nor use any tool, implement or resource not personally made or gathered, so trade is impossible. Each adult hunts and forages alone, sharing food only with children. Men and women are fully equal and equally self-reliant. For protection each wears necklaces and belts of one claw and one fang from every kill, blessed by the shaman and effective only while no greater taboo is broken. Strangers who live by their rules are tolerated, but taboo-breakers are usually bound, gagged and left near an Afiti's hut.

They are short and slight, olive-brown under a coat of gray mud that keeps off biting insects, wearing only a leather loincloth and bright feathers in their stiff black hair, and they hunt with crude weapons, chiefly a sharpened throwing stick.