"They cook their hair
with hot iron
and pull it hard
So that it may grow long.
Then they rope the hair
on wooden pens
like a billy goat
brought for the sacrifice
struggling to free itself.
They fry their hair in
boiling oil as if it
were locusts and the
hair sizzles.
It cries aloud in sharp pain
as it is pulled and stretched
and the vigorous and healthy
hair, Curly, springy and thick
that glistens in the sunshine
Is left listless and dead."
"The Graceful Giraffe Cannot
Become a Monkey,"
Song of Lawino and Song of Ocol,
1988 Okot P 'Bitek,