Aidan Southall was involved with the Alur of Uganda from 1947 to 1992. During this prolonged fieldwork associations, he recorded different versions of how generations told and interpreted their social and political structural processes, fortunes and misfortunes with witchcraft as the underlying force.
Alur Hourglass opens with the colonial past and present globalizing world in which the Alur operate. It then goes back to mythological beginnings of Alur groups. The narrators' oral inflections are echoed and emphasized in this written presentation.
It opens with a family situation out of which arises the division between the human and animal worlds and the central ancestry and Kingship of Alur Society. Narrates how when Alur groups began to divided from one another, important moral rules were established and strongly sanctioned. Then it vividly portrays the ineluctable intensity and complexity of kinship, drawing in threads throughout society.
The Accommodation of Death, through the Courts of Death proceedings subtly structured by hallowed convention expressing and sanctioning the central moral percepts of Alur Society. Mourning concludes with the celebration of life dance that ties together many groups.