What type of subsistence do the Nuer practice?

To generations of anthropology students, the Nuer of southern Sudan have been one of the best-known peoples in Africa, thanks to the pioneering cultural studies of British social anthropologist E. E. Evans-Pritchard.

Early in the 20th century, the Nuer were estimated to number about half a million. They occupied the swampy flood plain known as the Sudd region along the White Nile. These farmer-herders lived by raising cattle and cultivating crops, moving away from their permanent settlements in the dry season after the rains had tapered off and the floods had receded in order to take advantage of grazing in low-lying areas near rivers and streams. Fishing, hunting, and the gathering of wild fruits rounded out their diet.

When the British conquered Sudan and eventually brought the Nuer people under their control, they were surprised that the Nuer could have high population densities and broad, stable networks of social organization without any formal political organization or leadership. To account for this complexity of this relatively egalitarian organization based on kinship relations, as well as the legendary military successes the Nuer enjoyed, the famous British anthropologist E. E. Evans-Pritchard developed the concept of “segmentary lineages.” These kinship groups, which traced descent in the male line, could mobilize in opposition to similar-level opponents in any social conflict among the Nuer or between them and outsiders. Th us, even without a centralized political leader, they could effectively unite against enemies, making them a formidable military foe. The theory of segmentary opposition and studies of the Nuer have fascinated anthropologists and their students ever since.

Thus the fame of the Nuer stems from their early notoriety as one of the most courageous and steadfast peoples of Africa in their resistance to colonial conquest and imperial domination. British and Egyptian forces conquered Sudan in 1898, and most Nuer communities had nominally submitted to British rule before the outbreak of World War I, but non-cooperation and resistance remained widespread. It was not until the 1920s that systematic efforts were made to extend effective British presence into some areas of Nuerland. The last large-scale armed uprising was not put down until the end of the 1920s, when Royal Air Force planes were deployed in an “experiment in the pacification of primitive peoples” to fire-bomb Nuer villages and the earthen mounds dedicated to their prophets. The invaders also strafed the fleeing people and confiscate their cattle.

Once armed resistance was finally crushed, the British colonizers had the difficult task of subjecting the proudly independent Nuer people to the principles of “indirect rule” and regularizing administration and taxation in spite of the lack of native institutions and structures for political control. The British never truly accomplished this task; neither did the series of Sudanese governments that followed. In fact, by the time of Sudanese independence in 1956, civil war had broken out in the southern region, eventually pulling the entire Nuer area into armed conflicts that continue into the late 1990s, with only one short relatively peaceful period from 1972 to 1983. The Khartoum government brutally suppressed the African ethnic groups in an attempt to control the oil and water on their land.

The civil war between the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) led by the late General Garang and the Government of the Sudan (GoS) raged from 1983 to 9 January 2005 when a Comprehensive Peace agreement was signed between the two parties. The war claimed millions of lives, forced many into exile and wasted livelihoods of millions of people, destroyed the physical infrastructure, hampered the economic base and caused the disintegration of social fabrics. This in turn has had a serious impact on traditional value systems, norms, and adaptation mechanisms. The treaty granted Southern Sudan a semi-autonomous status within the larger Sudan. Nevertheless, many Nuer still feel that they have been shortchanged in the composition of the Government of National Unity (GONU), headed by President Al Bashir and Salva Kiir Mayardit. They allege the government is dominated by the Dinka tribe and therefore misrepresents the Sudanese reality.

LOCATION AND HOMELAND

Nuerland is located in the southern Sudan between 7° and 10° north and 29° and 34° east. The main channel of the Nile River divides the country into western and eastern regions. The vast majority of the Nuer today live in their traditional homeland, located in the east Upper Nile Province around the junction of the Nile River with the Bahr el Ghazal and Sobat Rivers, and extending up the Sobat across the Ethiopian border. Nuer are geographically located in the heartland of the Upper Nile towards the Eastern Region of Jonglei state in Southern Sudan. They are bordered by the Gawaar of Ayod from the West, Dinka of Bor from the South West, Murle from the South, Anyuak from the East, Jikany of Nasir from the North East, Dinka of Ngok, and Luach from the North.

The region receives heavy rains—about 50 to 100 cm (20 to 40 in) per year—which falls almost entirely from May through October, with average daily maximum temperatures about 30° to 32°c (86° to 90°f). Dry winds blow from the north from November until April, bringing clear, sunny skies, with March and April being very hot months with high temperatures in the range of 38°c (100°f). The Nuer homeland is very flat, causing slow drainage and widespread flooding during the rainy season. Those same lands offer lush grazing for cattle during the dry season. The landscape also includes a few trees, such as small groves of thorny acacias and lalob trees, a very large shade tree, and a few palm trees.

While most Nuer still live in their home area, many have migrated to urban areas at various times to take advantage of job opportunities. During the civil wars in the period since 1955, and especially since 1983, thousands of Nuer have also fled north to the national capital, Khartoum, to other cities, or even to other countries to seek refuge from the fighting. Since the 1960s, thousands of rural Nuer have lived outside Sudan, particularly in western Ethiopia along the upper stretches of the Sobat river.

It is difficult to assess how life has changed in the traditional territories of the Nuer along the upper Nile and Sobat rivers because of the disruption of life in the region. However, in the time since the end of the colonial period, many Nuer have come to live outside their homeland, particularly in the cities of the north, where they have led very different lives. Taxes imposed by the British, as well as measures restricting Nuer raids on other groups for cattle, led to the first significant migrations of Nuer in search of work for pay. Most migrants intended to return home after a brief period, with enough money to buy a herd large enough to support a family in the traditional way of life; but the dislocations of the civil war and a devastating flood in 1964 that destroyed many herds have made returning increasingly difficult for many Nuer.

In seeking wage employment in the north, the Nuer men looked for work that they considered in keeping with their proud heritage as brave warriors. Much of the work available was in domestic service and other menial work that Dinka and other refugees from neighboring southern communities accepted, but which most Nuer rejected as demeaning. Instead, many Nuer found their way into construction labor, where they became the core labor of the labor force in many northern cities and on construction crews for irrigation dams and other structures. Women eventually began to accompany the men, and whole families would live on construction sites in shelters built from available scrap material. This reduced the living costs of the workers, but it created problems because the conditions were not compatible with the standards of female modesty and seclusion common among Muslim northerners.

LANGUAGE

The Nuer call themselves Naath, which means “human beings.” The Nuer, Dinka, and Atwot (Atuot) are sometimes considered one ethnic group. The Nuer language is a Nilotic language closely related to the speech of the Dinka and Atwot. The language is uniform with no definable dialects.

To the ears of English speakers, the Nuer language sounds airy, light, melodic, and breathy, with few hard consonants. It has several consonants that are not usually found at the beginning of English words, such as the sound ng (as in sing) or ny (as the Spanish ñ in señor or French gn in Boulogne. For example, most common names for Nuer women and girls begin with the latter sound: Nyayoi, Nyawec (the c at the end is pronounced ch). Because of these unusual sounds, the written form of the language developed by missionaries in the 1930s and 1940s includes several letters not used in writing European languages.

To identify a person, the given name is followed by the name of the father, since the Nuer consider kinship through the father's line very important. So if a man named Cuol names his son Gatkuoth and his daughter Nyaruol, they would be called Gatkuoth Cuol and Nyaruol Cuol. A child is usually named by the father or another member of the father's family and may have another name that the relatives on the mother's side use. Women do not change their names when they marry, but after a woman has a child (named Wei, for example), other women might often call her “mother-of-Wei.” People also have nicknames and ceremonial names. Among male friends of their own age groups, for example, boys and men are often called by the name of the bull they received at initiation or the name of their current favorite bull in their herd.

Most Nuer cannot read their language, but oral language is well developed. Nuer enjoy verbal wit, and are known as brilliant conversationalists. Major forms of entertainment include joking, creating and reciting poetry, and composing and performing original songs for one another. Sample Nuer expressions include wut pany (“a real man”), male magua! (“big hello!”), jin athin? (“Are you there?”=“How are you?”), and nyang (“crocodile”).

FOLKLORE

Nuer honor the memory of their famous prophets, known as guk, who are believed to be possessed by one of the sky spirits or lesser divinities. One such prophet was a man named Ngundeng, who died in l906. He was said to be able to cure illnesses and infertility. During his lifetime he and his followers constructed a large earthen pyramid, approximately 12 m (40 ft) high, made of earth, ashes and cattle camp debris; they surrounded it with over a hundred upright elephant tusks. It was built in honor of the sky god Deng and for the glory of the prophet Ngundeng; people came from miles around to help with the building and later to sacrifice cattle there. The monument was blown up by the British in 1928. The songs and prophecies of Ngundeng and other prophets are passed down the generations through oral tradition and are still influential today. It is believed that the spirit that possesses a prophet later possesses one of his descendants.

RELIGION

The Nuer religion involves belief in a divine creator or high god, Kuoth, who sustains life and health, and in many lesser spirits. The Nuer honor both the high god and the spirits (or lesser divinities) through observance of moral rules (including observation of kinship duties and other social obligations) and sacrifices. The two kinds of leaders in the Nuer religious system are prophets, who are believed to be earthly representatives of some of the lesser divinities/spirits of the air, and “earth priests,” also known as “leopard-skin chiefs.” The latter name for these leaders comes from their traditional mark of office, a leopard skin cape, and their recognized leadership role; but they are not really political leaders, as the term “chief” seems to imply. Instead, they are considered sacred people who can intercede with spirits, conduct sacrifices to help cure illnesses that are believed to be spiritually based, and serve as intermediaries between feuding families, as when revenge is sought after a murder. There are still some active Nuer prophets today, including Wutnyang Gatakek (whose name means “man of crocodile, son of reputation”), a young man who encourages his followers to work hard, become self-reliant, and not succumb to the tendency to blame other ethnic groups for their problems (a practice known as “tribalism”). He does not consider his spiritual leadership to be in conflict with Christianity, and he encourages Christians to continue to follow their religion.

During periods of epidemics or even individual health crises, oracles are sought out to identify the offended spirits and determine the proper recourse. Frequently an offering is presented or an animal is sacrificed in order to appease or drive away the evil spirit. The Nuer pray for health and well-being, offering sacrifices to Kuoth so he will answer their petitions. There is no organized religious hierarchy or system, but many individuals serve as diviners and healers.

The Nuer own the Bieh State, a name which originated from the emerging days of Ngun-Deng Bong, the well known great prophet of Nuer. Bieh in the Nuer language means shrine of Nyun-Deng. It is a Holy place where Nuer people including the non-Nuer from all walks of life come periodically to Bieh for worship.

The Nuer do not believe in a place of after life for the spirit, and their religious concepts deal with concerns of this life. However, they do believe the spirits of the dead can affect their current life, with the more recently deceased having more influence. The Nuer honor and appease the spirits of their ancestors. Cattle are sacrificed to god and the spirits. As among the neighboring Dinka, religious thought and practice is a dialogue with Kuoth. The Nuer pray for health and well-being to Kuoth, offering sacrifices of cattle in hopeful expectation that their sentiments may be realized. Whereas many individuals become diviners and healers (tiet), there is no organized cult or hierarchy of religious functionaries. In most cases, other available medical resources are resorted to when spiritual healing does not bring about the desired outcome. Like other Nilotic peoples, the Nuer regard long-deceased ancestors with respect and veneration, but are concerned in their earthly lives with the power of the recently deceased to cause misfortune. Cattle play an important part in Nuer religion and ritual. Cows are dedicated to the ghosts of the owner's lineages and any personal spirits that may have possessed them at any time. The Nuer believe they establish contact with these ancestor ghosts and spirits by rubbing ashes along the backs of oxen or cows dedicated to them, through the sacrifice of cattle. No important Nuer ceremony of any kind is complete without such a sacrifice. There is also a widespread belief in the concept of the “evil eye,” where a malevolent person possessing supernatural powers can cast a spell on someone just by gazing upon them.

Although Christian missionaries had worked in some Nuer areas for several decades, relatively few rural Nuer had converted before 1964, the year when all foreign church workers were expelled by the government. In the period of peace (1972–83), however, many new Christian congregations were formed and many Nuer, particularly in the east, converted to Christianity. The majority of Sudan's people, living in central and northern Sudan, are Muslims, and although some southerners have converted to Islam, recent reports suggest that the Nuer prefer their traditional faith or Christianity. The government of Sudan, especially in the period after Islamic Law was declared in 1983, tried to pressure the non-Muslim peoples of the south to convert to Islam. Since the Islamic-led government has more respect for Christianity than for traditional African religions like the Nuer religion, many Nuer have preferred to become Christians. This has made for many interesting social dilemmas among the Nuer. For example, when Christian and non-Christian Nuer socialize together, as when an animal is sacrificed for religious reasons and later eaten, they try to avoid conflict over beliefs by not referring to the major Divinity or by asserting that “Divinity is one”; that is, they express the belief that there is only one god, even if different people use different names and worship differently.

MAJOR HOLIDAYS

Until recently, most Nuer did not use dates to calculate the passage of time. Even during the 1970s, most Nuer did not know in what year they were born or how old they were. A woman might tell you her daughter was born “the year of the measles epidemic” or the year of a flood when they had had to eat a lot of lalob fruit. So instead of specific dates for annual holidays, people hold rituals and celebrations whenever they seem appropriate. For example, if a group of boys is ready to be initiated, it can be done at any time of the year, although it is most likely to take place at the end of the rainy season, after harvest, when people have the time and plenty of food has been stored.

RITES OF PASSAGE

A woman in childbirth is attended to by another woman, usually a close relative, who must herself be a mother. People are careful to protect the mother and newborn child from any spiritual danger by making sure that pregnant women or their husbands do not enter the house.

The Nuer nomenclature is rather complex. In some groups the child is named along the male lineage, but traced either through the mother or father's ancestry. A similar system gives the child the last name of the paternal grandfather's first name, the middle name being the father's first name, and the first or given name selected by the father. Christian children often have Biblical names and Sudanese names, used interchangeably. First names, when used, are commonly preceded by a title, like “Mr.”

Among the Nuer, puberty is seen as the passage into adulthood and its responsibilities and is a marked occasion for both sexes. The Nuer do not circumcise either boys or girls, but they do practice certain other body modification rituals related to life transitions. For girls, passage from childhood to adulthood is marked by the first menstruation, at which time the mother prepares her for motherhood and home management.

For males, there is a complicated set of rituals which an entire village age-set progresses through, culminating in ritualized tattooings or scarifications across the forehead. In the past, nearly all boys (and, at least in some areas, girls, too) had their four lower incisors removed at about the age of eight. Aesthetically, this permanent loss of teeth was accompanied by efforts to force the top front teeth outward a little, so that the beautiful white teeth would be more visible in the smiling face. This “orthodontia” was for the purpose of making the children look more beautiful. More recently some families have refused to continue these practices.

Between the ages of 9 and 13, Nuer boys seek permission from their fathers to undergo a manhood initiation ritual. In the past, the boys were much older, about 14 to 16 during the 1930s and about 16 to 18 a century ago. They wait until a group grows to between 5 and 15 boys for mass initiation. The ritual requires extensive preparation of food, and the boys must be healthy and well fed prior to the ritual. On the chosen day, the boys' heads are shaved and anointed. The climax of the ritual is a ceremony in which the boys lie down in a row. Each in turn is cut with a knife by the scarifier, who makes six horizontal lines across the entire forehead and above the ears, all the way down to the bone. Although it is extremely painful, the boys try to show courage and remain silent. Parents and friends gather to watch. Loss of blood is a risk, and the wounds are sometimes cauterized to stop the bleeding.

After the cutting, the young men stay secluded together in a house while the scars are healing, lying for a time on their backs to keep the forehead upward. They can have unmarried people, nursing mothers, and old people as visitors, and they have nothing to do but eat porridge and milk, sleep, and play. Once they are considered healed (after some weeks), the young men are released and lead a procession to the river to bathe. They then return home and declare themselves men, and they and their families and guests celebrate with feasting, games, singing, and dancing. Traditionally the father of each initiate presents him with a spear, a fishing spear, and a bull from which he takes his “bull name.” After this initiation, boys can begin to be sexually active and marry and they take on adult work roles. Those initiated in the same period of years have a very special friendship throughout life.

Some young men today do not want to undergo this ritual, under the influence of education and Christianity. Th ose who do not undergo the full manhood initiation are being called “bull boys,” indicating that people know they are grown up, but do not recognize them as fully adult men who have proven their courage and been scarred like other Nuer.

The next significant transition rite is marriage. This usually follows a period of courtship when visits, poetry recitations, and other intimate exchanges give a couple a chance to decide whether they love each other. Incest is a taboo. If the parents agree to the marriage, the man's family must supply an agreed-upon number of cattle to the bride's family as a bride-price payment. In the old days when cattle were plentiful, the payment might be as many as 40 cows, but today marriages require fewer cattle due to the difficulties of civil war and migration. Some other valuables, such as money, can be substituted for some of the cows.

When a person dies, the corpse is laid to rest in a fetal position on a cowhide in a grave about four feet deep, then covered with another cowhide and buried. Families mourn for a few months, during which time close relatives do not wear ornaments. They then hold a ceremony in which one or two cattle are killed (both to honor the dead and to provide meat for a feast), purification rites are performed, lengthy speeches are made, prayers are offered, and people wash themselves and the possessions of the deceased and shave their heads. (Since almost everyone wears their hair short for cleanliness, it is not unusual for both men and women to shave their heads.) After these ceremonies people again wear ornaments.

INTERPERSONAL RELATIONS

Nuer place great value on behaving in a respectful way toward others, offering greetings to strangers and friends alike, and offering hospitality to travelers. It is not considered necessary to offer every visitor a meal, especially if there is no woman around at the moment (since men are not expected to cook for guests), but offering something to drink is important.

Wit, joking, and animated conversation are common among friends and as part of courtship. People generally show respect for their elders. Although men are in a social position somewhat superior to that of women, women have much personal freedom and make most of their own decisions about work, possessions, and interpersonal relations. Relative age is of great importance in interpersonal relationships, determining not only the terms of address but also the manner of acting with others. For example, men of the same “age set” will call each other “brother” and will act informally with one another. Alternatively, someone older than you is accorded utmost respect, and is referred to as “uncle” or “aunt,” or even “father” or “mother” if related by blood.

The sharing of food forms a common bond among people. Leaders who extend hospitality and do not rely excessively on others are admired. Relatives are always expected to share food with each other. Newlyweds do not eat together until after the birth of their first child, when their two families are then considered more solidly related.

LIVING CONDITIONS

In rural areas, Nuer build round, one-room houses out of poles, which are plastered with an adobe-like mixture of mud and dung that dries into solid brown walls. The tall, pointed roofs are thatched with straw. Sometimes the doorways are built very small, so that one has to crouch or even crawl to enter, making it easier to barricade the door at night as protection against wild animals. Similar construction methods are used for the large cattle barns. During the rainy season, the cattle sleep inside, and many of the young men sleep in the rafters of the barns. Since there are many insects—flies by day and mosquitoes by night—smoky fires are lit near the cattle at night; both people (especially children) and animals are often smeared with ashes to keep some of the insects off. While people may look rather strange when newly covered, this is the only insect repellent available in the villages.

Villages do not have electricity or running water, so people must draw water from wells, rivers, or pools, and they make good use of natural light, rising early, and enjoying the warmth and glow of fires at night. Furniture is simple—mats, cowhides, logs for benches, and simple stools and headrests are common; and some people have wood-frame rope beds. For containers, pottery, aluminum pots, and bottles, as well as gourds and baskets, are ordinarily used.

The Nuer homeland is not hospitable for horses, camels, and donkeys, which are commonly ridden in other parts of Sudan, since they develop hoof problems during the rainy season. When people want to travel, they either walk or get a ride on top of the load carried by one of the large open trucks that travel the bumpy, rutted dirt roads of the region. During the rainy season, the roads cannot be used. Dugout canoes or rafts are used on the rivers.

The Nuer experience numerous difficulties in accessing medical care, although to different degrees depending on background factors like educational level exposure to biomedical care in Sudan. They routinely share over-the-counter medications or borrow prescription medicines from others to treat similar symptoms. This is a result of coping with chronic shortages of medicine and severely limited care facilities in Sudan, and of course it circumscribes expensive medical costs.

Herbal preventive and curative measures are particularly relied upon where there is no access to clinics. There are multiple herbal and traditional remedies used by Sudanese. For example, a widely used cure for migraine headaches is a certain chalky compound (clay, mixed with certain leaves and water), which is rubbed over the head. To relieve the symptoms of malaria, there is a certain root chewed like a stick. One common form is called visi ri, a bitter shrub that bends its shoot to follow the sun.

FAMILY LIFE

Each married woman has her own house where she and her young children live. The Nuer practice polygyny, so husbands can marry more than one wife if they can afford to. Husbands sleep in the houses of their wives (if they have more than one wife, they go to whichever they wish) or in the cattle barns with other men. Several married women's houses in an extended family may surround large family courtyards, or people can live separately. Houses are usually built near the fields where crops are grown, and often there are some good shade trees and a thicket or forest nearby which can provide firewood and other wild products.

Young children usually work with their parents, gradually learning skills such as milking, gardening, herding, spreading cow dung to dry for fuel, and caring for younger siblings. Fathers and mothers as well as grandparents and other relatives enjoy playing with children. The Nuer prefer to have large families with several children, but poor health conditions and the war have made it difficult for many of their children to survive. It is probably rare today for a mother to have more than three or four surviving children.

Families often have scrawny short-haired dogs that eat scraps and help protect the homestead. They usually do not receive much attention. In contrast, the cattle, although they are the main economic assets of a family, are treated in some ways like pets. People often try to make their cattle beautiful, as by working on their horns as they grow so as to give them interesting shapes, or by brushing the coats of the cattle or decorating their horns with tassels and beads. Sometimes people compose songs or poetry praising their beautiful cattle.

At the domestic level, a woman may, with luck, give birth to six children during her childbearing years. Co-wives do not necessarily reside in proximity. And when they do, the domestic unit can easily number more than a dozen individuals.

CLOTHING

The Nuer homeland is a hot climate, and for much of the year people do not need to wear much. Thirty years ago, a simple leather skirt or loincloth was all that a person needed while in his or her own village, although women usually had at least one good dress and both men and women wore capes or blankets tied over one shoulder when they traveled away from home. Currently, men and boys prefer to wear loose-fitting cotton shirts and shorts, while women and girls prefer colorful cotton dresses with perhaps a cape or a head scarf in addition.

Body decoration has always been important to the Nuer. Not only do they remove the lower front teeth, as noted above, but they also make decorative scars on the body in dotted patterns, especially on women's torsos, faces, and other parts of the body. Earrings are popular with both men and women, and the Nuer were doing multiple piercings of the ear long before it became popular in the West. Some people like to stretch the ear piercing with progressively larger plugs, working their way up to film canisters. One style is to loop stiff black giraffe hairs through ear piercings to make macramé-like decorations. Lip piercings decorated with metal ornaments are popular with some girls. For men especially, hair dyeing (especially orange) and patterned head shaving are popular, as is hair sculpture, with some arrangements made to look like cattle horns. Beautiful white beads are made from broken ostrich eggshells (found in ostrich nests), and these are made into stunning white necklaces and waistbands. Some people are skilled at fashioning ivory bracelets that both men and women like to wear on the wrists or upper arms. Ivory is not so common any more as the elephants have become scarce and cannot be hunted, so bone, cowrie shells, and imported plastic and glass ornaments have become more commonly used as jewelry.

Since Nuer have very dark skin, there is no tradition of tattooing, but people often mark their bodies in patterns made with temporary colorings (especially chalky white) for celebrations.

FOOD

The commonest daily foods for the Nuer are dairy products, especially milk for the young and soured milk, like yogurt, for adults. Liquid butter is also made from milk that is soured in long-necked gourds and shaken for an hour or so to separate out the fat. Since there are no refrigerators to chill the butter, it remains liquid and is used for cooking or poured onto cooked foods. Grains such as corn and sorghum are cooked and eaten with large spoons like hot cereal, with milk, yogurt, or butter. Apart from cow's milk, a soft porridge made from fermented sorghum, mixed with a sour fruit, is commonly used as a weaning food (as well as a food for the infirm or elderly). In the general diet, sorghum, prepared in many different ways, is the most common starch.

The Nuer do not eat meat very often; they prefer to keep their cattle alive, but on a special occasion one of the cattle may be sacrificed and then eaten. When a cow is killed, the meat is often shared with relatives and neighbors, and some of the extra meat is hung out to dry, like beef jerky, to preserve it for future ture use. Men and older boys normally carry spears with them when they walk around the countryside, in case they have a chance to hunt an antelope, gazelle, or other animal. If they are lucky, this can mean a delicious meat meal without anyone having to give up a cow.

Fish are eaten often during the dry season when the herds are taken to pasturelands near the rivers or pools left in low places as the floods recede. River fish trapped in pools are easy to catch as the waters dry up, so that even very young children can catch them by throwing fishing spears in shallow water. Boys 8 to 10 years old can bring home dinner for the whole family while they are out playing in the water on a hot day. At times when fish are plentiful, people can catch more than they need and sun-dry the extras to sell or save for later in the year. Drying gives fish a sour, tangy, flavor that is an acquired taste.

Various vegetables—squash, tomatoes, chili peppers—are grown and cooked, generally in pots on outdoor fires. Vegetables and greens, both wild and cultivated, make up a large proportion of the traditional diet, with meats including freshwater fish, and chicken (although chickens are generally more valued for egg production).

Another very nourishing food that is an acquired taste is cooked cow blood. A small amount of blood can be taken from the neck of a healthy animal without harming it. When cooked, it becomes solid, like the blood sausage eaten by some Europeans, and eating it is somewhat like eating a hunk of bologna.

Wild fruits and nuts are favorite snacks. The most popular food is wild honey, but it is hard to find. A favorite of older people during the dry season—when there is not much work to do and plenty of grain has been harvested—is homemade beer. It looks more like a thin porridge and is very cool and filling, but only mildly alcoholic. Most younger people seem to consider beer drinking in the shade of a tree a rather boring way to spend an afternoon, and since they take pride in being healthier, stronger, and less decadent than their elders, they do not drink beer. Similarly, the pipe tobacco that is raised seems to be smoked mainly by older married men and women.

EDUCATION

Most Nuer children today still do not have the opportunity to attend school, since the few rural schools that once existed were destroyed or disrupted by the civil war. However, concerted efforts are being made by both the Government of Southern Sudan and the international community ever since the signing of the Peace Agreement in 2005, to improve the education sector as part of the reconstruction program. Many Nuer are still returning home from refugee status. As refugees go back home they have to reconstruct their individual and family lives and it is common for children to try to support themselves by selling things in the streets or looking for jobs.

Long before the civil war, some missionary schools taught children to read their own language; they also learned English, the language of their colonial power (Britain), and then Arabic. Thus among the educated Nuer in the older generation, many are able to speak, read, and write three languages. But the vast majority of Nuer men and women, although they speak Nuer and often also Arabic, are illiterate.

However most of the Nuer who were able to secure asylum in North America, Western Europe, Australia, and Kenya, for instance, have been able to access education in special programs. For instance some of the Nuer refugees in Kenya were allowed to attend the same classrooms as other Kenyan children.

CULTURAL HERITAGE

Nuer music consists mainly of singing. People sing songs they have composed, sometimes accompanying themselves on a simple instrument like the so-called African thumb piano (a small, hollow wooden box with metal tines of different lengths that give different pitches when they are twanged). The rababa, a rural Sudanese stringed instrument, is also often used, in a homemade form made from simple materials: a gallon can, wooden rods, and wires for strings. Whistles and bells are also used in music and dance, but the human voice is the most popular musical instrument. Some songs are widely known and sung in unison, but most are solos. The Nuer do not sing in harmony. Some songs are very rhythmic, and others are more pensive and chantlike. Dancing is usually accompanied by singing and is mostly done for fun.

Written literature is rare, since a system for writing the Nuer language was not developed until the 1930s. But oral literature is well developed, with songs and poetic prophecies passed down through memorization from generation to generation.

WORK

Nuer who live in the rural areas must know how to do many types of work just to survive, for they have only themselves to rely on. Children and young men and women herd the cattle. Adult men are responsible for many other tasks and decisions involved in caring for the cattle, as well as slaughtering and butchering. Women and children usually milk the cattle and goats, and women make dairy products. Both men and women grow crops, cultivating with hoes, and children help them. Women process grain, cook food, and brew beer. All adults participate in various aspects of building and repairing houses. Men hunt with spears and sometimes find honey, and everyone gathers wild fruits or nuts when they find them.

For Nuer men living in cities—as many do for at least part of their lives—the most common type of work for pay has been in the construction industry. Often the whole family may live at a construction site for a few months while Nuer workers put the wooden frames, bricks, and mortar of a high-rise building into place. The goal of this urban work is often to save money for buying more cattle when the family returns home.

SPORTS

The popularity of soccer has spread to many areas, but children usually do not have real soccer balls and have to improvise with whatever they can find.

ENTERTAINMENT AND RECREATION

Children and young teenagers often play with small objects they have made from mud, which contains much clay. Because they are cattle herders, Nuer children often form the mud into cows and bulls. In the last several years, with their experience of war, many children have begun to mold rifles with the mud. Given the warm climate, squirt guns would probably be popular, but there are few plastic or other manufactured toys. In addition to the objects made from mud, there are carved wooden animals and rag dolls.

Older teenagers enjoy singing and dancing, especially around the evening campfires. In one particularly athletic dance style, young men repeatedly leap rhythmically straight up into the air as high as they can, trying to make their movements seem nonchalant and effortless. Girls and boys dance as individuals in a group or with partners. Young men and women sometimes sing personal songs to try to attract many dance partners of the opposite sex. In some areas, a popular dance style for young men is a mock duel, in which one dancer “accidentally” leaps backwards and bumps into a young woman whose attention he is trying to get.

People make themselves as attractive as possible for dances, often decorating themselves with flamboyantly colored leggings and beads and carrying special dance rods, flashlights, or other fancy portable trade goods, even including books. One popular type of dance skirt for women and girls is made with twisted grass ropes that hang from the waist to just above the knees and may be decorated with cattle tails or small bells. For dancing, men and boys wear tight shorts, especially ones with pockets, and go shirtless. Sometimes dancers use simple body paints that imitates cattle markings, and they may even decorate a cow or two for a special occasion.

Nuer also enjoy games, including the two-player game of distributing small stones or mud tokens in rows of pits hollowed in the ground, and attempting to win more pieces than the opponent. This game, which is played in many parts of Sudan and other parts of Africa, can be played by people from different cultures who cannot understand each other's language.

FOLK ART, CRAFTS, AND HOBBIES

The Nuer in rural areas have always been fairly self-sufficient, making and decorating many of their own household items. The carved headrest is probably the most common piece of furniture for the Nuer, something that is light and easy to carry when they hike to the cattle camps but which makes it much more comfortable to lie on a mat or cowhide on the ground. Some people are very skilled at making decorated pottery and the bowls for pipes, while others make aesthetically pleasing and highly functional baskets. Smiths process scrap metals into beautiful spoons shaped like the old-fashioned cattle-horn spoons, make spear heads, decorate pipe stems with brass, and fashion bracelets.

SOCIAL PROBLEMS

The ongoing post-war resettlement and reconstruction is the main challenge facing the contemporary Nuer people. Many had lost their homes or had to escape the fighting by moving to other countries or to cities. Some had been captured by neighboring hostile groups and forced to work or become part of their captors' families. Others had undergone military training at an early age, deepening the “culture of violence” that has led to small arms proliferation in Nuerland. Others have been psychologically scarred by the tragedies of war and displacement threatens to displace some of their more positive traditional values. Cultural erosion which condemns the immorality in Nuer ancestral life is now being replaced with the culture of unjust banditry and other similar activities. For the Nuer living in cities, poverty, sickness, and insecurity are daily problems. For all of these Nuer, a peaceful and just implementation of the January 2005 Peace Agreement are a major part of their hope for the future.

GENDER ISSUES

Nuer domestic groups are based on the ideals of patrilateral descent. Each Nuer village typically contained a patrilineage segment, some of the in-laws of the “ruling” males and an adopted Dinka lineage. The male elders are the “bulls” of the village. People named hamlets or villages after the numerically dominant patrilineal group.

During marriage, cattle and women are—and have always been—the central objects of reproductive exchange and hallmarks of the distinctive Nuer culture. This is seen in the transfer of cattle at the bride wealth exchange, which is considered crucial for the reproduction and survival of the agnatic line. Through the second half of the 20th century, the range of exchangeable objects expanded to include weapons and cash. For instance, bridewealth negotiations were traditionally settled with what Hutchinson refers to as “cattle of girls” (i.e., cattle collectively acquired through the agnatic line's exchange of daughters).

Women, as expected by the society, take pride in the number of children they bear.

Polygyny and wife inheritance are practiced. A man may marry additional wives depending on his economic ability. Widows usually remarry one of their husband's close relatives (such as a brother), without any additional bride wealth. Co-wives, however, do not necessarily reside in proximity; the bride is relocated in the husband's natal family following her intermarriages. Patrilateral residence at marriage further consolidates the patrilineal structure of Nuer communities.

Childrearing is traditionally the responsibility of all the women in the village; while the father takes considerable pleasure in his children, discipline is the responsibility of the mother.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Burton, J. W. “Nuer.” Encyclopedia of World Cultures. Boston: G.K. Hall and Co., Vol. IX, 1995.

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Deborah, S. Emma's War. New York: Pantheon Books, 2004.

Evans-Pritchard, E. E. Kinship and Marriage Among the Nuer. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1951.

———. The Nuer: A Description of the Modes of Livelihood and Political Institutions of a Nilotic People. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1940.

———. Nuer Religion. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1956. Frank, W. J. Nuer Noun Morphology. Buffalo, NY: SUNY: Unpublished M.A. Thesis, 1999.

Holtzman, J. Nuer Journeys, Nuer Lives: Sudanese Refugees in Minnesota. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 2000.

———. Nuer Journeys, Nuer Lives. Boston: Pearson Education, Inc., 2007.

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Rejaf Language Conference. Report of Proceedings Held at Rejaf, Mongalla Province, Sudan, 9th to 14th April, 1929. London: Sudan Government, 1928.

Sanderson, L. Education, Religion & Politics in Southern Sudan 1899–1964.London: Ithaca Press, 1981.

Shandy, D. Nuer-American Passages: Globalizing Sudanese Migration. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2007.

Vandevort, E. A Leopard Tamed: The Story of an African Pastor, his People, and his Problems. New York: Harper & Row, 1968.

Yigezu, M. “The Nuer Vowel System.” Journal of African Languages and Linguistics, Vol. 16, pp. 157–70, 1995.

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