Dinka

ETHNONYMS: Muonjang, Jieng

Orientation

Identification and Location. The Dinka belong to a larger group known as the Nilotics. The term "Dinka" was invented by outsiders and no one knows the origin of the word. The people now known as the Dinka actually call themselves Muonjang or Jieng. Among the Dinka, only an educated minority knows that they are called Dinka. Dinkaland lies in the province of Bahr al-Ghazal and extends east into the savanna and swamplands around Lake No and Bahr al-Jebel in Upper Nile province, approximately 500 miles south of Khartoum, the capital of Sudan. Their territory is so vast, their settlements so widespread, and divided by many rivers that many of them do not know all the sections of fellow Dinka.

The part of Sudan that the Dinka occupy is landlocked. It is surrounded by Arab pastoralists in the north, the Nuer to the east, the Fertit to the west, and a variety of smaller ethnic groups to the south. Traces of influence from each of these groups can be found in language, economic activity, and culture of the inhabitants of Dinkaland. Dinkaland and Dinka people have been politically under the modern state of Sudan since the formation of the polity in the 1820s, when Muhammad Ali, the Viceroy of Ottoman Sultan in Egypt, invaded Sudan in search of slaves. However the Dinka, the largest ethnic group in Sudan, and many of the other peoples of South Sudan remain resistant to that polity. As a result, Sudan is generally referred to in terms of north and south as culturally and politically as well as ecologically distinct regions.

The government whose center is located in the north is in the hands of Arabicized Muslims, while the Dinka and the rest of South Sudanese view themselves as African. The Arab north assumes the position of power through a long history of alien intrusion. The Arabs were succeeded by the Turks, whose rule was followed by British colonial occupation. After independence, the Arabs again took control. All of them had their own interests at heart in controlling Dinkaland rather than the interest of the Dinka, and all have concentrated education development and other services in the north to the total neglect of the south.

This pattern of concentration of services in the north has continued since independence in 1956, resulting in southern rebellions. Two north-south civil wars have ensued, the latest of which continues unresolved at the beginning of the twenty-first century. This Arab/African divide is the main cause of the Dinka resistance to the encompassing authority of the Khartoum government. Other causes include religious-cultural differences between Islam in the north and Christianity in the south, and the differences between the economically marginalized in the south and the better developed areas of the north.

Demography. The records of the first post-colonial government indicate that after the first north-south civil war (1955-1972) the Dinka numbered nearly three million in a country of only fifteen million. That number was estimated to have gone up to four million when the second round of civil war resumed in 1983. Over the eighteen years of the war, half of the two million estimated deaths are thought to be Dinka, bringing their current population to approximately three million out of Sudan's total estimated population of twenty-six million.

Linguistic Affiliation. The Summer Institute of Linguistics lists Dinka language as belonging in a sub-grouping, Nilo-Saharan language, that includes Nuer, Luo, Shilluk, Anyuak, and a number of others. Within this group there appears to be a special relationship between Dinka and many languages of the Upper Nile. The vocabulary shows a considerable degree of borrowing between these languages.

History and Cultural Relations

The origin and history of the Nilotics, the group to which the Dinka belong, is widely contested. Historians suggest that Nilotics were a group of agriculturists who settled in the Bahr al-Ghazal region of South Sudan, where they acquired the techniques of domesticating cattle. With a predominantly cattle economy, the Nilotics began to migrate from the Bahr al-Ghazal during the fifteenth century. The Dinka did not move far. They remain in the area where they continue to eke out their existence by cattle herding; their system and area are now part of what is referred to as the "cattle complex."

The Dinka are divided into about twenty-five mutually independent tribal groups. But despite the heterogeneity among these sections, they remain united by their physical characteristics, their pride in being Dinka, and their remarkable cultural similarities. The most important of these similarities is the Dinkas' love for cattle. They have numerous myths that explain their acquisition of, respect for, and devotion to cattle. Cattle provide the Dinka with much of their worldly needs. Cows provide dairy products that the Dinka consider the best and most noble food. The Dinka do not slaughter the animal solely for meat, except in sacrifice toGod, spirits, and their ancestors, but they also keep the animals for meat since every animal is eventually eaten no matter what the cause of death may be.

Cattle are of supreme importance to the Dinka, both symbolically and practically. These animals form the basis of Dinka livelihood, religion, and social structure. The importance of cattle in the Dinka economy has had great influence in the politics of contact between the Dinka and other pastoral peoples neighboring them. This contact was initially based on exchange, but has gradually developed into hostility, as Dinka's herding neighbors started to desire access to Dinka cattle and the grazing plains of Bahr al-Ghazal. Cattle have been both directly and indirectly a major cause of the rise of conflicts in that they represent social, cultural, and economic security. This security came under assault when the nation-state began to view cattle as an important economic asset to be incorporated into the national economy through commercialization and commodification. These economic factors have been important in the Sudanese civil war (which resumed in 1983 after the first conflict of 1955-1972). The war pits the north and various southern groups, especially the Sudan Peoples' Liberation Army (SPLA), against each other.

Shared economic resources, similarities in language and cultural norms, and myths of genealogical connection between all the different sections of Dinka create a sense of collective identity. This identity is built on the selfidentification as "blacks" and "Africans" who are marginalized by "Arabs" and "Muslims." Their collective identity also depends on the cultural patterns that distinguish them from other "Africans." Nonetheless, the Dinka are not the homogeneous and static group that ethnologists often portray. They are composed of many sections with remarkable regional variations, especially between western and eastern Dinka or between the Dinka of Upper Nile and the Dinka of Bahr al-Ghazal.

Settlements

Because much of Dinkaland is flat and susceptible to flooding, they tend to pack their villages into the few elevated areas, and therefore there is no particular order to the settlements. Roads that could attract people to build their settlements in relation to traffic are almost non-existent in Dinkaland. The elevated dirt roads that were built during the colonial times, and which have historically connected the villages to the towns, have now given way to disrepair due to the war. Soil erosion has been a major cause of frequent movement of villages and one often finds many disserted villages that have been taken over by bush. Over the last two decades movement of villages has also been prompted by war and population displacement. A large number of Dinka currently live in refugee camps inside Sudan as well as in the neighboring countries. Much of Dinkaland gets flooded during the rainy season, but western Dinka becomes extremely dry during the months of November through April when there are no rains. Consequently, a pattern of seasonal migration occurs to areas near the rivers and swamps. Access to clean drinking water during the dry season is rare and such seasonal movement is the solution to this problem. It was only as recently as the 1980s that the United Nations responded to this crisis by erecting water hand pumps, which reduced the movement of people in search of water. Now the Dinka can devote their time to clearing cultivation fields in anticipation of rains.

Economy

Subsistence. Dinka economy can be characterized as standing on four main pillars. These are, in the order of their perceived importance, livestock (especially cattle), agriculture, trading, and wild foods (including fishing, fruits, and wild nuts). The importance of wild foods and fishing became magnified during the last two decades of the twentieth century because of the war-provoked destruction of assets and the ensuing famines. For this reason, the Dinka could be characterized, instead of as "pastoralists, " as "agro-fiscatorial pastoralists. " Although these economic activities operate concurrently throughout time and space, there are certain times of year when one of these components is more functional than the others. It is, therefore, safe to describe Dinka economy as a food economy since the main goal of activity is not so much to maximize profit and accumulate material wealth as it is to sustain a subsistent existence.

A majority of households in Dinkaland keep varying sizes of cattle herds and maintain gardens that supply their staples (sorghum grain, maize, groundnuts, sesame, and assorted vegetables). Historically, the soil had been a deep black cotton soil. But due to overgrazing during the last three decades of the twentieth century, the soil in large parts of the land has turned to sand, making it only suitable for some of the staple crops. However, households with large herds of livestock usually fertilize their gardens with manure, making cattle herding and horticulture interdependent. The Dinka feel that success of agriculture largely depends on cattle ownership, and although agriculture occupies a central position in food sources, it also plays into mechanisms of cattle acquisition, circulation, and redistribution. Dinka agriculture is similar to horticulture. It uses multi-cropping and rotation of fields rather than rotation of crops. The Dinka use the hoe and slash and burn techniques, and rely exclusively on human labor. The hoe and axe are the primary implements of gardening; pork hoes were recently introduced through international disaster relief. A Dinka household plants an average of two acres with most of the area devoted to sorghum, depending on land fertility. The soil that turns sandy becomes suitable for groundnuts, sesame, and beans.

Commercial Activities. Apart from forming the staple foods for the rural folk, crops such as sorghum, groundnuts, sesame, and millet, which are grown in most areas of western Dinka, provide a medium of exchange for livestock, as well as acquisition of town items such as cloths, medicine, salt, and sugar. Economic changes however, have been very rapid. In the past, for example, the sale of cattle was considered shameful. But each of the successive governments has attempted to get the Dinka to sell their cattle because livestock are a major part of the national economy. When the colonial administration imposed a poll tax and insisted that taxes and fines be paid in cash, the Dinka had no choice but to sell their livestock.

Traditionally when people were short of grain, they collected wild grain and nuts or went fishing. With the advent of the modern market, grain became available in the shops owned by Arab traders. It was however, procurable with cash, which the Dinka did not have, and could only obtain by the sale of cattle. Over time, the Dinka themselves slowly got into trading. Many Dinka sell several cows in order to procure salt, cloths, and medicine from the city and exchange them for grain in the country, only to sell the grain back to other Dinka for more cattle during a lean season. This has added to the usual Dinka mechanisms of cattle circulation and redistribution through marriages.

Industrial Arts. Dinka produce a variety of industrial arts including clay pots, mats, and baskets. Mats are particularly important for Dinka since they are the main items of bedding. These are made from papyrus cut from the Sudd, the largest swamp in the world. The Dinka also engage in elaborate bodily beautification arts, making beads that they wear around their necks and waists, as well as elephant tusk bracelets, anklets, and earrings.

Trade. Words such as "trade," "market," and "profit" have no direct translations into Dinka and one may find that the word used for "buy" has the same origin as the word for "sell": hoc and hac respectively. This suggests a short history of trading as a primary occupation. Arabic words may be used even among people who do not speak Arabic, because of the historical association through trade between the Dinka in South Sudan and Arabs. However, informal market exchange has always played a large role in resource distribution. Despite the civil war, which has crippled the local economy, trading remains a strong pillar of Dinka economy and involves long distance travel between Dinkaland and northern Sudan, and between South Sudan as a whole and the neighboring countries of Uganda and Kenya to the south. International humanitarian aid, which has been going on since 1989 to relieve the war-provoked famines, has also added to the feasibility of trade. At times relief items make up the only trade goods in South Sudan.

Division of Labor. Division of labor among the Dinka is not very different from that of many other East African peoples. In general, women work around the homestead, managing the household, farming, and preparing food. Men's labor takes them farther away from home, since much of it involves grazing cattle. Women, in addition to sharing food production with men (they both grow crops and women do the weeding), are responsible for childcare, preparing and serving the family meals, cleaning the homestead, and milking the cows. Men take primary responsibility for harvesting the sorghum. Construction of houses is shared as the men prepare the walls and put up the frame and women thatch the grass roofs. Gender division of labor is flexible, however, and couples generally help each other when need be. The exception is in the area of cooking and milking the cows. Men never cook and initiated adult males never milk cows. There is so much rigidity in these two areas that when a man is forced to milk the cows when no one else can do it, he cannot drink the milk as it is believed that act would bring calamity to his herd.

Land Tenure. All the land in Dinka country is under communal ownership. It is free and individuals only own it through continual use. Few disputes arise over land use, as the territory is expansive and population is sparsely distributed. At times land may be sold for an ox if the person who has worked the land and tamed it moves to another location and another person desires to take over. The sale is not for the value of land itself but for the labor expended in taming it. The only land that seems to cause occasional disagreements is the grazing plains near the main tributaries of the Nile, called toc. Here, the grazing plains are used daily by all without segregation, but the camps to which the herds return every evening and where the grazers reside during the dry season are divided among different clans and Dinka subtribes. Such a camp is called wut and each one of these camps has a leader who regulates things and keeps order. The camp is particularly desirable because it is often more elevated than the rest of the area, which is swampy.

Kinship

Kin Groups and Descent. The Dinka are patrilineal. The term dhieth, in its most general sense, refers to all kinds of relationships that can be established through bloodlines. People establish blood relation by reference to clan names. Those who share the clan are considered relatives no matter how distant from each other. Members of a clan share a totem and believe in their common descent from that totem. This is the basis on which strong prohibition against marriage between people of the same clan is enforced. But individuals are considered to be related equally to other kin through both the mother's and the father's sides.

Kinship Terminology. Kinship terminology is strictly enforced in addressing each other. For example, children have to address their older relatives with the appropriate kinship terminologies and are prohibited from using personal names, at least to the elders' faces. Dinka kinship terminology is classified as bifurcate collateral.

Marriage and Family

Marriage. Marriage in Dinka is exogamic up to several generations. Traditionally, marriage is everyone's goal and having a family is regarded as the ultimate fulfillment in life. Men seek women through courtship. A man may create songs in which he praises his intended bride and her relatives and urges his own relatives to support him. Most marriages are through consent of the couple. When a man is regarded as eligible for marriage by his family, they sit with him to decide which, among the girls he has courted, he loves the most. He could also make suggestions and the family chooses from his list. Once an agreement is reached on the bride, his family makes a visit to her home to announce their intention and to discuss the number of cattle to paid in bride-wealth. Sometimes disagreements may arise and the man and woman may decide to elope. Once married, the couple may reside with the man's family for some time before they move out and establish their own home. They are free to live anywhere they desire, but newly-married couples generally reside with the man's family.

Dinka marriages are quite stable; divorce only occurs when the woman is unable to conceive. The bride's family usually makes sure the chances of saving the marriage are exhausted before agreeing to divorce, as termination of the union would mean return of the bride-wealth. If the union has produced children, part of the bride-wealth is kept by the bride's family as payment for the children who remain with the man.

Socialization. It is preferred for a family to raise children within their patrilineages, although many households send newly weaned children to their maternal clan, where they may remain for as long as one year. Children are cared for by both parents, grandparents, elder siblings, and any other relatives who can spare their time. The socialization of Dinka children differs according to gender. Boys are concerned with livestock and with serving the adults. Both genders are expected to identify more with the fathers than with the mothers, although it is realized that girls are generally closer to their mothers than sons are.

Sociopolitical Organization

Social Organization. Dinka society is generally organized around sub-section (wut), clan (dhieth), family, or patrilineage (mac thok ). While the clan is used to recognize blood relatives throughout Dinkaland, the patrilineage dictates village structure. Although people who belong to different clans may share a village, the most common structure is for people of a lineage to occupy their own village. Every clan has a headman known as nhomgol. These men are expected to exercise leadership roles in support of the sub-chief who sees over a section of Dinka.

Political Organization. The traditional Dinka political system is structured around the concept of clan headman. A collection of clans headed by clan leaders form a higher political body known as the sub-chief, and several sub-chiefs fall under the position of the executive chief, who serves as the liaison between the government and the people. Throughout Dinka history, the position of highest "tribal" administrator has changed from "paramount" chief to court president to executive chief. Ideally, the paramount chief presides over regional courts, which stand above the executive chiefs, the sub-chiefs, and clan leaders.

Before the second civil war (beginning in 1982), the lowest political organization revolved around the authority of elderly community men who were respected because their roles as politicians involved religious leadership. These men managed the community with little opposition. Such people remain at the beginning of the twenty-first century, and their authority extends into control over decisions regarding cattle movement and fishing of dry season pools. But their main political role is participation in the chief's decision-making body. The chief has to work together with community elders over matters of political following, security and war, poll tax collection, and inheritance of political leadership.

Social Control. There exists a strong socialization emphasis on self-control, respect for others, and adherence to basic Dinka norms. Dinka also instill fear in everyone about the supernatural wrath against social offenders. Mocking the sick or the poor, or failing to help at times of dire need are all punishable by gods. Gossip and the importance of reputation serve as mechanisms for sanctioning deviation, but the most powerful deterrent to anti-social behavior is the fear of punishment for wrongdoing by supernatural forces.

Conflict. Although Dinka are a gentle people and attempt to avoid conflicts with neighbors, they have been under constant attack by northern Arabs since the first half of the nineteenth century. The last fifty years of the twentieth century have seen so many wars that Dinka youth are now almost conditioned to violence. Serious crime, especially homicide, was rare but is becoming more common.

The neighbors of the Dinka, the Nuer, although the most intimate in their dealings and the mostly closely related, have often waged war against the Dinka mainly for the purpose of cattle raid. These have been disastrous to Dinka lives and property, and have worsened over the last decade of the twentieth century because of the increased prevalence of small automatic arms which the Nuer have acquired from Ethiopia.

Religion and Expressive Culture

Religious Beliefs. The majority of Dinka practice traditional religions whose central theme is the worship of a high god through the totem, ancestral spirits, and a number of deities. The high god is called Nhiali and he is the source of sustenance. Deng is the most noteworthy of the lower gods and Abuk is a female god. Educated Dinka tend to conceive of Deng and Abuk as the equivalents of Adam and Eve.

Ancestral spirits are presumed to be able to increase productivity of the land, multiply cattle, and provide safety for all. They are thought to watch over the living, to reward good behavior with fortune, and punish wrongdoing with a calamity brought upon the individual, family, or whole group. They are the mediators between the people and the high god. Many of the gods and spirits are considered good natured and capable of being appeased when angered by human behavior, but there are also a number of free-roaming, largely malevolent spirits, who can be deployed by individuals with special capabilities to do evil.

When Christian missionaries first came in contact with the Dinka, they concluded that the Dinka were worshiping idols and ancestors. From the Dinka point of view, this was untrue, as these objects and locations are merely places of worship, analogous to the church, mosque, or synagogue. For this apparent misunderstanding, Christianity was resisted vigorously throughout the nineteenth century. It was not until the late twentieth century that large numbers of Dinka were converted. Dinka Christians comprised about 20 percent of the population at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Christianity plays a vital role in the lives of many people, including non-believers, because of the Islamic extremism in the north, and also because of increased churchrelated aid.

Religious Practitioners. The central figure in Dinka religious practice is the master of the spear. He has proven to possess certain powers to heal and bring fortune through his prayers to God, and whose prayers for good health, cattle safety, and fertility are met. Many Dinka believe that this aspect of their religion does not contradict Christianity, and so continue to believe in both.

Ceremonies. Many elaborate ceremonies take place around the social life of Dinka. Year-end celebrations, healing ceremonies, entertainment, dance, and singing are all part of an expressive culture for which Dinka are famous. Animal sacrifices are important rituals and are held at designated times of the year, such as at the beginning of the rainy season, at the blessing of the crops, and at harvest and end of the year celebrations. The sacrifices are usually conducted at the location of the totem such a fig tree, river, or at a shrine. At these prayers, spiritual leaders call for adequate rains, cattle and human health, and peace.

Funerals of spiritual leaders are elaborate affairs where men and women engage for days in dance, singing, and mock battle. In earlier times, well-known spiritual leaders were buried alive. When he was thought to be dying, cattle camps moved into the leader's village. He was then placed in the grave, and people danced around it until his final breath. This practice was prohibited by the British colonial government to no avail and continues to this day, though on a limited scale.

Medicine. Dinka traditional therapeutic practices include bone setting, various kinds of surgery, and dispensing medicinal plants. Such treatments are straightforward and can be learned by anybody. Other kinds of practitioners who derive their skills from special unworldly efficacy are found throughout Dinkaland. These include diviners who hold possession sessions and are thought to receive their special powers from God. Biological medicine, especially injectable modern antibiotics, has largely replaced many of these practices, although many forms of divination remain strong.

Death and Afterlife. A person's soul is thought to move to a special world to meet all the dead relatives already there. Before death, when one is seriously sick and seems to be dying, the Dinka believe that the soul is negotiating with the relatives who have gone to the other world. When he or she recovers from sickness, it is usually presumed that the spirits of the deceased relatives have won and chased back the sick person's soul to the world of living; thus the phrase "our fathers have refused to take him away. " Stories of those returning from the dead abound. They usually report a stiff struggle between the dead and the dying. Death means the defeat of a sick person's soul, while recovery from illness implies victory of the ancestors. Dinka bury their dead inside the house, and their ghosts are presumed to roam the air around the living.

For the original article on the Dinka, see Volume 9, Africa and the Middle East.

Bibliography

Deng, Francis M. (1978). Tradition and Modernization: A Challenge for Law Among the Dinka of Sudan. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Jok, Jok Madut (1998). Militarization, Gender and Reproduc-tive Health in South Sudan. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press.

Lienhardt, Godfrey (1961). Divinity and Experience, the Religion of the Dinka. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

JOK MADUT JOK

Dinka

PRONUNCIATION: DEEN-kuh
LOCATION: Sudan
POPULATION: 500,000 to 1 million
LANGUAGE: Dinka
RELIGION: Monotheistic-worship of Nhialic
RELATED ARTICLES: Vol. 1: Nuer; Shilluk; Sudanese

INTRODUCTION

Numbering between 500,000 and l million people, the Dinka are one of the largest ethnic groups in the republic of Sudan. Their presence in this region of Africa was noted thousands of years ago by Egyptian and later Greek travelers and geographers. The Dinka belong to a larger group of historically related cultures that anthropologists have referred to as the Nilotic peoples of Africa—Dinka, Nuer, Atuot, Shilluk, and Anuak—all of whom live in the upper Nile region of southern Sudan. General observations about the Dinka and related Nilotic peoples figure in the narratives written by Arab slave traders who entered their country in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries. Perhaps their reputation as fierce warriors was earned during this period, as the Dinka successfully resisted Arab presence. In the middle of the last century (c. 1840–1880), the Dinka also resisted efforts on the part of a Turkish administration in the northern Sudan to administer, tax, and otherwise harass them. In 1898, a condominium (joint) form of government was created between Egypt and Great Britain, and from this time until the Sudan gained independence from Great Britain in 1956, the Dinka were only marginally affected by British colonial presence. In 1983, a civil war erupted in the Sudan, pitting the largely Arab and Muslim northern Sudan against the black African peoples of the south. Lasting into the 1990s, the war has had dire consequences for the Dinka and other Nilotic peoples. Tens of thousands of Dinka have died, and countless others have become refugees in either the northern Sudan or the many countries bordering the Sudan. Rebel groups and international human rights organizations have accused the Sudanese government of attempting genocide against the Dinka.

LOCATION AND HOMELAND

A careful census of the Dinka has not been attempted since the mid 1950s, at which time it was estimated that the Dinka numbered more than 1 million; in 2008 estimates place the Dinka population at somewhere between 500,000 and 1 million. Dinka country extends from 6° to 10°n latitude and from 26° to 32°e longitude. This vast region forms a seasonal swampland as the Nile floods from its high ground in Uganda into the flat, saucer-like geography of the southern Sudan. The extreme differences between the wet and dry seasons have a dramatic effect on many aspects of Dinka life. During the season of rains, human population densities increase as people are forced to settle in areas that are higher than the Nile floodwaters.

Because of civil war, large numbers of Dinka have migrated from southern Sudan to the northern Sudanese capital of Khartoum, as well as to Kenya, Uganda, Europe, and the United States. There are no precise data on the actual number of Dinka now living elsewhere. As of the mid-2000s, thousands of internally displaced Dinka were beginning to return to their home villages in southern Sudan.

LANGUAGE

Linguists classify Dinka as a major language family in the Nilotic category of African languages. Historically, it is most closely related to Nuer and Atuot, languages spoken by peoples living in close proximity to the Dinka. The Nuer and Atuot languages, however, are more closely related to each other than they are to Dinka.

The Dinka have a diverse lexicon with which to describe their world. It is estimated that the Dinka language has more than 400 words to refer to cattle alone—their movements, their diseases, and their variety in color and form. The Dinka's very perception of color, light, and shade in the world around them is in these ways inextricably connected with their recognition of the color configurations in their cattle. Without their cattle color vocabulary, they would have scarcely any way of describing visual experience in terms of color, light, and darkness.

FOLKLORE

The Dinka tradition of oral literature is extensive and a considerable amount has been recorded. In this tradition, two figures stand out prominently, a legendary figure known as Col Muong, and another known as Awiel Longar. Col Muong figures in many stories as a man who has an enormous appetite for all things in life. When he is hungry, he is said to eat an entire herd of cattle or an entire field of grain. Stories about him seem to indicate that people should do the best they can with what they have rather than focus on their own individual needs. Awiel Longar figures as the common ancestor of all Dinka peoples. Awiel is thought of as a culture hero who showed people how to live and, indeed, brought them life. Dinka folklore is also rich in “just so” stories about the origins of customs, the behavior of animals, and everyday life.

RELIGION

Dinka religious beliefs have been described and analyzed in detail by the late British anthropologist R. G. Lienhardt in his book, Divinity and Experience: The Religion of the Dinka. The Dinka term Nhialic, Lienhardt suggests, is best translated as “creator” and in this regard Dinka religion may be regarded as monotheistic. Ultimately, Nhialic is thought to be the source of all life and death. Mediating this distant, though approachable, image are a series of lesser manifestations of the creator's power. These are known to the Dinka by a series of “refractions” or manifestations of divinity to which Dinka dedicate ritual sacrifices and libations. Rituals are performed at births, deaths, to cure disease, and in times of crises.

MAJOR HOLIDAYS

Celebrations take place in the autumn, when the whole tribe is together. Religious sacrifices may be made on special occasions. To honor their traditional spiritual and political leaders—called “masters of the fishing spear”—the Dinka enacted day-long ceremonies marked by large public gatherings and the sacrifice of many cattle. By ritually “killing” these men, Dinka collectively asserted their power to control the spiritual powers governing human life.

RITES OF PASSAGE

Like other cattle-keeping people of southern Sudan and eastern Africa, the Dinka mark significant life-passage events with informal but significant ritual occasions. Thus, birth, marriage, and death are all marked by standardized customs involving public ceremonies, and are typically accompanied by animal sacrifice. In the passage to adult status, young men, rather more than young women, are publicly recognized. Adult males decorate initiates' heads with a series of deep gashes that form scars that last a lifetime, publicly proclaiming their newly attained adult status.

LNTERPERSONAL RELATIONS

When men become adults, they no longer refer to themselves by their birth names, but instead adopt “ox-names”—derived from characteristics of their favorite cattle, typically with complex metaphorical reference. Thus, a man may be known as Thiecdeng (“club of divinity”) or Acinbaai (“a man who never leaves his herd of cattle”). Children's names are often chosen to reflect circumstances of their birth. Thus, one may be called Kueric (“born in the middle of a path in the forest”), Amoum (“the one who survives his dead brothers”), or Ayumpuo (“the one who cools the heart”).

Meals are generally eaten in an informal manner. The only explicit strictures involving eating are that unmarried people of similar age who have no close kinship cannot eat in each other's company.

LIVING CONDITIONS

Round huts, approximately 4.5 m (15 ft) in diameter, were formed with clay, with 1.5- to 2-m (5- to 6-ft) walls, covered with conical thatched roofs. Homesteads such as these were typically surrounded by a garden and separated one from another by an open expanse of savannah forest. Garden soil would typically maintain its fertility for 10 to 12 years. Following this, the area would be set afire and a new homestead erected nearby, in a manner anthropologists call “slash and burn” horticulture.

Because the Dinka population is fairly dispersed (though less so in the season of rains), communicable diseases have traditionally been uncommon. On the other hand, given its subtropical location, Dinkaland is subject to a fair number of endemic diseases, including malaria, dysentery, and other waterborne diseases.

FAMILY LIFE

Polygamy (the practice of marrying more than one person) is common among the Dinka, although many marriages are monogamous. Men of high social standing may have as many as 50 to 100 wives. In polygamous marriages, wives cooperate in performing household duties, although each is responsible for rearing her own children. Upon marriage, a man pays his wife's family a certain number of cattle, usually between 30 and 40. The Dinka consider it extremely important to have children, which they regard as assuring their immortality.

Traditionally, following marriage a man established a homestead near his father. Around her homestead, a woman would cultivate a garden in a plot ranging from one to two acres, raising sufficient food to feed her family throughout the year. Cash was not a factor in traditional food production, so kinship relations provided a means to assure that if some relatives' gardens failed in a particular year, food could be shared by all.

Even though much of Dinka public life is dominated by men (e.g., ritual and political leaders are male; sacrifices are always led by men), women play a very significant and even powerful role in local life. Many important myths and rituals have powerful feminine symbolism.

CLOTHING

The Dinka wear very little clothing and no shoes. The men go naked, and the women may wear goatskin skirts. Both men and women wear strings of beads around their necks. Women also wear bangles on their arms and legs, and they may also wear elaborate jewelry in their ears.

FOOD

In the rainy season, milk from cows is plentiful, and this supplements the horticultural diet based primarily on millet. During the dry season, Dinka subsist mainly on fish and other freshwater resources, supplemented by reserves of millet.

Dinka have traditionally produced all the material resources needed to sustain their livelihood via a mode of production that combined horticulture with pastoralism, fishing and occasional hunting. The staple horticultural crop was millet. Ground nuts were introduced in the 1930s and added an additional source of protein to the Dinka diet. Women usually provide a morning meal of millet, sometimes mixed with milk or beef broth. A second meal is prepared as evening approaches. Depending on the season, the millet staple will be supplemented with fish, meat, or other domesticated crops such as beans, tomatoes or rice (now purchased from small rural markets). Cooking oil is produced by crushing the nuts of shea trees and pounding the pulp into oil. A number of species of chili peppers provide condiments. Women cook all meals with the help of their daughters. Women grow a variety of gourds to make containers for cooking and preparing food, and they also use earthenware pots for storing and boiling water.

On ritual occasions, cattle were sacrificed and slaughtered, although cattle (cows) were kept mostly for their milk rather than meat. In the dry season, cattle were occasionally bled by tying a cord around the animal's neck, pulling it tight, then piercing a vein in the animal's neck. The blood was collected in a gourd, mixed with milk, and then boiled, producing a high-protein “pudding.” When milk was plentiful, particularly in the rainy season, it was also preserved in a cheese form by mixing a quantity of fresh milk with a smaller portion of hot cow urine. Milk prepared in this form could be stored for as long as three months.

EDUCATION

The Dinka lacked any formal system of education until literacy was introduced via mission schools beginning in the late 1930s. Even today, most Dinka lack literacy skills. Indeed, to some, writing is suspected to be a form of political control, and thus many people have never sought to become literate. During the Colonial period in the southern Sudan, English was the only acknowledged language of mission education and administration. During the course of the first civil war in Sudan, in 1964 the government expelled missionaries from the southern Sudan and declared Arabic to be the national language. Regional dialects of Arabic have since emerged in Dinka country. At the time of this writing, very few Dinka have received a formal education because the educational system, along with the majority of social services, has disappeared due to war.

CULTURAL HERITAGE

Like many other semi-nomadic peoples throughout the world, the Dinka do not have a substantial heritage of plastic arts; song and dance, however, play an important role in their culture. A set of drums for dancing is found in every Dinka settlement. Like many other aspects of Dinka life, artistic expression is associated with cattle, which they often imitate in their songs and dances. Because the Dinka identify so closely with their herds, when a tribesman sings a song praising his cattle, he is, in effect, praising himself. Songs serve many other functions as well. There are battle songs, songs of initiation, and songs celebrating the tribe's ancestors. In symbolic “song battles,” singing can also defuse tensions and avert bloodshed among this highly volatile people.

Following is a typical Dinka song:

    O Creator who created me in my mother's womb
    Do not confront me with a bad thing
    Show me the place of cattle,
    So that I may grow my crops
    And keep my herd.

WORK

Tending herds of cattle and growing millet form the basis of the livelihood and economy of the Dinka. As the main channel and hundreds of tributaries of the Nile begin to flood during the season of rains (roughly April to September), people move with their herds of cattle to higher ground. Here, during the season of rains, the millet and other crops are planted. With the coming of the dry season and abating flood waters, people drive their herds back toward rivers and tributaries where the cattle are pastured. Labor among the Dinka is clearly divided along gender lines, with men in their 20s and 30s devoting their time to cattle-herding. Women are responsible for growing crops (although men perform the heavy work of clearing new fields for planting). Women also cook and draw water from wells and rivers. Each homestead normally plants two millet crops every year, as well as okra, sesame, pumpkins, and cassava. One of the ways that Dinka boys are prepared for adulthood is by being given a small flock of sheep and goats to tend.

Although many Dinka want to preserve their traditional way of life, they find that, because of the consequences of civil war and the need to participate in “modern” as well as “traditional” society, the past they once knew may be gone forever.

SPORTS

Dinka men engage in mock sparring, using spears or sticks and shields, in order to develop their fighting skills.

ENTERTAINMENT AND RECREATION

Because much of the Dinka population disperses to follow the herds during the dry season, important social events such as marriages are more common during the rainy season. People live in more compact settlements at that time, and milk and millet are plentiful. Seasons during which there are droughts or unusually heavy rains likewise have a dramatic impact on local social life. Dinka social life is also closely tied to religion.

FOLK ART, CRAFTS, AND HOBBIES

Dinka men make spears and fishing hooks. The women make cooking pots using coils of clay, which are formed into the desired shape and then smoothed over. Sharp tools are used to etch patterns in the clay, and color is applied with a stone, after which the pot is fired in a hole in the ground that is covered with burning straw and dung. Besides making pots, which are also essential for carrying water, Dinka women weave baskets and sleeping mats.

SOCIAL PROBLEMS

Since the civil war that began in the 1980s pitting the northern and southern regions of Sudan against each other, numerous Dinka villages have been destroyed by burning or bombing. Thousands of Dinka women have been raped and their husbands castrated in their presence. Young girls have been found brutally murdered. Many Dinka have been abducted and sold as slaves in the northern Sudan. Violence against the Dinka is now on a level that has no precedent in their remembered past.

GENDER ISSUES

As the late Godfrey Lienhardt noted in an article he wrote on the relations between the sexes among the Dinka, vis-à-vis many other African cultures, Dinka women and men have equivalent status. Indeed, early on in their socialization, young boys recognize their utter dependence on their sisters and mothers, who provide for their basic subsistence. As adults, men likewise recognize that their aspirations to become founders of lineages are entirely dependent on the birth careers of their wives. In the contemporary world and in the aftermath of two civil wars and immigration to a wide variety of countries, much has changed in all of Dinka culture, including gender relations.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Beswick, Stephanie. Sudan's Blood Memory: the Legacy of War, Ethnicity, and Slavery in early South Sudan. Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2004.

Burton, John W. “Dinka.” Encyclopedia of World Cultures. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1992.

Deng, Francis Mading. Dinka Cosmology. London: Ithaca Press, 1980.

———. Dinka Folktales: African Stories from Sudan. New York: Africana Publishing, 1974.

———. The Dinka and Their Songs. London: Oxford University Press, 1973.

Lienhardt, R. G. Divinity and Experience: The Religion of the Dinks. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1961.

Ryle, John. Warriors of the White Nile. Amsterdam: Time-Life Books, 1982.

—by J. W. Burton

Dinka

PRONUNCIATION: DEEN-kuh

LOCATION: Republic of Sudan

POPULATION: Over 1 million

LANGUAGE: Dinka

RELIGION: Monotheistic worship

1 • INTRODUCTION

The Dinka are one of the largest ethnic groups in the Republic of Sudan. They belong to a group of cultures known as the Nilotic peoples, all of whom live in the southern Sudan.

In 1983, a civil war erupted in the Sudan, pitting the largely Arab and Muslim northern Sudan against the black African peoples of the south. Lasting into the 1990s, the war has had dire consequences for the Dinka and other Nilotic peoples. Tens of thousands of Dinka have died; countless others have become refugees. Rebel groups and international human rights organizations have accused the Sudanese government of attempting genocide against (extermination of) the Dinka.

2 • LOCATION

The Dinka inhabit a vast region in the south of the Sudan that forms a seasonal swampland when the Nile River floods. Due to civil war, large numbers of Dinka have migrated from the southern Sudan to the northern Sudanese capital of Khartoum, as well as to Kenya, Uganda, Europe, and the United States.

3 • LANGUAGE

Linguists classify Dinka as a major language family in the Nilotic category of African languages. The Dinka have a diverse vocabulary with which to describe their world. It is estimated that they have more than 400 to refer to cattle alone—their movements, their diseases, and their variety in color and form.

4 • FOLKLORE

The Dinka tradition of oral literature is extensive and a considerable amount has been recorded. Two figures stand out prominently, Col Muong and Awiel Longar. Col Muong has an enormous appetite for all things in life. When he is hungry, he is said to eat an entire herd of cattle or an entire field of grain. Stories about him suggest that people should do the best they can with what they have. Awiel Longar figures as the common ancestor of all Dinka peoples.

5 • RELIGION

Dinka religion may be regarded as monotheistic (believing in one deity). Nhialic (creator) is thought to be the source of all life and death. Lesser manifestations of the creator's power are honored by the Dinka through ritual sacrifices. Rituals are performed at births, deaths, to cure disease, and in times of crisis.

6 • MAJOR HOLIDAYS

Celebrations take place in the autumn when the whole tribe is together. To honor their traditional spiritual and political leaders, the Dinka enacted day-long ceremonies marked by large public gatherings and the sacrifice of many cattle.

7 • RITES OF PASSAGE

Birth, marriage, and death are all marked by standardized customs involving public ceremonies. These are typically accompanied by animal sacrifice. In the passage to adult status, young men, rather more than young women, are publicly recognized. Adult males decorate initiates' heads with a series of deep gashes that form permanent scars.

8 • RELATIONSHIPS

When men become adults, they no longer refer to themselves by their birth names. Instead they adopt "ox-names"—derived from characteristics of their favorite cattle. Thus, a man may be known as Acinbaai (a man who never leaves his herd of cattle). Children's names often reflect the circumstances of their birth.

9 • LIVING CONDITIONS

Traditionally, the Dinka dwelled in round clay huts with conical thatched roofs. Homesteads were typically surrounded by a garden and separated from each other by an open expanse of grassland forest. Garden soil would typically maintain its fertility for ten to twelve years. Following this, the area would be set afire and a new homestead erected nearby.

10 • FAMILY LIFE

Polygamy (multiple spouses) is common among the Dinka. Men of high social standing may have as many as fifty to one hundred wives. In polygamous marriages, wives cooperate in performing household duties, although each rears her own children. Much of Dinka public life is dominated by men. However, women play a significant and even powerful role in local life.

11 • CLOTHING

The Dinka wear very little clothing and no shoes. Men go naked, and the women may wear goatskin skirts. Both men and women wear strings of beads around their necks. Women also wear bangles on their arms and legs, and they may also wear elaborate jewelry in their ears.

12 • FOOD

Dinka have traditionally produced all the material resources needed to sustain their livelihood via a combination of horticulture (gardening) with pastoralism (nomadic herding), fishing and occasional hunting. Millet is the mainstay of the Dinka diet. Depending on the season, it is supplemented with cow milk, fish, meat, beans, tomatoes, or rice.

13 • EDUCATION

The Dinka lacked any formal system of education until literacy (reading and writing) was introduced via mission schools in the late 1930s. Even today, most Dinka lack the ability to read and write. The educational system has disappeared due to war.

14 • CULTURAL HERITAGE

Song and dance play an important role in Dinka culture. A set of drums is found in every Dinka settlement. Artistic expression is associated with cattle, which they often imitate in songs and dances. There are also battle songs, songs of initiation, and songs celebrating the tribe's ancestors.

Following is a typical Dinka song:

O Creator

Creator who created me in my mother's womb

Do not confront me with a bad thing

Show me the place of cattle,

So that I may grow my crops

And keep my herd.

15 • EMPLOYMENT

Tending herds of cattle and growing millet form the basis of the livelihood and economy of the Dinka. Labor is clearly divided along gender lines, with men in their twenties and thirties devoting their time to cattle-herding. Women are responsible for growing crops, although men clear new fields for planting. Women also cook and draw water.

16 • SPORTS

Dinka men engage in mock sparring, using spears or sticks and shields, in order to develop their fighting skills.

17 • RECREATION

There is little time for recreation during the dry season, when much of the Dinka population disperses to follow the herds. Song and dance accompany social events such as marriages, which take place during the rainy season.

18 • CRAFTS AND HOBBIES

Dinka men make spears and fishing hooks. Women make clay cooking pots using a coiling technique. Besides making pots, which are essential for carrying water, Dinka women also weave baskets and sleeping mats.

19 • SOCIAL PROBLEMS

Since the civil war that began in the 1980s, numerous Dinka villages have been destroyed by burning or bombing. Thousands of Dinka women have been raped and their husbands castrated in their presence. Many Dinka have been abducted and sold as slaves in the northern Sudan. Violence against the Dinka is now on a level that has no precedent in their remembered past.

20 • BIBLIOGRAPHY

Burton, John W. "Dinka." Encyclopedia of World Cultures. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1992.

Deng, Francis Mading. Dinka Cosmology. London, England: Ithaca Press, 1980.

Deng, Francis Mading. Dinka Folktales: African Stories from Sudan. New York: Africana Publishing, 1974.

Deng, Francis Mading. The Dinka and Their Songs. London, England: Oxford University Press, 1973.

Lienhardt, R. G. Divinity and Experience: The Religion of the Dinks. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1961.

Ryle, John. Warriors of the White Nile. Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Time-Life Books, 1982.

WEBSITES

ArabNet. [Online] Available http://www.arab.net/sudan/sudan_contents.html, 1998.

World Travel Guide. Sudan. [Online] Available http://www.wtgonline.com/country/sd/gen.html, 1998.

Dinka

ETHNONYM: Moinjaang

Orientation

Identification. "Dinka" is a term that has been used for centuries to refer to a people who speak of themselves as "Moinjaang," or "the people of the people." They live over a wide area in southern Sudan, amid the many streams and small rivers that feed into the main channel of the Nile River. The ecological year is defined by a dry season of no rain (from November to April) and the season of daily, sometimes intense rain (from May to October).

Demography. At the time of the last official census, in 1950, the Dinka were estimated to number slightly over 1 million individuals, making them the largest ethnic group in southern Sudan. Population densities vary considerably, however, in association with local ecological variation and with the seasonal movements of the Dinka with their herds of cattle.

Linguistic Affiliation. The Dinka language is most closely related to Nuer and Atuot; these languages comprise a subfamily within the larger classification of Nilotic.

History and Cultural Relations

Scholars continue to disagree about the origin of the Dinka, although there is a general consensus that they have inhabited their present country for at least 400 years, if not longer. Indeed, pictographs in temples of ancient Egypt depict cattle with striking resemblances to cattle today. Questions about the origin of the Dinka are best prefaced by questions about the origin of domesticated cattle in Africa south of the Sahara. Culturally, the Dinka are most like the neighboring Nuer and Atuot.

Settlements

Given the fact that Dinka-speaking peoples live in communities that cover considerably different ecological niches, generalizations about the "typical" Dinka settlement are difficult to make. Prior to British colonial rule, there were no "villages" per se. Instead, homesteads were clustered in nomadic territories in a pattern that allowed year-round access to drinking water and to grasslands for feeding their cattle herds. Some settlement clusters consisted of only two or three homesteads, whereas others were comprised of more than a hundred distinctive family settlements. Traditional homesteads were made of mud walls, with thatched roofs, and they lasted some twenty years. In a circular pattern around her hut, a woman cultivated her cooking gardens. Around the turn of the twentieth century, the British admiralty administration sought to cement its presence in southern Sudan by establishing a number of administrative centers. Since then, these small towns have grown considerably, establishing a mode of residence that was previously unknown to the Dinka.

Economy

The Dinka practice a mode of horticulture that complements and balances their cultural devotion to pastoralism, and it is hard to imagine a mode of livelihood that is better suited to their habitat. Millet provides the staple crop; normally there are two plantings per homestead each year. Maize, sesame, pumpkins, okra, and cassava are also cultivated. Although men engaged in the heavy work of clearing secondary forest for gardening sites, women perform the far greater part of the horticultural labor. Men in their twenties and thirties manage and tend the large herds of Dinka cattle. As the rainy season abates and the rivers and streams become more shallow, Dinka also catch many species of fish and, occasionally, hippopotamuses. Game is hunted intermittently. Few items of traditional Dinka material culture lasted longer than the people who manufactured them.

Division of Labor. The cultivation of primary food crops is largely a feminine domain, as is cooking and collecting water from bore wells or rivers. Young boys are introduced to the responsibilities of adulthood by tending small flocks of sheep and goats. Stock rearing, breeding, and tending is an adult-male responsibility. Men manufacture spears, fishing hooks, and cattle ropes from local materials, and women create cooking utensils, baskets, and sleeping mats.

Land Tenure. Access to cultivation and grazing areas is defined by membership in named patrilineal descent groups. Membership, by birth, allocates these rights to all individuals who attain adult status. Traditionally, land and cattle were owned collectively. Neither cattle nor land could be "sold" or otherwise alienated from members of patrilineal birth groups.

Kinship

Kin groups are defined in association with named, totemic descent groups and are extended bilaterally through marriage. At marriage, women leave their natal birth groups to become members of their husbands' agnatic lineages. Like those of the other Nilotic peoples of the southern Sudan and eastern Africa, Dinka relationship terminology is of the classificatory type.

Marriage and Family

Marriage. Although a small number of Dinka have "converted" to Catholicism, polygamy is the cultural ideal of Dinka men, owing primarily to economic and productive factors. Many men contract only a single marriage in their lifetime, but a significant proportion of domestic unions involve the marriage of one man to a number of women. In some chiefly families, men have anywhere from 50 to 100 wives. Due to their classification relationship terminology and also to clan exogamy, Dinka marriage customs tend to create affinal links across wide political and geographic spaces. Marriage is legally defined through the exchange of bride-wealth in the form of cattle. The ideal number of cattle with which to pay bride-wealth varies in different regions of Dinka country, but a number between thirty and forty cattle is common. In addition to the marriage of a woman to a man, the Dinka also practice some of the other forms of marriage that have been reported from other Nilotic communities, such as ghost marriage and levirate. Nearly every adult Dinka woman or man is married at least once in a lifetime.

Domestic Unit. Commensality is one of the primary bases of Dinka domesticity. Co-wives often share the responsibilities of preparing meals on a rotating basis, although a woman always sees to the needs of her own children first. Because they never learn to cook in their youth, the men are dependent upon women to prepare food for them throughout their lives. This factor of dependency is manifest in other aspects of Dinka life as well.

Socialization. A child matures in the loving and attentive company of the family's other children and step-children and a wide circle of kin. Following their initiations, young girls and boys begin to travel quite separate roads, as each interacts more intensely with members of the same sex. Boys begin to master the difficult onus of stock rearing, and girls learn the equally demanding tasks of the women's world.

Sociopolitical Organization

In all areas of Dinka settlements live beng, or "chiefs of the fishing spear," and trace their common agnatic heredity to the first spear master, who figures prominently in Dinka origin myths. Spear masters have a spiritual and mystical ability to provide life and assure the health of humans, plants, and animals. Traditionally, spear masters provided the sacred sanction for the regulation of political life, although the Dinka also recognized political loyalties in reference to the shared economic interests that were created through marriage. With the advent of colonial rule in the southern Sudan, British officials imposed a political order of secular chiefs that was entirely foreign to Dinka custom. The creation of a secular legal system, coupled with formal education, has all but eradicated the traditional role and status of spear masters.

Religion

Dinka religious thought posits the existence of a distant but ubiquitous divinity called Nhialac. All life emanates from and ultimately reverts to Nhialac, whereas a different stratum of spiritual agents provides the Dinka with the means of communicating with the supreme divinity. The Dinka also recognize a large number of spiritual agents that are directly susceptible to human control, through the ritual actions of diviners and healers. Traditionally, the Dinka did not imagine that another world awaited them after death, but much concern was expressed about the abilities of the "ghosts" of the recently deceased to affect the well-being of the living.

Bibliography

Deng, F. M. (1970). The Dinka of the Sudan. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.

Deng, F. M. (1971). Tradition and Modernization. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Lienhardt, R. G. (1961). Divinity and Experience: The Religion of the Dinka. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

JOHN W. BURTON

DINKA

A people of Sudan.

The Dinka are a Nilotic people in the Republic of Sudan. Numbering over two million, they are the most numerous ethnic group, inhabiting about a tenth of its 1 million square miles (2.6 million sq km). The land of the Dinka is rich savanna broken by the Nile River, its tributaries, and the Sudd, the great swamps of the Nile that flood the grasslands during the rainy season (May to October) and fall during the dry season (November to April). The Dinka are separated by these rivers and swamps into some twenty-five independent groups. In the past they were governed by lineages rather than any single authority.

Their physical characteristics, ethnic pride, and striking cultural uniformity bind the Dinka together as one people, despite their widespread geographical dispersion. They call themselves not Dinka but Monyjang, which means "the man," or "the husband of men." They are convinced of their superiority to all others, whom they call "foreigners" (juur; singular, jur).

The Dinka are devoted to their cattle, which provide them with many of their worldly and spiritual needs, from dairy products (supplemented by fish and grain) to protection against illness or death. Cattle are the social cement for "bride wealth" (for marriage) and "blood wealth" (to resolve disputes). The Dinka are a proud people who, despite the ravages of civil war in Sudan, will nevertheless continue to survive.

See also Nile River; Sudd.

robert o. collins