Chapters › Christian Nubia · South Sudan – Upper Nile
Anuak (Anywaa) communities
1500 CE – present Arabic under review
Approximate area of control
Research in progress No sourced map of this era's territory yet, so no area is drawn.
Dating note
UNSOURCED START (1500 = display placeholder). No source found giving a datable emergence; Nilotic presence long predates it. Not a state.
Key events
- Shilluk-speaking (Luo) Nilotic people (Evans-Pritchard 1940)
- Studied in Evans-Pritchard, The Political System of the Anuak (1940)
Capitals / sites
Research in progress We have not yet read a source for this section. It will be added once one is checked; nothing is filled in by guesswork.
Geopolitics
Evans-Pritchard classes the Anuak with the Shilluk-speaking (Luo) Nilotes, and says they occupy a continuous territory (1940, pp.3, 5). Seen from the Nuer side, the Pibor river separated the Lou Nuer from the Anuak, the Lou's use of the Geni and Pibor was disputed by the Anuak and Beir, and the Nuer had evacuated part of 'Anuakland', partly because of tsetse and stock losses (pp.62, 68, 112). Small pockets of Anuak on the Sobat had been 'conquered but not absorbed' by the Nuer (p.221). This is an outsider's (Nuer-focused) account. Evans-Pritchard's Anuak monograph (EP1940_ANUAK) was not read.
Culture
Research in progress We have not yet read a source for this section. It will be added once one is checked; nothing is filled in by guesswork.
Economy
The Anuak are described as a people with 'few or no cattle', whom the Nuer held in contempt for it (Evans-Pritchard 1940, p.16). The Nuer obtained good dug-out canoes from the Anuak by exchange or theft (p.72), and possibly tobacco from the Anuak of the Baro and Gila rivers, though more likely by raiding (p.88). This is a Nuer-centred, 1930s account and does not describe Anuak production directly.
Regional power
Research in progress We have not yet read a source for this section. It will be added once one is checked; nothing is filled in by guesswork.
Open data flags
- culture_dominance: no source-backed text yet
- regional_power: no actors scored
- Pass 17 text: [WORKING TRANSLATION – needs native Arabic review] for every Arabic field
- SINGLE-SOURCE – outsider view from Evans-Pritchard's Nuer monograph (1930s fieldwork)
- null reason – culture: no Anuak cultural passage read (EP1940_ANUAK not on the box)
- null reason – culture: GHA V ch.7 p.193 only places the Anywa in the Northern Luo group, straddling the Sudan–Ethiopia border; Evans-Pritchard 1940 has only Nuer-centred remarks (pp.38, 108); no Anuak ethnography read