Chapters › Christian Nubia · South Sudan – Upper Nile
Nuer (Naath) 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. Nuer 19th-c. expansion still unsourced.
Key events
- Self-name Nath; c.200,000 people in the 1930s (Evans-Pritchard)
- Swamps and savannah on both sides of the Nile south of the Sobat/Bahr al-Ghazal junction and along both tributaries
- Seasonal movement between villages and dry-season cattle camps
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
'The Nuer have no government, and their state might be described as an ordered anarchy'. It was 'an acephalous kinship state', and the leopard-skin chief was 'a sacred person without political authority' (Evans-Pritchard 1940, pp.5–6, 181). Nuer expansion eastwards across the Nile was probably due to over-population, and was made at the expense of the Dinka, whom they raided (pp.111, 132). GHA VII says the Nuer by the Sobat and White Nile resisted the Condominium from Dengkur and Diu (d. 1906/1907) to the 'widespread Nuer revolt of 1927' (GHA VII ch.4, p.81).
Culture
'Most of their social activities concern cattle'. Men are often addressed by ox-names, women take names from oxen and cows, and 'a Nuer genealogy may sound like an inventory of a kraal' (Evans-Pritchard 1940, pp.16, 18). Captured Dinka boys were usually adopted into their captors' lineages and ranked as sons (p.221). Ethnography of the 1930s.
Economy
'Pre-eminently pastoral, though they grow more millet and maize than is commonly supposed'; horticulture is seen 'as toil forced on them by poverty of stock', and pastoral pursuits take precedence because cattle also carry social value (Evans-Pritchard 1940, pp.16–21; ethnography of the 1930s).
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
- regional_power: no actors scored
- Pass 13 text: Arabic is a working translation; needs native review
- Pass 17 text: [WORKING TRANSLATION – needs native Arabic review] for every Arabic field
Sources
- E.E. Evans-Pritchard (1940) The Nuer: A Description of the Modes of Livelihood and Political Institutions of a Nilotic People Clarendon Press link [en]
- H.A. Ibrahim (based on a contribution by Abbas I. Ali) African initiatives and resistance in North-East Africa (General History of Africa VII, ch.4) UNESCO link [en]