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NAATH NUER COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT IN THE WORLD AT LARGE!

NAATH NUER ALONG THE NILE AND SOBAT RIVERS IN SUDAN AND ETHIOPIA: COVERING OUR WORLD AND OUR CULTURE!!
THE NUER OF SUDAN!!!
NUER WARRIOR in North East AFrica 1921 A Nuer with his Cattle CHUOL NGUOT BUOL, AS AN ETHIOPIAN NUER A NUER BOY WRITING ON A SLATE; ALSO CORN DRYING ON THE MAT AT THE BACK OF THE BOY YOUNG NUER MEN PREPARING FOR THE DANCE!! A Nuer Girl waiting to Milk the Cow NUER VILLAGE AFTER CATTLE WENT GRASSING!! NUER PROPHET A YOUNG BOY PLAYING ON THE PLAY GROUND! GREAT FUN!! A NUER WOMAN, MUDDING HER FRONT DOOR!! A TEMPORARY TAKES, DURING THE DRY SEASON!! NUER WOMAN WALKS FOR MILES IN ORDER TO FETCH THE WATER FROM THE LOCAL RIVER, SHE TAKES CARES OF THE FAMILY!! A NUER MAN DONATING BLOOD TO THE LOCAL MISSIONARIES!! DR. MARY VISITING AN IN-PATIENT IN 1957!! A NUER SACRIFICE A BULL FOR THEIR TRADITION BELIEFS!! NUER PLASTERING A BARN!! NUER WOMAN MILKING A COW!! MAN LUL IN KEETBEEK, NEAR NASIR!! NUER ROOFING A BARN-IN TRADITIONAL WAY!! A NUER LEOPARD SKIN-CHIEF-NASIR!! CARRYING WATER IS A TOUGH RESPONSIBILITY FOR NUER WOMAN!!	TIME AND SPACE IN this chapter we look backwards on our description of Nuer interest in cattle and of their oecology and forwards to an account of their political structure. Their oecology limits and in other ways influences their social relations, but the value given to oecological relations is equally significant in understanding the social system, which is a system within the oecological system, partly dependent on it and partly existing in its own right. Ultimately most, perhaps all, concepts of time and space are determined by the physical ambient, but the value they embody are only one of many possible responses to it and depend also on structural principles, which belong to a different order of reality. In this book we are not describing Nuer cosmology but their political and other institutions, and are, therefore, interested mainly in the influence of oecological relations on these institutions rather than the influence of the social structure on the conceptualization of the oecological relations. Thus, to give one example, we do not describe how Nuer classify birds into various lineages on the pattern of their lineage structure. This chapter is therefore a bridge between the two parts of the book, but we cross it in one direction only. In describing Nuer concepts of time we may distinguish between those that are mainly reflections of their relations to environment, which we call oecological time, and those that are reflections of their relations to one another in the social structure, which we call structural time. Both refer to successions of events which are of sufficient interest to the community for them to be noted and related to each other conceptually. The larger periods of time are almost entirely structural, because the events they relate are changes in the relationship of social groups. Moreover, time-reckoning based on changes in nature and man's response to them is limited to an annual cycle and therefore cannot be used to differentiate longer periods than seasons. Both, also, have limited and fixed notations. Seasonal and lunar changes repeat themselves year after year, so that a Nuer standing at any point of time has conceptual knowledge of what lies before him and can predict and organize his life accordingly. A man's structural future is likewise already fixed and ordered into different periods, so that the total changes in status a boy will undergo in his ordained passage through the social system, if he lives long enough, canbe foreseen. Structural time appears to an individual passing through the social system to be entirely progressive, but, as we shall see, in a sense this is an illusion. Oecological time appears to be, and is, cyclical. The oecological cycle is a year. Its distinctive rhythm is the backwards and forwards movement from villages to -camps, which is the Nuer's response to the climatic dichotomy of rains and drought. The year (ruon) has two main seasons, lot and mai. Tot, from about the middle of March to the middle of September, roughly corresponds to the rise in the curve of rainfall, though it does not cover the whole period of the rains. Rain may fall heavily at the end of September and in early October, and the country is still flooded in these months which belong, nevertheless, to the mai half of the year, for it commences at the decline of the rains-not at their cessation-and roughly covers the trough of the curve, from about the middle of September to the middle of March. The two seasons therefore only approximate to our division into rains and drought, and the Nuer classification aptly summarizes their way of looking at the movement of time, the direction of attention in marginal months being as significant as the actual climatic conditions. In the middle of. September Nuer turn, as it were, towards the life of fishing and cattle camps and feel that village residence and horticulture lie behind them. They begin to speak of camps as though they were already in being, and long to be on the move. This restlessness is even more marked towards the end of the drought when, noting cloudy skies, people turn towards the life of villages and make preparations for striking camp. Marginal months may therefore be classed as tot or mai, since they belong to one set of activities but presage the other set, for the concept of seasons is derived from social activities rather than from the climatic changes which determine them, and a year is to Nuer a period of village residence (cieng) and a period of camp residence (wec).I have already noted the significant physical changes associated with rains and drought, and some of these have been presented in charts on PP. 52 and 53. 1 have also described, in the last chapter, the oecological movement that follows these physical changes where it affects human life to any degree. Seasonal variations in social activities, on which Nuer concepts of time are primarily based, have also been indicated and, on the economic side, recorded at some length. The main features of these three planes of rhythm, physical, oecological, and social, are charted on the opposite page. The movements of the heavenly bodies other than the sun and the moon, the direction and variation of winds, and the migration of some species of birds are observed by the Nuer, but they do not regulate their activities in relation to them nor use them as points of reference in seasonal time-reckoning. The cUracters by which seasons are most clearly defined are those which control the movements of the people: water, vegetation, movements of fish, &c.; it being the needs of the cattle and variations in, fdod-supply which chiefly translate oecological rhythm into the social rhythm of the.year, and the contrast between modes of life at the height of the rains and at the height of the drought which provides the conceptual poles in time-reckoning. Besides these two main seasons of tot and mai Nuer recognize two subsidiary seasons included in them, being transitional periods between them. The four seasons are not sharp divisions but overlap. Just as we reckon summer and winter as the halves of our year and speak also of spring and autumn, so Nuer reckon tot and mai as halves of their year and speak also of the seaons of rwil and jiom. Rwil is the time of moving from camp to village and of clearing and planting, from about the middle of March to the middle of June, before the rains have reached their peak. It counts as part of the tot half of the year, though it is contrasted with tot proper, the period of full village life and horticulture, from about the middle of June to the middle of September. jiom, meaning 'wind', is the period in which the persistent north wind begins to blow and people harvest, fish May June July August September October November December January February March April R A N, S D R 0 U G H R I V E R S R I S E R I V E' R S F A L H 0 R T I C U L T U R E Preparation of gar- Preparation of gar- BURNING OF THE BUSH dens for first millet dens for second millet sowing and for maize sowing F S H N BUILDING & REPAIRING Harvest Harvest first Harvest second maize millet crop millet crop H U N T I N G A N4 SCARCITY OF FOOD C 0 L L E C- T I N 4 P L E N T Y 0 F F 0 0 D V L L A G E S Older Younger people people C A M P return to return to Younger people in Every one in main dry-season camim villages villages early camps Wedding, initiation. mortuary, and other ceremonies Main season for raiding Dinka from dams, fire the bush, and form early camps, from about the middle of September to the middle of December. It counts as part of the mai half of the year, though it is contrasted with mai proper, from about the middle of December to the middle of March, when the main camps are formed. Roughly speaking, therefore, there are two major seasons of six months and four minor seasons of three months, but these divisions must not be regarded too rigidly since they are not so much exact units of time as rather vague conceptualizations of changes in oecological relations and social activities which pass imperceptibly from one state to another.In the diagram above a line drawn from mid March to mid September is the axis of the year, being an approximation to a cleavage between two opposed sets of oecological relations and social activities, though not entirely corresponding to it, as may be seen in the diagram below, where village life and camp life are shown in relation to the seasons of which they are the focal points. Nuer, especially the younger people, are still in camp for part of lot (the greater part of rwil) and are still in villages, especially the older people, for part of mai (the greater part of jiom), but every one is in villages during tot proper and in camps during mai proper. Sing .Since the words tot and mai are not pure units of time-reckoning- -but -stand for the cluster of social activities characteristic of the height of the. drought and of the height of lthe rains, one may hear a Nuer saying that he is going to 'tot' or mai in certain place.The year has twelve months, six to each Of the major seasons and most adult Nuer can state them in order. In the list Of months given below it has not been possible to equate each Nuer name with an English name, because our Roman months have be found, however, that a nothing to do with the moon. It will English months Nuer month is usually covered by the two oincide with the equated to it in the list and generally tends to first rather than the second. duong Mar.-Apr.teer Sept.-Oct- 9waak Apr.-May lath (boor) Oct.-Nov- May-June Nov.-Dec. dwat hur karnyuot June-Juiy jiop (in) dit Dec.-Jan. paiyatni (paiyene) july-Aug. tiop (in) tot Jan.-Feb, Aug.-Sept.pet Feb.-Mar. thoor Nuer would soon be in difficulties over their lunar calendar if they consistently counted the succession of moons,, but there are certain activities associated with each month, the association sometimes being indicated by the name of the month.The calendar is a relation between a cycle of activities and conceptual cycle and the two cannot fall apart, since the conceptual cycle is dependent on the cycle-of activities from which it derives its meaning and function. Thus a twelve-month system does not incommode Nuer, for the calendar is anchored to the cycle of oecological changes. In the month of kur one makes the first fishing dams and forms the first cattle camps, and since one is doing these things it must be kur or thereabouts. Likewise in dwat one breaks camp and returns to the villages,and since people are on the move it must be dwat or thereabouts.Consequently the calendar remains fairly stable and in any section of Nuerland there is general agreement about the name of the current month. In my experience Nuer do not to any great extent use the names of the months to indicate the time of an event, but generally refer instead to some outstanding activity in process at the time of its occurrence, e.g. at the time of early camps, at the time of weeding, at the time of harvesting, &c., and it is easily understandable that they do so, since time is to them a relation between activities. During the rains the stages in the growth of millet and the steps taken in its culture are often used as points of reference. Pastoral activities, being largely undifferentiated throughout the months and seasons, do not provide suitable points.There are no units of time between the month and day and night. People indicate the occurrence of an event more than a day or two ago by reference to some other event which took place at the same time or by count . ing the number of intervening.I sleeps' or, less commonly, 'suns'. There are terms for to-day,to-morrow" yesterday, &c., but there is no precision about them.When Nuer wish to define the occurrence of an event several days in advance, such as a dance or wedding, they do so by reference to the phases of the moon: new moon, its waxing, full moon, its waning, and the brightness of its second quarter. When they wish to be precise they state on which night of the waxing or waning an event will take place, reckoning fifteen nights to each and thirty to the month. They say that only cattle and the Anuak can see the moon in its invisible period. The only terms applied to the nightly succession of lunar phases are those that describe its appearance just before, and in, full The course of the sun determines many points of reference, and a common way of indicating the time of events is by pointing to that part of the heavens the sun will then have reached in its, course. There are also a number of expressions, varying in the degree of their precision, which describe positions of the sun in the heavens, though, in my experience, the only ones commonly employed are those that refer to its more conspicuously differentiated movements: the first stroke of dawn, sunrise, noon, and sunset. It is, perhaps, significant that there are almost as many points of reference between 4 and 6 a.m. as there are for the rest of the day. This may be chiefly due to striking contrasts caused by changes in relations of earth to sun during these two hours, but it may be noted, also, that the points of reference between them are more used in directing activities, such as starting on journeys, rising from sleep, tethering cattle in kraals, gazelle hunting, &c., than points of reference during most of the rest of the day, especially in the slack time between i and 3 p.m. There are also a number of terms to describe the time of night. They are to a very limited extent determined by the course of the stars. Here again, there is a richer terminology for the transition period between day and night than during the rest of the night and the same reasons may be suggested to explain this fact. There are also expressions for distinguishing night from day, forenoon from afternoon, and that part of the day which is spent from that part which lies ahead. Except for the commonest of the terms for divisions of the day they are little used in comparison with expressions which describe routine diurnal activities. The daily timepiece is the cattle clock, the round of pastoral tasks, and the time of day and the passage of time through a day are to a Nuer primarily the succession of these tasks and their relations to one another. The better demarcated points are taking of the cattle from byre to kraal, milking, driving of the adult herd to pasture, milking of the goats and sheep, driving of' the flocks and calves to pasture, cleaning of byre and kraal, bringing home of the flocks and calves, the return of the adult herd, the evening milking, and the enclosure of the beasts in byres. Nuer generally use such points of activity, rather than concrete points in the movement of the sun across the'heavens, to co-ordinate events. Thus a man says, 'I shall return, at milking', 'I shall start off when the calves come home', and so forth.Oecological time-reckoning is ultimately, of course, entirely determined by the movement of the heavenly bodies, but only some of its units and notations are directly based on these movements, e.g. month, day, night, and some parts of the day and night, and such points of, reference are paid attention to and selected as points only because they are significant for social activities. It is the activities themselves, chiefly of an economic kind, which are basic to the system and furnish most of its units and notations, and the passage of time is perceived in the rilation of activities to one another. Since activities are dependent on the movement of the heavenly bodies and sincethe movement of the heavenly bodies is significant only in relation to the.activities one may often refer to either in indication of the time of an event. Thus one may say, 'In the jiom season' or 'At early camps', The month of Dwat' or The return to villages', 'When the sun is warming up' or 'At milking'. The movements of the heavenly bodies permit Nuer to select natural points that are significant in relation to activities. - Hence in linguistic usage nights, or rather 'sleeps', are more clearly defined units of time than days, or 'suns', because they are undifferentiated units of social activity, and months, or rather 'moons', though they are clearly differentiated units of natural time, are little employed as points of reference because they are not clearly differentiated units of activity, whereas the day, the year, and its main seasons are complete occupational units.On conclusions may be drawn from this quality of time among the Nuer. Time has not the same value throughout the year. Thus in dry season camps, although daily pastoral tasks follow one another in the same order as in the rains, they do not take place at the same time, are more a precise routine owing to the severity of seasonal conditions, especially with regard to water and pasturage, and require greater co-ordination and co-operative action. He other hand, life in the dry season is generally uneventful, outside routine tasks, and oecological and social relations are more monotonous from month to month than in the rains when there are frequent feasts, dances, and ceremonies.When time is considered as,relations between activities it will be understood that it has a different connotation in rains and drought. In the drought the daily time-reckoning is more uniform and precise while lunar reckoning receives less attention, as appears from the lesser use of names of months, less confidence in stating their order, and the common East African trait of two dry-season months with the same name (tiop in dit and tiop in tot), the order of which is often interchanged. The pace of time may vary accordingly,
TIME AND SPACE
CATTLE CROSSING DURING THE MIGRATING SEASON!! CHAN AND NYAYUL; NASIR!! YOUNG MEN AROUND THE MISSIONARIES JEEP!! CATTLE CAMP IN NYARIEU, AFTER CATTLE WENT FOR GRASSING!! NUER WOMAN PLASTERING A HUT!! A YOUNG NUER GIRL SIFTING AFTER HER LONG WORK!! A NUER COW AND ITS NEW BORN CAFE!! GAJAAK NUER AROUND THE MISSIONARY JEEP!! KUAC AND KOANG IN 1958!! MAN GAACH AFTER AFTER COOKING THE BREAKFAST-IN 1958!! DHOAL, YUOL, AND CHIENG-NASIR-1957!! TOWN OF NASIR; IN 1958!! KUAC NYOAT, CARRYING THE GEESE(TUOT NI) AFTER HIS HUNTING!! KEETBEEK KIDS HAVING FUN!! A YOUNG NUER GIRL PLAYING!! NYAMER IN 1958!! FISHING PLAY GROUNDS!! NUER MAN MAKING TALCUM!! SOBAT RIVER SWAMPS-1955!! SOBAT RIVER, NASIR, 1955!! A NUER YOUNG MAN DOING SOME WORK!! YUOL GOING HOME IN AN ARK BOAT-1957!! NYAKUIY CURB SERVICE-1958!! OLD NUER WOMAN SMOKING PIPE OR TONY IN NUER LANGUAGE!! THE STORK STANCE-NASIR!! GATLEK KORYOM THOT LATJOR-NASIR-IN 1952!! KUAC -NASIR -1950!! TOWN OF MALAKAL, SUDAN- IN 1955!! REI CHIENG NUERI!! A RESULT OF THE SNAKE BITE-PUFF ADDER-LER!! A NUER WOMAN!! A NUER FAMILY IN A MOVE FOR A CATTLE CAMP IN NYARIEW!! ARLENE, NYATAP AND BIGOAA IN 1957!! NUER WORSHIP CENTER!! PUFF ADDER VICTIM-1956!!	since perception of time is a function of systems of time-reckoning, but we can make no definite statement on this question.Though I have spoken of time and units of time the Nuer have no expression equivalent to 'time' in our language, and they cannot, therefore, as we can, speak of time as though it were something actual, which passes, can beasted, can be saved, and so forth. I do not think that they ever experience the same feeling of fighting against time or of having to coordinate activities with an abstract passage of time, because their points of reference are mainly the activities themselves, which are generally of a leisurely character. Events follow a logical order, but they are not controlled by an abstract system, there being no autonomous points of reference to which activities have to conform with precision. Nuer are fortunate.Also they have very limited means of reckoning the relative duration of periods of time intervening between events, since they have few, and not well-defined or systematized, units of time. Having no hours or other small units of time they cannot measure the periods which intervene between positions of the sun or daily activities. It is true that the yeards divided into twelve lunar units, but Nuer do not reckon in them as fractions of a unit. They may be able to state in what month an event occurred, but it is with great difficulty that they reckon the relation between events in abstract numerical symbols. They think much more easily in terms of activities and of successions of activities and in terms of social structure and of structuraldifferences than in pure units of time.We may conclude that the Nuer system of time-reckoning within the annual cycle and parts of the cycle is a series of conceptualizations of natural changes, and that the selection of points of reference is determined by the significance which these natural changes have for human activities.In a sense all time is structural since it is a conceptualization of collateral, co-ordinated, or co-operative activities: the movements of a group. Otherwise time concepts of this kind could not exist, for they must have a like meaning for every one within a group. Milking-time and meal-times are approximately the same for all people who normally come into contact with one another, and the movement from villages to camps has approximately the same connotation everywhere in Nuerland, though it may have a special connotation for a particular group of persons. There is, however, a point at which we can say that time-concepts cease to be determined by oecological factors and become more determined by structural interrelations, being no longer a reflection of man's dependence on nature, but a reflection of the interaction of social. groups.The year is the largest unit of oecological time. InNuer have words for the year before last, last year, this year, next year, and the year after next. Events which took place in the last few years are then the points of reference in time-reckoning, and these are different according to the group of persons who make use of them: joint family, village, tribal section,, tribe, &c. One of the commonest ways of stating the year of an event is to mention where the people of the village made their dry season camps, or to refer to some evil that befell their cattle. A joint family may reckon time in the birth of calves of their herds. Weddings and other ceremonies, fights, and raids, may likewise give points of time, though in the absence of numerical dating no one can say without lengthy calculations how many years ago an event took place. Moreover, since time is to Nuer an order of events of outstanding significance to a group, each group has its own points of reference and time is consequently relative to structural space, locally considered. This is obvious when we examine the names given to years by different tribes, or sometimes by adjacent tribes, for these are floods, pestilences, famines, wars, &c., experienced by the tribe. In course of time the names of years are forgotten and all events beyond the limits of this crude historical reckoning fade into the dim vista of long long ago. Historical time, in this sense of a sequence of outstanding events of significance to a tribe, goes back much farther than the historical time of smaller groups, but fifty years is probably its limit, and the farther back from the present day the sparser and vaguer become its points of reference. However, Nuer have another way of stating roughly when events took place; not in numbers of years, but by reference to the age-set system. Distance between events ceases to be reckoned in time concepts as we understand them and. is reckoned in terms of structural distance, being the relation -between groups of persons. It is therefore entirely relative to the social structure. Thus a Nuer may say that an event took place after the Thut age-set was bom or in the initiation period of the Boiloc age-set, but no one can say how many years ago it happened. Time is here reckoned in sets. If a man of the Dangunga set tells one that an event occurred in the initiation period of the Thut set he is saying that it happened three sets before his set, or six sets ago. The age-set system is discussed in Chapter VI. Here it need only be said that we cannot accurately translate a reckoning in sets into a reckoning in years, but that we can roughly estimate a ten-year interval between the commencement of successive sets. There are six sets in existence, the names of the sets are not cyclic, and the order of extinct sets, all but the last, are soon forgotten, so that an ageset reckoning has seven units covering a period of rather under a century.The structural system of time-reckoning is partly the selection of points of reference of significance to local groups which give these groups a common and distinctive history; partly the distance between specific sets in the age-set system; and partly distance of a kinship and Llineage order. Four generationsteps (kath) in the kinship system are linguistically differentiated relations, grandfather, father, son, and grandson, and within a small kinship group these relationships give a time-depth to members of the group and points of reference in a line of ascent by which their relationships are determined and explained. Any kinship relationship must have a point of reference on a line of ascent, namely a common ancestor, so that such a relationship always has a time connotation couched in structural terms. Beyond the range of the kinship system in this narrow sense the connotation is expressed in terms of the lineage system. As this subject is treated in Chapter V, we limit further discussion of it to an explanatory comment on the diagram above. The base line of the triangle represents a given group of agnates and the dotted lines represent their ghostly agnatic forebears, running from this base to a point in lineage structure, the common ancestor of every member of the group, The farther we extend 'the range of the group (the longer becomes the base line) the farther back in lineage structure is the common ancestor (the farther from the base line is the apex of the,triangle). The four triangles are thus the time depths of four extensions of agnatic relationship on an existential plane and represent minimal,minor, major, and maximal lineages of a clan. Lineage time is thus the structural distance between groups of persons on the line AB. Structural time therefore cannot be understood until structural distance is known, since it is a reflection of it, and we must, therefore, ask the reader toforgive a certain obscurity at this point and to reserve criticism till we have had an opportunity of explaining more clearly whatis meant by structural distance.We have restricted our discussion to Nuer systems of timereckoning and have not considered the way in which an individual perceives time. The subject bristles with difficulties. Thus an individual may reckon the passage of time by reference to the physical appearance and status of other individuals and to changes in his own life-history, but such a method of reckoning time has no wide collective validity. We confess, however, that our observations on the matter have been slight and that a fuller analysis is beyond our powers. We have merely indicated those aspects of the problem which are directly related to the description of modes of livelihood which has gone before and to the description of political institutions which follows.We have remarked that the movement of structural time is in, a sense, an illusion, for the structure remains fairly constant and the perception of time is no more than the movement of persons, often as groups, through the structure. Thus age-sets succeed one another for ever, but there are never more than six in existence and the relative positions occupied by these six sets at any time are fixed structural points through which actual sets of persons pass in endless succession. Similarly, for reasons which we explain later, the Nuer system of lineages may be considered a fixed system, there being a constant number of steps between living persons and the founder of their clan and the lineages having a constant position relative to one another. How ever many generations succeed one another the depth and range of lineages does not increase unless there has been structural change. These statements are discussed more fully on pp.198-200.Beyond- the limits of historical time we enter a plane of tradition in which a certain element of historical fact may be supposed to be incorporated in a complex of myth. Here the points of reference are the structural ones we have indicated. At one end this plane merges into history; at the other end into myth. Time perspective is here not a true impression of actual distances like that created by our dating techniaue. but a reflection of relations between lineages, so that the traditional events recorded have to be placed at the points where the lineages concerned in them converge in their lines of ascent.The events have therefore a position in structure, but no exact position in historical time as we understand it. Beyond tradition lies the horizon of pure myth which is always seen in the same time perspective. One mythological event did not precede another, for myths explain customs of general social significance rather than the inter relations of particular segments andre, therefore, not structurally stratified. Explanations of any qualities of nature or of culture are drawn from this intellectual ambient which imposes limits on the Nuer world and makes it self-contained and entirely intelligible to Nuer in the relation of its parts. The world, peoples, and cultures all existed together from the same remote past.It will have been noted that the Nuer time dimension is shallow, Valid history. ends a century ago, and tradition, generously measured, takes us back only ten to twelve generations in lineage structure, and if we are right in supposing that line age structure never grows, it follows that the distance between the beginning of the world and the present day remains unalterable. Time is thus not a continuum, but is a constant structural relationship between two points, the first and last persons in a line of agnatic descent. How shallow is Nuer time may be judged from the fact that the tree under which mankind came into being was still standing in Western Nuerland a few years ago!Beyond the annual cycle, time-reckoning is a conceptualization of the social structure, and the points of reference are a projection into the past of actual relations between groups of persons. It is less a means of co-ordinating events than of co-ordinating relationships, and is therefore mainly a lookingbackwards, since relationships must be explained in terms of the past.We have concluded that structural time is a reflection of structural distance. In the following sections we define further what we mean by structural distance, and make a formal, preliminary, classification of Nuer territorial groups of a political kind. We have classified Nuer socio-temporal categories.We now classify their socio-spatial categories.Were a man to fly over Nuerland he would see, as on Plate XVI, taken by the Royal Air Force in the dry season, white patches with what look like tiny fungoid growths on them. These are village sites with huts and byres. He would see that between such patches are stretches of brown and black, the brown being open grassland and the black being depressions which are swampy in the rains; and that the white patches are wider and more frequent in some parts than in others. We find Nuer give to these distributions certain values which compose their political structure.It would be possible to measure the exact distance between hut and hut, village and village, tribal area and tribal area, and so forth, and the space covered by each. This would give us a statement of spatial measurements in bare physical terms. By itself it would have very limited significance. Oecological space is more than mere physical distance, though it is affected by it, for it is reckoned also by the character of the country intervening between local groups and its relation to the biological requirements - of their members. A broad river divides two Nuer tribes more sharply than,many miles of unoccupied bush. A distance which appears small in the dry season has a different appearance when the area it covers is flooded in the rains. A village community which has permanent water near at hand is in a very different position to one which has to travel in the dry season to obtain water, pasturage, and fishing. A tsetse belt creates an impassable barrier, giving wide oecological distance between the peoples it separates (p' 133), and presence or absence of cattle among neighbours of the Nuer likewise determines the oecological distance between them and the Nuer (PP: 132-3). Oecological distance, in this sense, is a relation between communities defined in terms of density and distribution, and with reference to water, vegetation, animal and insect life, and so on. Structural distance is of a very different order, though it is always influenced and, in its political dimension, to a large extent determined by oecological conditions. By structural distance is meant, as we have already indicated in the preceding section, the distance between groups of persons in a social system, expressed in terms of values., The nature of the country determines the distribution of villages and, therefore, the distance between them, but values limit and define the distribution in structural terms and give a different set of distances. A Nuer village may be equidistant from two other villages, but if one of these belongs to a different tribe and the other to the same tribe it may be said to be structurally more distant from the first than from the second. A Nuer tribe which is separated by forty miles from another Nuer tribe is structurally nearer to it than to a Dinka tribe from which it is separated by only twenty miles.When we leave territorial values and speak of lineages and age-sets, structural space is less determined by environmental conditions. One lineage is closer to another than to a third. One age-set is closer to another than to a third. The values attached to residence, kinship, lineage, sex, and age, differentiate groups of persons by segmentation, and the relative positions of the segments to one another gives a perspective that enables us to speak of the divisions between them as divisions of structural space. Having defined what is meant by structural space we may now proceed with a.description -of its political divisions.We cannot, owing to lack of adequate population statistics (see P. 117) and survey records, present a map showing the density of the different tribes, but a rough estimate is possible for the whole of Nuerland. Jackson says that the area to the east of the Nile amounts to some 26,ooo square miles,' and recent censuses put its population at about 144,000, making about 5-5 to the square mile. The area to the west of the Nile is no less sparsely inhabited and possibly has a lower density. The total area of Nuerland is probably about 30,000 square miles and the total population round about 200,000. We may estimate that tribal density probably varies from about 4 to 10 to the square mile and that the average distribution for the whole of Nuerland is from about 5 to 6 to the square mile. Given the hydrological conditions of Nuerland and the present economy. I of the people it may be doubted whether it could support a much larger population than it does. This is particularly the case to the west of the Nile and it is likely, as Nuer themselves suggest, that their expansion eastwa:rds was due to over-population. It is possible for there to be great local concentration in spite of low density for tribal areas, for the estimates of square mileage include vast stretches of land devoid of villages and camps, which is grazed over in the drought or merely traversed in seasonal movements.The degree of actual concentration, in this sense, varies from tribe to tribe and from tribal section to tribal section and from season to season.I cannot figure such distributions more accurately than the sketch-maps on PP. 56, 58, and 6o, and I can only indicate them verbally in the most general terms. As we have seen, the size of a village depends on the space available for building, grazing, and horticulture, and its homesteads are crowded or strung out accordingly, forming in most villages small clusters of huts and byres which we call hamlets, each being separated from its neighbours by gardens and unoccupied land on which calves, sheep, and goats graze. The population of a village-we can make no precise statement-may be anything from fifty to several hundred souls and may cover from a few hundred yards to several miles. A village is usually well demarcated by the contiguity of its residences and the stretches of bush, forest, and swamp which separate it from its neighbours. In my small experience one may, in most parts of Nuerland, traverse five to twenty miles from village to village.This is certainly the case in Western Nuerland. On the other hand, where the nature of the ground allows, villages may be much closer together and follow one another at short intervals over wide areas. Thus the greater part of the Lou are concentrated within thirty miles of Muot tot, the greater part of the Dok within ten miles of Ler, while the Lak, Thiang, and part of the Gaawar run fairly continuously along a wide ridge between the Nile and the Zeraf. Villages are always joined to their neighbours; by paths created and maintained by their social interrelations. In every part of Nuerland there are also large areas, inundated in the rains, with no, or very few, villages. Those parts of the tribal areas left blank or shaded to show dry-season occupation in the sketch maps are mainly, and often entirely, without village sites,and in Western Nuerland the whole area between the Nile and the Bahr el Ghazal is very sparsely dotted with small villages;and the same is Bahr el Ghazal. I am compelled to describe the distribution of dry season camps as vaguely as the distribution of villages. Early camps may be found almost anywhere and often comprise only a few households; but the location of larger camps, formed later in the season, can be known in advance because there are only a few places which provide adequate water. Their size depends largely on the amount of water and grazing and their population varies from about a hundred to over a thousand souls. These concentrations are never tribal but comprise larger or smaller tribal sections.Round a lake a camp may be distributed in several sections with a few hundred yards between each; or one may then speak of contiguous camps. any camp a few windscreens are generally adjacent to, almost touching, one another, and such a group may often at a glance be seen to be a distinct unit with its own section of the common kraal. Along the left bank of the Sobat and the right bank of the Baro one may observe from a steamer camps almost anywhere, separated from one another by only a few miles; but up streams, like the Nyanding and Filus, in which only isolated pools of water remain, several miles separate camps. Some large camps in the interior of Lou country are separated by more than twenty miles of bush.Great rivers flow through Nuerland and it is often these natural boundaries which indicate the lines of political cleavage. The Sobat separates the Gaajok tribe from the Lou tribe; the Pibor separates the Lou tribe from the Anuak people; the Zeraf separates the Thiang and Lak from the Dinka; the Ghazal separates the Karlual primary section of the Leek tribe from its other two primary sections; and so forth.Marshes and areas inundated in the rains likewise separate political groups. The Macar swamps divide the Eastern Gaajak from the Gaajok and Gaagwang; water-covered stretches divide, in th6 rains, the Rengyan from the Wot, Bor, &c.; and so on.This account of distribution is unavoidably vague, but the probably true of the country to the north of the Physical conditions which are responsible for scarcity of food and, a simple technology also cause low density and sparse distribution of settled areas. Lack of political cohesion and development may be related to the density and distribution of the Nuer and, furthermore, in general their structural simplicity may be due to the same conditions.(2) The size of elevated stretches of land and the distances between them permit in some parts of Nuerland larger and closer concentration than in others. In the larger tribes a large population is often compelled by the nature of the country to build their homes within a short radius. (3) Where there is relatively great density of population in the rains there tends also to be greater need in he drought for early and far movement to new pastures. This need compels recognition of a common tribal value overlarge areas and enables us to understand better how it is that in spite of a necessary lack of political cohesion within the tribes they often have so large a population and occupy so large a territory.We have noted that structural distance is the distance between groups of persons in social structure and may be of different kinds. Those which concern us in our present account are political distance, lineage distance, and age-set distance. The political distance between villages of a tertiary tribal section is less than the distance between tertiary segments of a secondary tribal section, and that is less than the distance between secondary segments of a. primary tribal section, and so forth. This forms the subject of Chapter IV. The lineage distance between segments of. a minor lineage is less than the distance between minor segments of a major lineage, and that is less than the distance between major segments of a maximal lineage, and so forth. This forms the subject of Chapter V. The age-set distance between segments of an ageset is less than the distance between successive, age-sets and that is less than the distance between age-sets which are not successive. This forms the subject of Chapter VI. As we wish to develop our argument and therefore to avoid analysis which does not allow the reader to refer back to statements already made, we will give immediate consideration only to political distance and only to some characteristics of it.Nuer give values to local distributions.It might be thought a simple matter to discover what these values are, but since they are embodied in words, one cannot understand their range of reference without considerable knowledge of the people's language and of the way they use it, for meanings vary according to the social situation and a word may refer to a variety of local groups. It is, nevertheless, possible to differentiate them and to make a crude formal classification of them, as we have done in the diagram below.A single living hut (dwil or ut) is occupied by a wife and her children and, at times, by her husband. They constitute a simple residential family group. The homestead, consisting of a byre and huts, may contain a simple family group or a polygamous family and there are often-one or two kinsmen living there as well.This group, which we call a household, is often referred to as the gol, a word which means 'hearth'. A hamlet with gardens and waste land around- it-is-called-dhoy and each has its special name, often derived from some landmark or from the name of the senior kinsman living there. A hamlet is generally occupied by close agnatic kinsmen, often brothers, and their households, and we call this group of persons a joint family. As these groups are not treated in our account we say no more about them. It must be remembered, however, that a village is not an unsegmented unit but is a relation between a number of smaller units.The village is a very distinct unit. It is sometimes referred to as thur, a ridge of high ground, but generally as cieng, a word which may be translated 'home', but which has such a variety of meanings that we shall devote a special section to it.A village comprises a community, linked by common residence and by a network of kinship and affinal ties, the members of which, as we have seen, form a common camp, co-operate in many activities, and eat in one another's byres and windscreens. A village is the smallest Nuer group which is not specifically of a kinship order and is the political unit of Nuerland. The people of a village have a feeling of strong solidarity against other villages and great affection for their site, and in spite of the wandering habits of Nuer, persons bom and bred in a village have a nostalgia for it and are likely to return to it and make their home there, even if they have resided elsewhere for many years, Members of a village fight side by side and support each other in feuds. When the youths of a village go to dances they enter the dance in a war line (dep) singing their special war chant. A cattle camp, which people of a village form in the drought and in which members of neighbouring villages participate, is known as wec.While this word has the meaning of 'camp' in contrast with cieng, 'village', both words are used in the same general sense of local community. Thus when it is said of a certain clan that they have* no wec we are to understand that they nowhere in a tribal section or village form a dominant nucleus of the community and that, therefore, no local community takes its name from them. A large camp is called after the dominant lineage in it or after the village community who occupy it, and small camps are sometimes named after an old person of importance who has erected his windscreen there.We have seen that the social composition of a camp varies at different times of the drought from the people of a hamlet to the people of a village, or of neighbouring villages, and that men sometimes camp with kinsmen living in camps other than those of their own villages. Consequently, while local communities of the rains tend to be also local communities in the drought their composition may be somewhat different.We again emphasize that not only are the people of a camp living in a more compact group than the people of a village, but also that in camp life there is more frequent contact between its members and greater co-ordination of their activities. The cattle are herded together,milked at the same time, and so on. In a village each house-hold herds its own cattle, if they are herded at all, and performs its domestic and kraal tasks independently and at different times. In the drought there is increasing concentration and greater uniformity in response to the greater severity of the season.We sometimes speak of a district to describe an aggregate of villages or camps which have easy and frequent intercommunication. The people of these villages take part in the same dances, intermarry, conduct feuds, go on joint raiding parties,share dry season camps or make camps in the same locality, and so on.This indefinite aggregate of contacts does not constitute a Nuer category or a political group, because the people do not see themselves, nor are seen by others, as a unique community, but 'district' is a term we employ to denote the sphere of a man's social contacts or of the social contacts of the people of a village and is, therefore, relative to the person or community spoken ~bout. A district in this sense tends to correspond to a tertiary or a secondary tribal segment, according to the size of the tribe. In the smallest tribes a whole tribe is a man's district, and a district may even cut across tribal boundaries in that in a large tribe a border village may have more contacts with neighbouring villages of another tribe than with distant villages of its own tribe. The sphere of a man's social contacts may thus not entirely coincide with any structural division. A number of adjacent villages, varying in number and total account for their maintaining a semblance of tribal unity over such large areas in the absence of any central government. It is evident that the size of tribal populations is directly related to the amount of high land available for wet season occupation, and also to its disposition, for tribes like the Lou and
TIME AND SPACE
FISHING BOY!! NUER SACRIFICE TO THE LOCAL TRADITIONAL BELIEFS!! SOBAT DURING RAINY SEASON!! TUT GATKUOTH IN THE CATTLE CAMP!! LER-NUER OR WESTERN NUER!! TWO SCHOOL TEACHERS AT A DANCE-NASIR-1955!! GETTING SUPER. SLEPT IN A HUT, Dr. MARY AND HELPER!! TWO GIRLS LEARNING HOW TO DO THINGS , THE WAY THEIR MOTHERS DO! SCHOOL GIRLS SINGING AT A WEDDING!! NUER CHIEFS IN NASIR AFTER BRITISH LEFT-BOXING DAY!! LANGUAGE TEACHER!! YOUNG KIDS AROUND THEIR HUT!! CLINIC SCENE IN NASIR!! NUER BARN MAKING!! YOUNG NUER GIRLS GRINDING SORGHUM FOR FOOD!! NUER CROSSING RIVER IN A CANOE!! MAKING A CLAY POT!! THE LEATHER SKIRT OLDER WOMEN WEAR!! MAI NAATH KE ROOC NI!! A NATIVE TEACHER-RIEK MAAC!! FISHING BOYS WITH THEIR BIG CATCH OF THE DAY!! YOUNG GIRLS DANCING IN A TRADITIONAL DANCE!! SCHOOL BOYS WITH MISSIONARY TEACHER!! BUL JAANG NI OR BULL RAAR!! A WOMAN PRAISING GOD AT THE SACRIFICE!! A NATIVE HUT, BEADS DENOTE WEALTH!! MARRIAGE DANCE-NASIR-1955!! A SNAKE BITE BEING TREATED BY MISSIONARY WORKERS!! MAKING A H20 POT-NASIR-1952	Eastern Gaajok and Gaajak can have a concentration of homesteads and villages on wide stretches of elevated land, which is not possible for the smaller tribes of Western Nuerland , whose only building sites are small and sparsely distributed ridges. But we hold that this fact in itself would not determine the lines of political cleavage, which can only be understood by taking into consideration also the relation between village sites and dry season water-supplies, pasturage, and fishing. We have noted earlier how tribal sections move from their villages to dry season pastures, each having spatial distinction in the rains which is maintained in the drought, but whereas in Western Nuerland there is always plenty of water, grazing, and fishing, generally not far from the villages, and it is possible for wet season village communities, isolated by inundated tracts in the rains, to maintain their isolation and independence in dry season camps, in the larger tribes of Eastern Nuerland, such as the Lou, drier conditions compel greater concentration and wider seasonal movements, with the result that village communities not only have a greater spatial, and we may say also moral, density in the drought than in the rains, but have to mix with one another and share water and pastures and fishing. Distinct villages are found side by side around a pool. Moreover, people of one section have to cross the territories of other sections to reach their camps, which may be situated near the villages of yet another section. Families and joint families often camp with kinsmen and affines who belong to other villages than their own, and it is a common practice to keep cattle in two or more parts of the country to avoid total loss from rinderpest, which is a dry season pestilence. It is understandable, therefore, that local communities which, though they are isolated in the rains, are forced in the drought into relations that necessitate some sense of community and the admission of certain common interests and obligations, shoilld be contained in a common tribal structure. The severer the dry season conditions the greater the need for some measure of contact and therefore of forbearance and recognition of interdependence. The Zeraf tribes move less than the Sobat tribes and more than the Western Nuer tribes, the Gaawar moving more than the Thiang and Lak. We may again point out that on the whole where there is plenty of elevated country which permits concentration in the rains there is likewise the greater need for large concentrations in the dry season, since water, fishing, and pasture are found away from these elevated areas. These facts seem to explain to some extent the political preponderance of pastoral peoples in East Africa. There may be wide dispersal of communities and low density of population, but there is seasonal contraction and wide interdependence. The variation in their circuits of transhumance. also helps us to understand the variation in the size of Nuer tribes. It maybe noted that, though the size and cohesion of tribes vary in different parts of Nuerland, nowhere do environmental conditions permit complete autonomy and exclusiveness of small village groups, such as we find among the Anuak, or such high density of population and such developed political institutions such as we find among the Shilluk.Thus, on the one hand, environmental conditions and pastoral pursuits cause modes of distribution and concentration that provide the lines of political cleavage and are antagonistic to political cohesion and development; but, on the other hand, they necessitate extensive tribal areas within which there is a sense of community and a preparedness to co-operate.Each tribe has a name which refers alike to its members and to their country (rol), e.g. Leek, Gaawar, Lou, Lak, & (see map on P. 8). Each has its particular territory and owns and defends its own building,sites, grazing, water-supplies, and fishing-pools. Not only do large rivers or wide stretches of uninhabited country generally divide adjacent sections of contiguous tribes, but these sections tend to move in different directions in the drought. Conditions are doubtless changing in this respect, but we may cite as examples how the Gaawar tribe tend to move eastwards towards the Zeraf and not to come into contact with the Gun primary section of the Lou tribe, who cluster around their inland lakes or move to the Sobat and Pibor; how the Mor tribal section of the Lou move to the Nyanding and Upper Pibor in the direction of the Gaajok, who do-not coalesce with them but move to the upper reaches of the Sobat and the lower reaches of the Pibor; and how the Western Jikany move towards the marshes of the Nile, while the Leek move northwest to the junction of the Bahr el Ghazal with its streams and lagoons.Tribesmen have a common sentiment towards their country and hence towards their fellow tribesmen. This sentiment is evident in the pride with which they speak of their tribe as the object.of their allegiance, their joking disparagement of other tribes, and their indication of cultural variations in their own tribe as symbols.of its singularity. A man of one tribe sees the people of another tribe as an undifferentiated group to whom he has.an undifferentiated pattern of behaviour, while he sees himself as a member of a segment of his own tribe. Thus when a Leek man says that So-and-so is a Nac (Rengyan) he at once defines his relationship to him. Tribal sentiment rests as much on opposition to other tribes as on common name, common territory, corporate action in warfare, and the common lineage structure of a dominant clan.How strong is tribal sentiment may be gathered from the fact that sometimes men who intend to leave the tribe of their birth to settle permanently in another tribe take with them some earth of their old country and drink it in a solution of water, slowly adding to each dose a greater amount of soil from their new country, thus gently breaking mystical ties with the old and building up mystical ties with the new. I was told that were a man to fail to do this he might die of nueer, the sanction that punishes breach of certain ritual obligations.A tribe is the largest group the members of which consider it their duty to combine for raiding and for defensive action., The younger men of the tribe went, till recently, on joint expeditions against the Dinka and waged war against other Nuer tribes. Wars between tribes were less frequent than attacks on the Dinka, but there are many examples in recent Nuer history of border disputes among tribes and even of one tribe raiding another for cattle, and such fighting is traditional among the Nuer. The Leek tribe raided the Jikany and Jagei tribes, and a Leek tribesman told me, "The cattle with which my father married were Gee (Jagei) cattle.' Poncet remarks: 'Les Elliab (Dok) se battent avec les Egnan (Nuong) du sud et les Relan (Rengyan) du nord; les Ror de Fint6rieur avec ces derniers et les Bior (Bor) de Gazal (Ghazal river). Toutes leurs querelles viennent des pAturages qu'ils se disputent, ce qui n'emp6che pas qu'ils voyagent les uns chez les; autres sans aucun danger, A moins cependant qu'on n'ait un parent Avenger." In theorya tribe was regarded asa military unit, and if two sections of different tribes I Op. cit., P. 39. machinery to conclude it. Local communities have been classed as tribes or tribal segments by whether they acknowledge the obligation to pay blood-wealth or not. Thus the Gun and the Mor are classed as primary segments of the Lou tribe, while the Eastern Gaajok, Gaajak, and Gaagwang have been classed as three tribes and not as three primary segments of a single Jikany tribe.It may have happened that border cases between different tribes were sometimes settled by payment of compensation, but I have no record of such settlements other than the doubtful statement given on p. 18q, and were they to have taken place it would in no way invalidate our definition of tribal structure. However, it must be understood that we are defining a tribe in the most formal, way and that, as we shall show later, the acknowledgement of legal responsibility within a tribe does not mean that, in fact, it is easy to obtain compensation for a tort. There is little solidarity within a tribe and feuds are frequent and of long duration. Indeed, the feud is a characteristic institution of tribal organization.A tribe has been defined by (i) a common and distinct name;(2) a common sentiment; (3) a common and distinct territory;(4) a moral I obligation to unite in war; and (5) a moral obligation to settle feuds and other disputes by arbitration. To these five points can be added three further characteristics, which are discussed later: (6) a tribe is a segmented structure and there is opposition between its segments; (7) within each tribe there is a dominant clan and the relation between the lineage structure of this clan and the territorial system of the tribe is of great structural importance; (8) a tribe is a unit in a system of tribes; and (9) age-sets are organized tribally.Adjacent tribes, are opposed to one another and fight one another. They sometimes combine against Dinka, but such combinations are loose and temporary federations for a specific end and do not correspond to any clear political value. Occasionally a tribe will allow a section of another to camp in its territory and there may be more contacts between persons of border villages or camps of different tribes than between widely separated communities of the same tribe. The first may have more social contacts.; the second be structurally nearer. But between Nuer tribes there is no common organization or central administration and hence no political unity that we can refer to as national. Nevertheless, adjacent tribes, and the Dinka who face them, form political systems, since the internal organization of each tribe can only be fully understood in terms of their mutual opposition, and their common opposition to the Dinka who border them.Beyond these systems of direct political relations the whole Nuer people see themselves as a u I nique community and their culture as a unique culture. Opposition to their neighbours gives them a consciousness of kind and a strong sentiment of exclusiveness. A Nuer is known as such by his culture, which is very homogeneous, especially by his language, by the absence of his lower incisors, and, if he is a man, by six cuts on his brow.All Nuer live in a continuous stretch of country. There are no isolated sections. However, their feeling of community goes deeper than recognition of, cultural identity. Between Nuer, wherever they hail from, and though they be strangers to one another, friendly relations are at once established when they meet outside their country, for a Nuer is never a foreigner to another as he is to a Dinka or a Shilluk. Their feeling of superiority and the contempt they show for.all foreigners and their readiness to fight them are a common bond of communion,and their common tongue and values permit ready intercommunication.Nuer are well aware of the different divisions of their country, even if they have never visited them, and they all look upon the area to the west of the Nile as their common homeland, to the occupants of which they still have distant kinship ties. People also journey to visit kinsmen in other tribes and often settle for long periods far from their homes, sometimes in different tribes, in which, if they stay there long enough, they become permanently incorporated. Constant social intercourse flows across the borders of adjacent tribes and unites their members, especially members of border communities, by many strands of kinship and affinity. If a man changes his tribe he can at once fit himself into the age-set system of the tribe of his adoption, and there is often co-ordination of sets between adjacent tribes. A single clan is sometimes dominant in more than one tribal area, dominant clans are linked in a general clan system, and the principal clans are found in every part of Nuerland. We have noted how in the days of ivory trading Gaajak tribesmen journeyed through the territories of other tribes as far as the Zeraf.The limits of the tribe are therefore not the limits of social intercourse, and there are many ties between persons of one tribe and persons of another tribe. Through association with the clan system and by proximity the people of one tribe may consider themselves nearer to a second than to a third. Thus the three Eastern Jikany tribes feel a vague unity in relation to the Lou, and so do the Bor and Rengyan in relation to the Leek. But, also,- individuals, and through individuals kinship groups and even a village, have a circuit of social relationships that cut across tribal divisions, so that a traveller who crosses the border of his tribe can always establish some links with individuals of the tribe he visits in virtue of which he will receive hospitality and protection. If he is wronged, his host, and not he, is involved in legal action. However, there is a kind of international law, in the recogniftion of conventions in certain matters, beyond political boundaries and the limits of formal law. Thus, though it is considered more risky to marry outside the tribe than within it, since divorce may prove more detrimental in that the return of bride-wealth is less certain, the rules of marriage are acknowledged on both sides and it would be considered improper to take advantage of political cleavage to break them. Tribes are thus politically exclusive groups, but they are not coterminous with an individual's sphere of social relations, though this sphere tends to follow the lines of political cleavage, in the same way as a man's district tends to be equated to his tribal segment. The relation between political structure and general social relations is discussed in the chapters that follow. Here we may note that it is desirable to distinguish between (i) political distance in the sense of structural distance between segments of a tribe, the largest political unit, and between tribes in a system of political relations; (2) general structural distance in the sense of non-political distance between various social groups in the Nuer-speaking community-non-political structural relations are strongest between adjacent tribes, but a common social structure embraces the whole of Nuerland; and (3) the social sphere of an individual, being his circuit of social contacts of one kind or another with other Nuer,The political structure of the Nuer can only be understood in relation to their neighbours, with whom they form a single political system. Contiguous Dinka and Nuer tribes are segments within a common structure as much as are segments of the same Nuer tribe. Their social relationship is one of hostility and its expression is in warfare. .The Dinka people are the immemorial enemies of the Nuer. They are alike in their oecologies, cultures, and social systems, so that individuals belonging to the one people are easily assimilated to the other; and when the balanced opposition between a Nuer political segment and a Dinka political segment changes into a relationship in which the Nuer segment becomes entirely dominant, fusion and not a class structure results.As far as history and tradition go back, and in the vistas of myth beyond their farthest reach, there has been enmity between the two.peoples. Almost always the Nuer have been the aggressors, and raiding of the Dinka is conceived by them to be a normal state of affairs and a duty, for they have a myth, like that of Esau and Jacob, which explains it and justifies it. Nuer and Dinka are represented in this myth as two sons of God who promised his old cow to Dinka and its young calf to Nuer Dinka came by night to God's byre and, imitating the voice of Nuer, obtained the calf. When God found that he had been tricked he was angry and charged Nuer to avenge the injury by raiding Dinka's cattle to the end of time. This story, familiar to every Nuer, is not only areflection of the political relations between the two peoples but is also a commentary on their characters. Nuer raid for cattle and seize them openly and by force of arms. Dinka steal them or take them by treachery. All Nuer regard them-and rightly so-as thieves, and even the Dinka seem to admit the reproach, if we attribute correct significance to the statement made to Mr. K. C. P. Struv6 in 1907 by the Dinka keeper of the shrine of Deng dit at Luang Deng, After recounting the myth of the cow and calf, he added, 'And to this day the Dinka has always lived by robbery, and the Nuer by war."Fighting, like cattle husbandry, is one of the chief activities and dominant interests of all Nuer men, and raiding Dinka for cattle is one of their principal pastimes. Indeed jaang, Dinka, is sometimes used to refer to any tribe whom the Nuer habitually raid and from whom they take captives. Boys look forward to the day when they will be able to accompany their elders on these raids against the Dinka, and as soon as youths have been initiated into manhood they begin to plan an attack to enrich themselves and to establish their reputation as warriors. Every Nuer tribe raided Dinka at least every two or three years,, and some part of Dinkaland must have been raided annually. Nuer have a proper contempt for Dinka and are derisive of their fighting qualities, saying that they show as little skill as courage. Kur jaang, fighting with Dinka, is considered so trifling a test of valour that it is not thought necessary to bear shields on a raid or to pay any regard to adverse odds, and is contrasted with the dangers of kur Nath, fighting between Nuer themselves. These boasts are justified both in the unflinching bravery of the Nuer and by their military success.The earliest travellers record that Nuer held both banks of the Nile, but it is probable that the entire Zeraf Island was at one time occupied by Dinka and it is certain that the whole of the country from the Zeraf to the Pibor and, to the north of the Sobat, from the confines of Shillukland to the Ethiopian scarp was, with the exception of riverain settlements of Anuak, still in their hands as late as the middle of last century, when it was seized by the Nuer in two lines of expansion, to the north of the Sobat and to the south of it. This is known from the statements of both Nuer and Dinka, the evidence of genealogies and age-sets, and the records of travellers, who frequently refer to the struggle between the two peoples, the dominant position of the Nuer among their neighbours, the awe they inspired in. them, and their bravery and chivalry.2 The conquest, which seems to have resulted in absorp tion and miscegenation rather than extermination, was so rapid and successful that the whole of this vast area is to-day occupied by Nuer, except for a few pockets of Dinka on the Sobat, Filus, and Atar. Apart from these independent units there are many local communities in Eastern Nuerland of Nuer who acknowledge that they are of Dinka descent, and small lineages of Dinka origin are found in every village and camp. Some Dinka tribes took refuge with compatriots to the south, where the Gaawar and Lou continued to raid them. The Western Nuer likewise persistently aided all the Dinka tribes that border them, particularly those to the south and west, obtained a moral ascendency over them, and compelled them to withdraw farther and farther from their boundaries. To the west of the Nile, as to the east, Dinka captives were assimilated, and there are many small lineages of Dinka descent in every tribe and these are often preponderant in local communities. Of all the Dinka only the Ngok, to the south of the Sobat, were left in peace, probably on account of their poverty of stock and grazing, though their immunity has a mythological sanction. It seems also that the Atwot were not considered such legitimate prey as the Dinka on account of their Nuer origin, and it is probable that they were seldom molested as they are remotely situated.The favourite season for raiding Dinka was at the end of the rains, though they were also invaded at their commencement. Leek tribesmen told me that when they raided Dinka to the southwest they used to sleep the first night near the villages of the Wot tribe and the second night in the bush. They took no food with them and ate only what fish they might hastily spear on the way, travelling with all speed throughout the day and part of the night. On the third day they attacked the Dinka villages or camps at dawn. The Dinka seldom put up any resistance, but loosened their cattle and tried to drive them away. No one seized cattle till the enemy had been dispersed. Then each took what prizes he could, often not troubling to tether his captures but slashing their rumps in sign of ownership. Afterwards the beasts were tied up in the enemy's kraal, the oxen being mainly slaughtered for food. If the Dinka gathered reinforcements and returned to fight they were met in full battle formation. Nuer fight in three divisions with two or three hundred yards between each, and if one division is engaged the others advance or retreat parallel to it according to the fortunes of war. A party of scouts are in advance of the central division and they charge up to the enemy, hurl their spears at them, and fall back on the main body.The raiders spent several weeks in Dinkaland and sometimes remained there throughout the dry season, living on the milk and flesh of captured cattle, on pillaged grain, and on fish. Using a captured kraal as a base they extended their raid against distant camps. Nuer migrations seem to have been conducted on these lines, the raiders settling permanently in Dinka country and by systematic raiding compelling the inhabitants to withdraw farther and farther from the points of occupation. In the following season a new series of raids was initiated and the process was repeated till the Dinka were compelled to seek refuge with their kinsfolk of another tribe and leave their country to its invaders. If settlement was not contemplated, however, the raiders returned home when they considered that they had sufficient booty.Before camp was broken up there took place a custom highly indicative of Nuer sense of equality and justice. It was recognized that the whole force was jointly responsible for the success of the raid and there was therefore a redistribution of the booty. The prophet whose revelations sanctioned the raid first made a round of the camp and selected from each household a cow for the divine spirit of whom he was the mouthpiece. By this time a household possessed some fifty head, so that it was no hardship to be asked to give one to the spirit. There then took place a general scramble and everybody rushed amid the herd to earmark beasts for himself. A man who could first seize an animal, tether it, and cut its ear had absolute claim to it. The man who originally captured a cow had the advantage that it was tethered near his windscreen, but if he and members of his household had an undue share of the booty they could not earmark all the beasts before they were seized by others. As might be supposed, men frequently sustained injury in these scrambles, for if two men seized the same cow they fought with clubs for possession of it. One must not use the spear on these occasions. Men of neighbouring camps took part in one another's redistributions and there must have been great confusion. Captives, women of marriageable age, boys, and girls, were not redistributed but belonged to their original captor. Older women and babies were clubbed and, when the raid was on a village, their bodies were thrown on the flaming byres and huts. Captives were placed in the centre of the camp, the women being sometimes bound at night to render them more secure. Sexual intercourse is taboo on a raid. Nor may Nuer eat with a captive. A boy captive may not even draw water for them to drink. Only when an ox has been sacrificed in honour of the ghosts, after the return home, and they have been informed that strangers have entered their homesteads, may Nuer have sexual relations with captives or eat with them. In the following section we describe other foreign contacts, but till. European conquest the only foreign relations which may be said to have been expressed in constant warfare were those with the various Dinka tribes which border Nuerland. We have not enumerated them, for their names are irrelevant. The fighting between the two peoples has been incessant from time immemorial and seems to have reached a state of equilibrium before European conquest upset it. (Malte-Brun's map compared with modern maps suggests that tribal positions have not greatly altered since 186o.) In the earlier part of the historic period, from about 1840 to near the end of the century, Nuer appear to have been expanding in search of new grazing, but continued raiding for cattle, an aggressive action which we attribute to the structural relations between the two peoples, but which was, no doubt, intensified by rinderpest.Though Dinka relations with Nuer are extremely hostile and war between them may be called an established institution, they have, nevertheless, united occasionally to make war against the Egyptian Government and there have sometimes been joint social gatherings. In times of famine Dinka have often come to reside in Nuerland and have been readily accepted and incorporated into Nuer tribes. In times of peace, also, Dinka visited their relations who had been captured or who had settled in Nuerland, and, as remarked earlier, there seems in parts to have been some trade between the two peoples. The strands of social relationships of a general kind, which are often numerous across the boundaries of adjacent Nuer tribes and which stretch across Nuerland, are thus prolonged weakly beyond the limits of Nuerland in occasional and hazardous contacts with foreigners.All Dinka come into the category of Jaang, and Nuer feel that category to be nearer to themselves than other categories of foreigners. These foreign peoples, with all of whom the Nuer have reached a state of balanced hostility, an equilibrium of opposition, expressed occasionally in fighting, are, with the exception of the Beir, generally classed as Bar, cattleless people or people possessing very few cattle. A further category are the Jur, cattleless people whom the Nuer regard as lying on the periphery of their world, such as the Bongo-Mittu group of peoples, the Azande, the Arabs, and ourselves. If you want to continue TIME AND SPACE you have to go to Wiec Naath at http://victorian.fortunecity.com/bryon/885