The Evolution of Nuer People of Southern Sudan

Their love for the cows extends to hands and women taking the names of their deary oxen or cow, and they favor to be greeted by their cattle names. The Nuer refer to their cattle match to the color markings on their coats, and there ar twelve enlighten words for the unique pattern groupings commonly referred to. Cattle be owned by the family, and they be tended to by the men, but milked by the women under the control of the head of the household. Fines for offenses are assessed in cattle. The Nuer in any case pursue agricultural pursuits, but cattle labor is their favorite type of work.

The Nuer language is a Ni tummyic language, closely associate to the speech of the Dinka and Atuot, and the language is uniform, with no definable dialects (Jenkins). The Nuer are nonionised into tribes which consist of further subdivisions by railway line. The lineages are the major morphological factor for determining political order, and the territorial and lineage groupings are more closely aligned for some purposes than others. There is no all overall political authority among the Nuer tribal structure. Political action mechanism involves various groupings or separation of the many territorial and kinship group groupings (Columbia University; Jenkins). Under the "condominium" with Egypt from the beginning of the 20th century, the British enamour caused major changes for the Nuer (Jenkins). The colonial policies of the British focused on establishing wintry boundaries between the

Although there is selective information available from older sources, such as Jenkins, and Evans-Pritchard, a lot remains unknown about the Nuer (A Note). It has been difficult in upstart years to do anthropological studies because of the firs and second Sudanese civic Wars. The only recent studies have come from Sharon E. Hutchinson, who sees a different side of the Nuer (Garbett). Hutchinson made a 21 month fieldwork shoot beginning in December 1980, which followed a period of septette years of gracious war in which Nuer guerilla groups fought once morest the Sudanese government in a bitter struggle.

The war was fought over attempts of the Sudanese government to impose a fundamentalist Islam on the southern Sudan, to alter the water supply of the Nuer's pastoral environment with the construction of the Jonglei canal and to suppress a movement among the Nuer batch and other groups for regional autonomy. Hutchinson made briefer visits in 1990 and 1992 on the eve of, and at the beginning of, the second period of civil war, which again tore apart the pastoral life of the Nuer. The second civil war was fought, even more devastatingly for the Nuer, over the control of the crude resources discovered in their region. Thousands of people were killed and hundreds and thousands fled to neighboring countries for sanctuary.

As comfortably as being a central part of their lifestyle, cattle also play a central role in Nuer religion and ritual (Jenkins). Cows are dedicated to the ghosts of the owner's lineage and any personal spirits which may have possess them. The Nuer establish contact with their ancestral spirits by abrasion ashes along the backs of cows and oxen dedicated to them through the cave in of cattle. Sacrifice is a part of any important Nuer ceremony. The Nuer are animalistic in their religion, but also worship a supreme being called Kowth, who takes on various manifestations, and some Nuer get to have
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