Nuer prophets
Book 1994 • Johnson, Douglas H. (Douglas Hamilton)

Nuer • Africa > Eastern Africa
An excellent monograph on Nuer prophetic tradition in which Johnson argues that Nuer prophets were first and foremost peacemakers and overseers of a moral community. They served the same role as the earth-masters, AKA leopard-skin chiefs, but appeale...

Tribal boundaries and border wars
article 1982 • Johnson, Douglas H. (Douglas Hamilton)

Nuer • Africa > Eastern Africa
Johnson has dug into colonial archives to refute Evans-Pritchard's depiction of Nuer-Dinka relations as hostile. Johnson argues that raiding was selective and intermarriage between Dinka and Nuer created extensive affinal relations that produced acco...

Judicial regulation and administrative control
article 1986 • Johnson, Douglas H. (Douglas Hamilton)

Nuer • Africa > Eastern Africa
In this paper Johnson shows how the British attempted to administer and control Nuer and Dinka through a judicial system of secular leaders. The system failed because the leaders did not have the spiritual and moral authority beyond their immdediate ...

The fighting Nuer
article 1981 • Johnson, Douglas H. (Douglas Hamilton)

Nuer • Africa > Eastern Africa
In this article Johnson attacks another ethnographic myth about the Nuer (see document no. 19.) According to Johnson, many traveler and government accounts depicted the Nuer as 'truculent and aggressive warriors.' Johnson goes to the archives to find...

On disciples and magicians
article 1992 • Johnson, Douglas H. (Douglas Hamilton)

Nuer • Africa > Eastern Africa
Johson recounts the spread of magic and magicians during the colonial era (1929-1955), which he attributes to the destruction of the prophets, who helped to regulate spirits and gods. The prophets despised magicians and kept them under check. By kill...