Nuba

Teferi Abate Adem

“Nuba” is a collective name used by outsiders to refer to more than fifty, mostly non-Muslim, ethnic groups in the Nuba Mountains that can be quite distinct from one another in the languages they speak, as well as in their kinship systems and other aspects of social organization. These peoples do not have a collective name for themselves, instead using the name of the specific group to which they belong. Prominent in the ethnographic literature are the Heiban, Koalib, Mesakin, Moro, Otoro, Tira, Korongo, Tullishi, Dilling, Nyima, Talodi, Tumtum, Kao, Nyaro, Fungor, and Lafofa.

When studied by Seligman and Seligman early in the twentieth century, “Dar Nuba, the country of the Nuba” encompassed a vast region “bounded on the east by the Shilluk territory fringing the west bank of the White Nile, on the south by Lake No and the Bahr el Ghazal, and on the west by Arab territory, Dar Homr and Dar Hammar” (1932:366). Since then, considerable amounts of land in the plains section of the region have been systematically taken over by an influx of Baggara and other Arabic-speaking pastoralists and commercial farmers (Komey 2008). Indigenous Nuba groups found themselves increasingly concentrated in hill communities dispersed among the Nuba Mountains of South Kordofan, Sudan.

Nadel (1947:1) estimated that the total Nuba population around 1940 was 300,000. Four decades later Faris (1989:24) gave an estimate of a half million. In 2003, official government estimates put the total population of the region at 1.1 million, of which about eighty percent would have been Nuba (Komey 2008:997).

The Nuba Mountains region encompasses more than a hundred mutually-unintelligible languages, mostly belonging to the larger Niger-Congo family, and others to the Nilo-Saharan family. Some of the languages are said to have incorporated elements of Arabic because of the influence of Islam and its importance in regional politics.

Oral traditions of several Nuba communities suggest that they have been in the area for centuries. They have been raided and maladministered by successive external forces that competed for control of the area over the past two centuries or so. Starting in the nineteenth century the Nuba faced raids and land dispossession by Baggara Arabs. Enslavement campaigns intensified during the Turco-Egyptian era (1820-1885), when Hawazma Arab elites rose to become local agents of foreign rulers and traders.

During the Mahdiya resistance to Anglo-Egyptian forces that began in 1881, some Southeast Nuba peace priests sought to extricate their communities from enslavement by declaring allegiance to the Mahdi. Following the killing of the Mahdi in 1899, the Nuba continued to suffer from ill-advised colonial “civilization” policies. In an attempt to encourage clothing, for example, local agents of the colonial government publicly flogged naked individuals. In the name of “stabilizing marriage,” local agents imposed severe fines on Nuba men who remarried a divorced woman. In some cases, colonial officials even burned entire village sections they considered responsible for the spread of certain communicable diseases (Faris 1989).

Ethnic inequality—primarily along the Nuba vs non-Nuba Arab divide—continued unabated throughout the twentieth century, including the years after Sudan’s independence in 1956. One legacy of this tension has been the rise of several ethnically- and regionally-based political groups. The most successful of these groups has been the Sudan Peoples’ Liberation Army/Movement (SPLA/M).

The majority of Nuba lived in villages irregularly distributed along the middle slopes of steep mountains, with others ensconced on hilltops or in valleys. Distinguished and known by specific names, each village traditionally was divided into several homesteads, each often consisting of four to five round huts. The huts of each homestead formed a rough circle around a central space. Depending on its size, each hut was used either as a dwelling or a granary.

Traditional Nuba economy depended primarily on hoe cultivation of cereals such as millet and maize. Most households continue to maintain plots located in ecologically-distinct parts of the local landscape. Plots surrounding homesteads on hillsides are especially well-tended, using stone terracing and manure. Although many Nuba keep sheep, goats, pigs, and some cattle, they do not place as high a cultural value on herding as the Nuer and other Nilotic groups.

Nuba farmers sell millet, maize, beans and simsim (sesame) to nomadic and semi-nomadic Arab herders. In return, the Nuba purchase cattle, charms, and amulets. By the 1960s, some Arab traders had established shops in Nuba villages, selling consumer goods and purchasing local products such as dried doum palm leaves, gum arabic, tobacco, and red pepper.

Nuba women make a wide variety of pottery, in some cases at industrial scale (Bentley and Crowfoot 1924; Nadel 1947:72). Other traditional craft products included wooden farm tools, spears, shields, and plank beds; also musical instruments like drums, flutes, animal horns, and gourd trumpets. In some Arab-influenced Nuba communities Nadel (1947:71) noted the manufacturing of previously imported goods such as daggers, mats, sandals, Arab-style angrebs (stools), and cotton clothing.

Traditionally, men cleared land, constructed stone terraces, weeded plots, threshed grain, and performed a range of agricultural rituals. Women did a considerable part of all other agricultural work including hoeing, planting, and harvesting crops, and winnowing the grain threshed by the men. Women also fetched firewood, cooked, cared for children, and performed all other domestic activities. Both men and women collected forest products, including edible leaves and fruits, and animal fodder. Young men were responsible for standing watch over gardens at night and for herding domestic animals. They also were expected to help their parents, especially during peak times for agricultural labor.

Village communities and/or localized lineage groups held diffuse (as opposed to strongly corporate) rights over land allocation and administration. Individual households enjoyed fairly secure rights to cultivated plots located in different ecological microzones. In every generation, land-poor but ambitious farmers opened new “far farm” plots on previously unclaimed sites, often at the margins of the village/clan territory.

Over the years the ability of individuals to open new fields has been severely constrained by the policy pursued by successive Sudanese regimes of classifying all uncultivated land as “government owned.” Government officials invoked this policy in order to allocate unused land as private property to influential clan leaders and Arab investors. The net effect of this process has been the dispossession of many Nuba communities from land with high agricultural potential on the plains adjacent to cultivated hillsides.

Nadel (1947:10) observed significant variation in the kinship system of different Nuba groups, ranging from patrilineal descent among the Otoro, Heiban, Tira, Moro, Koalib, Nyima and Dilling, to matrilineal descent groups in Korongo, Mesakin and Tullishi communities. Additionally, the range of culturally-expected rights and obligations shared among members varied even within communities having similar rules of descent.

Nuba kinship terminology is very close to the Hawaiian system in which one kin term is used to refer to all members of a generation who share the same gender as the speaker. In other words, within the same clan, a person would call all males of the ascending generation the equivalent of “father” and all females “mother,” and call all males in his own generation “brother” and all females, “sister.” However, Nuba kin terms also distinguish the speaker’s gender. For example, among the southeastern Nuba a boy’s term for female kin of the same generation is “tū” and is “waŋ” for male kin of the same generation, whereas a girl uses “waŋ” for kin of either sex in the same generation (Faris 1989:160).

Kinship rules and clan exogamy are observed, although the definition of who is marriageable and who is not varies across different groups. For example, for the Otoro marriage is prohibited within one’s own paternal clan, while the Heiban customarily also prohibit marriage into the clans of the mother and paternal grandmother.

Courtship starts with the meeting of boys and girls at organized ceremonials, including dances and initiation rituals. The couple would then reinforce their relationship by exchanging gifts and arranging frequent visits. Further along, the boy will ask the girl’s permission to send mediators to her parents. Over the course of this prolonged courtship, both boys and girls enjoy the freedom to change their minds and turn their attentions to someone else.

The mode of marriage differed by descent system. Patrilineal groups demanded the payment of a substantial bride price, mostly consisting of animals, iron tools (such as hoes, ax heads, knives, spear points and, sometimes, rifles), clothing, and some forest products. By contrast, marriage in matrilineal groups involved prolonged bride service. In the rare cases when older men wanted to marry a second or third wife, they avoided prolonged courtship and reduced onerous bride price or bride service obligations by directly negotiating with the girl’s parents.

The Nuba allowed women to initiate divorce for any number of reasons. A wife could, for example, desert her husband (and eventually divorce him) simply because she fell in love with another man, or as one of Nadel’s informants put it, “no longer loves her husband” (1947:126).

The dominant domestic unit was a household, typically consisting of a man, his wife or wives, and their unmarried children and other dependents. Each domestic unit occupied a homestead consisting of two or more round huts arranged in a rough circle around an enclosed common space with a single entrance. In most cases, the spouses slept in the main hut, together with small children. Older girls slept atop the largest indoor granary, while boys stayed in the hut at the entrance to the homestead.

Inheritance rules varied across different groups, broadly corresponding to the difference between patrilineal and matrilineal kinship systems. Among the former, land and other important property such as the deceased’s house, stored grain, and livestock (and perhaps, as among the Otoro, some personal belongings like spears, knives, rifles, and ornaments) were divided among the sons. In matrilineal groups like Tullishi, Kamdang, Tima, Korongo and Mesakin, property was customarily inherited by the deceased’s full brother or sister’s sons.

In Heiban and Otoro, upon a man’s death a brother (or other eligible man of their deceased relative’s clan) inherits and is expected to marry his widow if she is still of childbearing age.

Nuba children were raised to place the highest value on manliness, conformity to parental authority, and adherence to strict moral codes. These virtues were inculcated by disciplining each child, including the use of corporal punishment. Children also were subjected to compulsory participation in age-based initiation ceremonies involving fierce stick fights and elaborate, painful cicatrization rites. Successful warriors and hunters were entitled to have special patterns of scars on visible parts of their bodies, mostly the upper arm or back. During public celebrations like the annual harvest festival, distinguished heroes held special emblems and wore decorative accessories.

The Nuba lived in territorially-organized communities that varied in population and composition. With larger groups like the Otoro, Nadel observed a threefold territorial scale consisting of what he described as “local villages” distinguished by topographical feature, “hill communities” spanning a number of such features, and the “tribe” (entire group). However, in demographically smaller groups like the Tullishi and Dilling (likewise noted by Faris for the Kao and Fungor), the majority of households are concentrated on a single hill, collapsing the distinction between village and community.

Traditionally, the Nuba were organized into age-based groups. At puberty, boys joined the age-grade group of their village, which often coincided with half of the broader hill community. By undergoing collectively-organized, compulsory initiation rituals, young boys built trust among themselves, as well as lifetime bonds and friendships. A young man could call upon his fellow age-grade members to help him with seasonal farm work on the farms of his parents or parents-in-law.

The Nuba age-grade system broadly required junior age-grades to respect and serve senior grades. At the personal level, however, the actual influence of an elderly man over others greatly depended on the prestige of his clan and lineage within the community rather than his biological age.

Traditional Nuba communities are described in the literature as stateless. Clans, lineages and sub-sections recognized secular and religious authorities who coordinated community affairs such as rain-making rituals, age-based initiation ceremonies, labor exchange, and territorial defense. When studied by Nadel in the late 1930s, some of these leaders had evolved to become chiefs and village heads, with varying responsibilities. In many cases, the chiefs continued to provide “traditional” religious and spiritual leadership, while also helping the colonial government with “modern” state functions such as presiding over minor court cases and collecting taxes.

Peace and order within hill communities was maintained through collective sanctions. Killing one’s own clansman or fellow community member was regarded as both evil and unlawful, and the perpetrators faced severe retaliation and punishment by the community. Transgressions of taboos, desecration of sacred grounds, and offenses against the spirits were brought to the attention of the local grain priest, who would fine the culprit an animal and perform a purification sacrifice to undo the evil act.

Attacks on life or property between hill communities were common, including between communities belonging to the same tribe. These were in the form of irregular raids carried out by a few individuals, not actual wars involving entire communities. Adult men sought to enrich themselves and gain prestige by displaying courage and military prowess when raiding enemy groups. Approval and praise of a man who killed an enemy was balanced by a need for ritual purification; he had to sleep in an abandoned hut outside the village for eight days, during which time he had to eat from broken gourds and paint his body with white clay. He would be allowed to return home only after a ritual with sacrifices.

Traditionally, most Nuba believed their collective welfare and good fortune depended on maintaining a close, public relationship with lineage ancestors and spirits. Village communities and lineage groups organized sacrifices and prayers aimed at managing disease, death, and other collective threats, while also promoting wealth, health and good fortune.

The Nuba recognized a category of persons who provided a range of traditional services as priests, magicians, diviners, and healers. In most cases, these functionaries came from clans, lineages and sub-sections believed to possess especially potent magical abilities and observances. Most had multiple roles as peace priests, rainmakers, shamans, diviners, and ritual specialists.

Traditional Nuba pottery is said to be the most artistically sophisticated in all Sudan. The ceramic arts are especially well-developed in the southeastern region, where fine wares may be decorated to look like the pelt of a giraffe, with burnished areas representing the irregular spots separated by a dense network of incisions (Bentley and Crowfoot 1924:25; Seligman and Seligman 1932:368).

The Nuba recognized a category of individuals believed to possess special abilities at diagnosing and curing disease. In the southeastern region, most of these specialists (known as ōnnerū) claimed their medicinal knowledge was revealed to them in dreams (Faris 1989:270). The social standing of each specialist greatly depended not just on their success in receiving payment for their services, but in redistributing the proceeds among fellow clansmen. Traditional medical knowledge also included the use of particular plants and animal parts as protective magic or as treatments for specific kind of diseases.

Death is attributed to particular causes, such as terminal illness, murder, witchcraft, etc. In all cases, the death of a person is announced immediately to villagers and clan members by a loud cry. The body is buried with the head oriented towards the ritual direction of the clan to which the deceased belonged, and the grave is fenced with thorns to keep out animals. Among the southeastern Nuba, spirits of the dead (pindē) are believed to have an active influence on the wellbeing of their living descendants (Faris 1989). Consequently, the deceased are commemorated through elaborate rituals and animal sacrifices, believed to make their spirits happy.

This culture summary was written by Teferi Abate Adem in October, 2017.

Bentley, Oswald and J.W. Crowfoot (1924). "Nuba pots in the Gordon College." Sudan Notes and Records 7(2): 18-28. https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/41715555.pdf. Accessed April 26, 2019.

Faris, James C. (1989). Southeast Nuba Social Relations. Aachen: Alano, Edition Herodot.

Komey, Guma Kunda (2008). "The denied land rights of the indigenous peoples and their endangered livelihood and survival: the case of the Nuba of the Sudan." Ethnic and Racial Studies 31(5): 991-1008.

Nadel, S. F. (1947). The Nuba: An Anthropological Study of the Hill Tribes in Kordofan. London, New York: Oxford University Press.

Seligman, C. G. and Brenda Z. Seligman (1932). Pagan Tribes of the Nilotic Sudan. London: G. Routledge & Sons.