Nuer

By Jok Madut Jok and Ian Skoggard

Naath, Nath.

The term Nuer has been in use for over two hundred years but its origin is unknown. It is probable that the term came from other neighboring groups, especially the Dinka. The name is used in both singular (a Nuer man) and plural (the Nuer people). But the people who are identified as Nuer call themselves Nath. Along with their neighbors, the Dinka, the Nuer form a sub-division of a larger east African cultural group known as the Nilotics, which also includes the Luo, Shilluk and Anyuak). The Nuer live in South Sudan in the swamps and open savanna that stretch on both sides of the river Nile south of its junction with the Sobat and Bahr-el-Ghazal, and on both banks of these two tributaries. Their territory lies approximately 500 miles south of Khartoum, the capital of Sudan. Nuer are so similar to the Dinka in physical appearance, in their languages and in their customs that there is no doubt about their common origin, though the history of their divergence is unknown. The two people, despite their intermittent conflicts, live in proximity, maintain continuous contact, have intermarried and have borrowed cultural patterns from one another. They have an array of myths and legends that speak of their historical oneness. They both recognize their common origin.

Like all other South Sudanese, the Nuer became part of the Sudanese polity in the 1820s when the nation-state was taking shape beginning with the Ottoman invasion from Egypt in 1821. Their incorporation began with the horrors of the slave trade. Like the rest of South Sudanese the Nuer have been resistant to incorporation into the Sudanese political structure. This resistance has led to the growth of two distinct parts of the country, north and south. Northerners are self-identified as Arabs and are Muslims while Southerners identify themselves as black, African, and increasingly Christian. The North has held the state power due to its long history of benefit from foreign contact: First the Arabs, then the Turks, the British, and finally the Arabs again after independence from Britain in 1956. All these governments had a policy of forcing Nuerland into the structure of a united Sudan. A combination of this relentless effort to make the Nuer part of a centralized authority in Khartoum and a concurrent neglect of social and economic development in the South have caused rebellions in the South. Two civil wars between North and South have ensued, the latest of which continues. Nuer participation in these wars has two sources. One is their resistance to the authority of the Khartoum government that is only interested in keeping them Sudanese but not providing such services as education and health care that a responsible government should provide. The other is the cultural difference between the North and the South such as Islamic beliefs in the North versus Christianity and traditional religions among the Nuer and the South in general. The North-South conflict reflects the uneven distribution of resources that favors the economic promotion of the North at the expense of the South.

In the 1930s the Nuer population was estimated to have been around 200,000 people. The British colonial government's census of 1952 put their number at 250,000. Sudan gained independence in 1956 but the country had already plunged into a north-south civil war starting in 1955, which continued through 1972. The first government census after the war indicated that the Nuer numbered nearly 300,000 in a country of 15 million at that time. That number was said to have gone up to 800,000 when the second round of civil war resumed in 1983. Over the last eighteen years of the war, at least a quarter of the two million estimated deaths are thought to have been Nuer and their current [Editor's note: ca. 2001] population is estimated as approximately 500,000 of Sudan's total estimated population of 26 million.

The Nuer language is in the Nilotic branch of the Nilo-Saharan language family, a branch that includes Dinka, Luo, Shilluk, Anyuak and a number of other language groups. Linguistic similarities between these groups and the shared vocabulary indicate that there is a degree of shared origin or mutual influence between them.

It is suggested that the Nuer, along with other Nilotic groups, settled along the Bahr-el-Ghazal, Bahr-el-Jebel and Sobat rivers in South Sudan around the 14th century. This is where they acquired their techniques for animal domestication. When other groups migrated southward in search of more elevated terrain to avoid floods, the Nuer stayed put.

As we will discuss later, cattle are central in the Nuer way of life. Cattle have also affected the politics of contact between the Nuer and other pastoral peoples near them. As cattle represent the Nuer's social, cultural and economic security, they are a constant source of conflict. The grazing plains of the upper Nile have been a major cause of conflict between Nuer and Dinka, and among the different sub-groups of Nuer. Cattle have also dictated the way the Nuer have reacted to the state authorities. It has been the approach of the successive governments in Khartoum that cattle in all Nilotic areas must be incorporated in the state economy by various methods. Taxation was one such way. Requiring Nuer to pay taxes in cash in a cashless economy and where paid labor did not exist ensured that Nuer would have to sell their cattle. The concerted effort by the North to commercialize Nuer cattle has historically caused the Nuer to challenge the government, including their participation in the current war. For the Nuer, as for most Southerners, the government's efforts to commercialize their cattle was seen as an assault on their identity as Nuer. Yet, despite their similarities and sense of a collective Nuer identity, there are remarkable regional variations between different Nuer sub-groups, and these differences have been used to their disadvantage by the government to weaken their resistance. Nuer cattle have now become monetized and commercialized and the sizes of their herds have dwindled drastically, causing large numbers of Nuer to seek refuge in disaster relief centers across the country or in Dinka villages westward.

Nuer settlements have no particular order. Nuerland is right in the swamps of the upper Nile, and that means villages are grouped according to the lineage system into the few elevated parts. Because of their ecology Nuer engage in a near constant juggling of life between the cattle camps of the dry season and the villages that are located on the few mildly elevated parts of their territory where they grow millet. Their movement is dictated by tot and mai the two seasons that are determined by rain and drought respectively. Much of Nuerland gets flooded during the rainy season between April and October and this has caused shifting of villages from time to time. During the dry season between November and March, resources become limited and sending most members of the family to the cattle camp is the norm. Due to this seasonal migratory system, Nuer have been characterized as transhumance. Much of the civil war has been fought on the Nuer soil and that has had detrimental repercussions on Nuer village life. Whole villages were burnt and displaced and populations have constantly moved from one place to another over the last two decades. In their villages, Nuer build huts of round mud walls and conical grass roofs that are windowless and have small doors that force these long-legged people to crawl into their homes. Recent oil explorations and development have brought serious disasters to Nuerland and more villages have been burnt since 1998 to create a security buffer zone and make way for foreign oil companies that suspect Nuer hostility.

Nuer livelihood now on the upper Nile is based on a combination of, in the order of their importance, cattle herding, horticulture, fishing, and wild foods. Cattle are the Nuer's most cherished possession. They are essential food-supply as well as the most important social asset. It is therefore, hard to imagine discussing any aspect of Nuer's history and culture without reference to cattle. Cattle play a foremost part in ritual. Nuer institution, customs, and most of their social behavior directly concern their cattle. They are always talking about their animals, and a fuller understanding of their culture would require a look at the role of cattle in folklore, marriage, religious ceremonies, homicide, and relations with their neighbors. The Nuer say a cow is like a human being and should not be slaughtered solely for meat, except in sacrifice to God, spirits, and their ancestors. An ox can also be slaughtered to feed important guests as at marriage ceremonies. In recent times more Nuer have slaughtered their livestock due to severe famines that have afflicted South Sudan over the last two decades of the war. But in general they eat the meat of every animal when the beast dies.

Almost every cultural practice and social activity among the Nuer relate to livestock. The circulation of cattle between members of a lineage dictates such kin relations. Cattle and other types of livestock such as goats and sheep have a special position in religious ceremonies. Animals are sacrificed for treatment of sickness, as a way of prayer for rains, fertility, good crop yield, and to appease the ancestors. Cattle are not only of great economic and religious interest to Nuer, but they live in the closest possible association with them. Irrespective of their economic utility, cattle are an end in themselves, and the mere possession of them and living with them is a Nuer man's ultimate desire. More than anything else, they determine his daily actions, and because of their wide range of social and economic uses, cattle dominate a man's attention. Livestock is the currency in trading transactions.

Although Nuer economy is based on a combination of cattle herding, horticulture, and piscatorial activities, it is pastoral pursuits that take precedence in their lives because cattle do not only provide the daily nutrition, but are also of a general social value in all other aspects of their lives. Traditionally, when there was shortage of food and nowhere to barter, people relied on wild foods and fishing. To their economic activities, they have in recent times added trading as an important source of subsistence. Wild foods are also abundant during certain times of year throughout Nuerland. Recent famines, displacement, and loss of assets due to the war have further forced the Nuer to regard wild foods, trading and fishing as very important components of their economy. Besides grain and dried fish, the Nuer do not have non-perishable food items that can be stored for extended periods of time, and for this reason, their subsistence can best be described as a subsistence economy. The goal of economic activity is to satisfy immediate dietary needs rather than accumulate wealth. In fact, even when a household may harvest surplus grain, they convert it into cattle. So it is safe to suggest that cattle are the only economic item that is long lasting and can be inherited. The Nuer are fortunate in terms of agriculture. The soil is black cotton soil that maintains its fertility at all times. People may use slash and burn horticulture if soil becomes eroded, which is rare. Their main crops are millet (sorghum), maize, and vegetables. Nuer agriculture is typically a horticulture activity in the sense that they use rotation of crops and their tools are rudimentary ones that include the hoe. New tools were recently introduced by relief aid agencies to assist displaced persons reestablish their lives in displacement. The area of land that a Nuer household cultivates varies according the its labor force. On average a Nuer household grows two acres. When crops fail in one area due to either floods or droughts, grains can be purchased from areas of surplus within Nuerland or in the towns where Arab traders keep shops.

Barter existed in Nuerland before markets. A person who produced surplus food could exchange it for livestock. When the Nuer were introduced to such town items as sugar, salt, clothes, medicine, and soap, and their desire for them increased, it was very hard to acquire them since there was no paid labor within Nuerland and no other type of cash economy. The easiest and most obvious way for them to buy these goods was to sell livestock in the city. But selling cattle was something the Nuer had an aversion toward; it was considered a shameful act. It was not until the British colonial government imposed a poll tax and insisted on cash that the Nuer sold livestock. When Arab traders began to venture into Nuerland to sell a few of these items and later opened shops, grain became available in these Arab-owned shops. A few Nuer began to get involved in trading as well by selling old oxen in the city and then buying trade items, and sometimes returning to the city with the money to purchase more cows. Trading became another means to increase one's herd. However, in the 1970s when the first war ended and reconstruction began, the Nuer found opportunities for paid labor in the cities' construction projects. Much of the money made was to buy the basic supplies and cows.

Nuer produce a variety of functional arts including clay pots, mats, decorating gourds used as eating utensils, and basketry. Sewing papyrus into smooth mats is a particular industrial art that takes Nuer individuals a long time. Mats are the basic bedding.

Historically, trading was not an important aspect of Nuer economic activity until about a half century ago when Arab mobile traders went from village to village selling salt, cloths, beats, and medicine. These items were purchased with small livestock or chickens and when cash became available, women brewed beer that could be sold to buy these items. When northern traders realized that the South, including Nuerland, was a fertile business ground there was an influx of Arab goods and the markets grew. Nowadays, Nuer men and women have gotten involved in trading, but it is still largely a male preserve as it involves long distance travel to acquire the goods and the security situation being as it is, travel is limited to men. Goods get smuggled out of the North as well as from the neighboring countries of Kenya and Uganda. Over the last decade, international humanitarian relief has facilitated trade by providing cargo space aboard its trucks and planes.

Division of labor is not very different from that of the neighboring groups. In general, there are certain tasks that are regarded as for women and others for men, but there is a great deal of flexibility in this divide. Women's work tends to take place around the homestead or the village. It includes farming, food preparation, and care for the young and the very old. Men's work takes them farther away from home since much of it involves looking after cattle. In the field of food production, ideally both men and women plant crops; women weed, men harvest, women thresh the grain, store and pound it into flour, and prepare the daily meals. Men graze the livestock far afield. Women, girls and uninitiated boys milk them. Construction of houses is generally shared. Men build the walls, cut and transport timber, and put up the frame, and both genders can thatch the grass roofs. The only areas of rigid sexual division of labor are milking the cows and cooking. Initiated men should never, under ordinary circumstances, cook or milk the cows.

Like in all of South Sudan, Nuer land is under communal ownership. Individuals can take, tame, and use as much land as their labor capacity could allow. It is this continual use that entitles people to land. If they move away, it can be taken over by others. When a household moves somewhere else, they may demand payment from the next occupants as remuneration for the labor expended in taming it and for any dwelling structures that may still be useable. The only piece of land that is contested is the grazing plains. Even here, the actual grasslands are not restricted to any group, but the elevated camps where the people reside are designated according to lineage.

The Nuer are patrilineal but people are considered to be related equally to other kin through both the mother's and the father's side. For this reason, Nuer descent could be best described as cognatic. Like most human societies, the Nuer consider kinship as the most important basis of social organization. People establish whether or not they are related by their clan names. Members of a clan share a totem and believe in descent from that totem. It is also on the basis of clan membership that strong marriage or sexual prohibitions are built and enforced.

Children have to learn the kinship terminology at a very young age and have to apply it strictly in their daily interaction with adult relatives. It is the means by which individuals express their respect for one another. Those that do not share an age set cannot address one another by their first names. Kinship terminology is intended to maintain the descent group; and descent functions in organizing domestic life, enculturating the children, allowing the transfer of property and ritual roles. It also settles disputes. The responsibilities, obligations, and rights derived from descent membership and expressed through the terminology extends far and wide. It is bifurcate collateral terminology.

Among the Nuer, marriage and the family are the most fundamental institutions and are everyone's goal. Polygynous marriages are common among the Nuer. Marriages of members of any local group are usually the best way of creating innumerable links through women between persons of many different communities. This makes maternal and affinal ties in kinship reconfigurations an essential aspect of Nuer kinship as exogamous rules are strongly enforced on both sides. A man may not marry any close cognate. Nuer consider that if a relationship can be traced between a man and a woman through either their mother or father, however distant, marriage should not take place between them. Courtship is open among those who have established non-existence of any consanguineal relationship. Courtship (always initiated by men) is the preferred method of finding potential mates. After the male initiation ceremony, a young man takes on the full privileges and obligations of manhood in work, war, and play. Courtship and cattle become a young man's major interests, and he takes every opportunity to flirt. Marriage is in the sequence of birth and order of kinsmen. When it is his turn to get married, a Nuer man is asked by his family to identify which, among the girls he has courted, he loves the most. Once the family has reached an agreement, the elders of his family make a visit to the woman's family to announce their intention and to discuss the number of cattle to be paid in bride-wealth. The union of marriage is brought about by payment of cattle and every phase of the ritual is marked by the transfer or slaughter of cattle. Some Nuer couples may decide to elope and then the question of bride-wealth is settled later, but this method is risky as the two families could end up in a bloody battle.

Nuer marriages are quite stable, and grounds for divorce are limited; a woman's failure to conceive is one of them. Since marriages involve exchange of property, which is often contributed by different members of the extended family, individuals do not have total freedom to terminate marriages. Decisions regarding divorce are usually subjected to the scrutiny of both sides before they are final as the groom's family has invested materially in the marriage, and the bride's family does not want to loose the bride-wealth received.

Once married, the couple may reside with the man's family for some time before moving out to establish their own home. The couple is free to live in a place of their choice but residence with the man's family is most preferred.

Children are cared for by both parents, by grandparents, and by elder siblings or any other relatives willing to do so. Nuer boys and girls are socialized differently. Boys are generally concerned with cattle and with serving the adults at the cattle camp. Because of the gender division of labor girls are expected to identify more with their mothers who instill in them the women's roles. Boys usually identify with their fathers who engage them in manly activities and teach them their responsibilities for work and war.

Nuer organize around clans and lineages, the latter being a smaller segment of the former. The degree to which people relate to one another is based on where they fall from one another on the kinship tree. The narrower the gap in structural distance the more likely the relatives will share a village. Those members of a lineage who live in an area associated with it see themselves as a residential group, and the value, or concept, of lineage therefore functions through the political system. A clan has a headman. Several headmen are appointed as government sub-chiefs, who serve under an executive chief. Nuer is a segementary society. Group size can change according to political circumstances. For example, many clans may form a phratry and reside together if there is need for collective defense, and simply break up when that need no longer exists.

The Nuer are divided into a number of sub-groups, which have no common organization or central administration. They may be politically described as tribal sections. Some live in the homeland to the west of the Nile and can be distinguished from those that have migrated to the east of it. Therefore, speaking of their political organization, it is safe to distinguish between Western Nuer and Eastern Nuer. The Eastern Nuer may be further divided into those tribal sections living near the Zaraf River and those living to the north and south of the Sobat River. In each of these groups, there are headmen, sub-chiefs, executive chiefs and paramount chiefs. These are all politicized positions that only emerged with the rise of the nation. Prior to this, Nuer political and administrative structure relied on community elders who enforced norms and regulations through a combination of respect and fear.

Within the Nuer, homicide is common and is usually related to cattle. Nuer say that more people have died for the sake of a cow than for any other cause. Acts of homicide can be immediately avenged or held as blood-feuds until such time when the two sides finally square even, and the mechanism to deter homicide and revenge has been the imposition of blood wealth, which is payable in cattle. The norm has been 30 cows paid to the family of the slain person. It can therefore, be said that because cattle are a source of turmoil, a threat of one's cattle being taken away in punishment induces prudence in the relations between people.

The relationship with the Dinka, as far as history and tradition go back, has been based on a cycle of war and reconciliation, all because of cattle rustling or thefts. They even have a myth in which the two groups are represented as two sons of God who promised his old cow to Dinka and its calf to Nuer. One night Dinka came and took the cow from God by imitating the voice of Nuer. When God realized that he had been cheated, he was angry and charged Nuer to avenge this by endlessly raiding Dinka's cattle. Now, Nuer always raid for cattle and seize them openly by force of arms.

Although large numbers of Nuer have converted to Christianity over the last two decades, the majority of them remain followers of traditional religions whose central theme is the worship of a high god through the totem, ancestral spirits, and a number of deities. The high god is called kuoth and he is the source of life followed by a host of earth deities. Nuer religious practice involves sacrifices of animals at designated times of year such as beginning of the rainy season, blessing of harvest, and end of year ceremonies. At these prayer gatherings, the religious practitioners call for peace, good human and animal health and fertility of both. Ancestral spirits are presumed to be able to increase productivity of the land, increase in cattle and safety for all. They are thought to watch over the living, to reward good behavior and punish wrongdoing. They function as mediators between the dead and the living. There are times when gods need to be appeased, especially when angered by human behavior, and rituals are performed for these occasions. All these practices were a source of misunderstanding between the Nuer and the Christian missionaries. When they first arrived in Nuerland, the missionaries believed that the Nuer were worshiping idols. But from the Nuer point of view, praying at a totem did not represent praying to the totem itself but rather as a place of worship no more paganistic than going to a church or mosque. However, due to the religious conflict between north and south of Sudan, Christianity has grown steadily among the Nuer in the last twenty years, and Nuer Christians are currently estimated at 30%.

The central figure in Nuer religious practice is the leopard-skin-chief, but there have been numerous prophets that people have believed in, the highest of whom has been Ngun Deng. He rose in Lou Nuer and his pyramid remains the highest and most amazing religious monument in Nuerland to date. The practices of traditional religious leaders in Nuerland have been regarded as complimented by Christianity and there is no conflict between Christianity and Nuer religion, whereas the Nuer believe that there is contradiction between their traditional beliefs and Islam.

The Nuer engage in elaborate ceremonies that are social and religious in nature. Health ceremonies are usually expansive. Dance and singing are crucial aspects of Nuer entertainment. The Nuer are very expressive and such dances are the ultimate young people's opportunity to interact and court. Although the Nuer do not conduct elaborate burial ceremonies, the death of a spiritual leader is always marked by a huge celebration whereby cattle camps gather and young men engage in mock battles, sing to their favored oxen, and feast. In the past a well-known spiritual leader might be buried alive as a way to prevent his soul from taking the good health of the whole society with him. When he was thought to be dying, cattle camps were moved to his house and celebrations went on for days, during which time he is laid in the grave until the time it is deemed appropriate to bury him.

Although potent and biochemical medicine have been introduced into Nuerland for quite some time and Nuer believe in their efficacy, traditional therapeutic medicine is still highly regarded. It is sometimes the only medical system available as the war has destroyed whatever health units there were. For this reason Nuer can be seen as engaging in multiple medical practices The therapeutic techniques that are in use among the Nuer include various kinds of surgery, dispensing medicinal plants, and bone setting. These are all learnable techniques and can be passed down between generations. But other practitioners whose skills are "god given" practice healing methods throughout Nuerland. They include diviners who are believed to diagnose by means of communicating with the supernatural world. They are widely believed in, but the rising number of people who understand the concept of germs, viruses, and parasites and who understand the way biomedicine works have started to challenge them.

Nuer spent long hours engaged in body beautification such as painting the body with cow dung ash mixed in cow urine. Hair style is another time consuming endeavor.

Normally when a person is alive, her soul is thought to roam about during sleep. The soul must return before the person wakes up. This is how dreams are believed to happen. So dreams are actually things the soul has encountered while roaming the world. Death means that the soul has failed to come back before the person woke up, and so realizing that it is too late to rejoin the body, it goes to join the souls of the relatives who have died before to live together with them.

Documents referred to in this section are included in the eHRAF collection and are referenced by author, date of publication, and eHRAF document number.

The three major ethnographers of the Nuer represented in this collection are E. E. Evans-Pritchard (field work: 1930-1936), Douglas Johnson (1975-1990), and Sharon Hutchinson (1980-1992). Douglas Johnson's work is mostly historical covering the period of the Anglo-Egyptian Condominium (1898-1955) with a focus on the role of prophets in Nuer social, political, and religious life (Johnson 1994, no. 17). The British failure to co-opt the Nuer prophets was a major reason Evan-Pritchard was sent into the field (1930-31). Out of this encounter he produced the classic monographs on Nuer ecology, subsistence, sociopolitical organization (Evans Pritchard 1940, no. 1; for a summary see Evans-Pritchard 1940, no. 10), kinship and marriage (Evans-Pritchard 1951, no. 2), and religion (Evans-Pritchard 1956, no. 16). In a series of shorter articles, Evans-Pritchard wrote about the Nuer kinship system (Evans-Pritchard 1933, no. 12), age-set system (Evans-Pritchard 1936, no. 9), economy (Evans-Pritchard 1938, no. 6), ghost marriage (Evans-Pritchard 1945, no. 11), bride-wealth (Evans-Pritchard 1946, no. 3; 1947, no 5), marriage ceremonies (Evans-Pritchard 1948, no. 4), and exogamy and incest (Evans-Pritchard 1949, no. 7). In a series of historical articles, Johnson critiques prevailing assumptions about the aggressive character of the Nuer (Johnson 1981, no. 21), their hostile relations with the Dinka (Johnson 1982, no. 19), and the arbitrary rule of the prophets (Johnson 1986, no. 20; 1992, no. 23). Hutchinson (1996, no. 18) examines the trying period of the Sudanese Civil War (1955-present) and the changes to Nuer society and culture wrought by money, war, and the state. She also has written on Nuer gender relations (Hutchinson 1980, no. 24). The missionary Huffman wrote a general monograph on Nuer culture (Huffman 1931, no. 14) and Howell (1954, no. 8) on Nuer customary law. Also included in this collection is Audrey Butt's article on the Nuer for the Ethnographic Survey of Africa, most of it a summary of the work of Evans-Pritchard. A major omission in this collection is Raymond Kelly's "The Nuer Conquest." Although a theoretically important work, it is largely based on ethnographic material already included in the collection.

For more detailed information on the content of the individual works in the file, see the abstracts in the citations preceding each document.

This culture summary is based on the article "Nuer" by Jok Madut Jok, in the Encyclopedia of World Cultures Supplement, Melvin Ember, Carol R. Ember, and Ian Skoggard Editors. New York: Macmillan Reference USA, 2002. Ian Skoggard wrote the synopsis and indexing notes in January 2001.

• BIEL--earth power--778, 823

• BIER--blood letting rite--627, 782, 783

• bull-boy--uninitiated man--884

• CUONG--moral right--671

• DAYIEMNI--minor prophets--792

• DIEL--mixed, assimilated communities--563, 621

• DUER--wrong--673

• earth master--791, 793

• GAR--initiation scar--304, 881

• GUK--prophet--792

• JOK--supernatural power--778

• MAAR--bond of kinship--602

• Moral community--185, 621

• NUEER--sin, avenging blood--682, 826

• Nuer Settlement (1929-1930)--648, 726

• RUIC--spokesman--534

• SPLA--Sudanese Peoples' Liberation Army--669, 631, 701

• Sudanese Civil War--726

• SUDD--bush--137

• TIET--diviner

Evans-Pritchard, E. E. (1940). The Nuer: A Description of the Modes of Livelihood and Political Institutions of a Nilotic People. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Evan-Pritchard, E. E. (1951). Kinship and Marriage Among the Nuer. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Hutchinson, Sharon E. (1995). Nuer Dilemmas: Coping with War Money and the State. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Jok, Jok Madut and Sharon E. Hutchinson (1999). "Sudan Prolonged Second Civil War and the Militarization of Nuer and Dinka Ethnic Identities." African Studies Review 42(2):125-45.