Shilluk

By John W. Burton and Teferi Abate Adem

Collo

The Shilluk are the most northern Nilotic-speaking people in modern Africa. Shilluk country covers approximately 320 kilometers on the west bank of the White Nile, from 10° to 12° N and from 30° to 33° E. Shilluk oral traditions, however, indicate that at some time in the past their country reached to the confluence of the Blue and White Niles, the site of the modern city of Khartoum. Most of Shilluk country is open savanna and free from the annual floods of the White Nile.  

At the time of the last official census (1956), the Shilluk were estimated to number 120,000 individuals. As of 2002, it was estimated that some 600,000 people identified themselves as Shilluk, a significant increase from the 1956 census.

The Shilluk language is most closely related to Anuak. Together, the two languages comprise a subfamily of the larger classification of Nilotic, which is spoken by different cultural groups throughout eastern Africa.

Considerable controversy surrounds the topic of the history and origins of the Shilluk. Indeed, the “origin” and history of all of the Nilotic peoples of the southern Sudan remains an enigma in the field of African prehistory. According to Shilluk oral traditions, the early descendants of these people began to migrate into their present country some three to four hundred years before the present. The quasi-mythical or epic leader of the first settlement is known as Nyikang, an individual with both divine and secular powers. At one time, Nyikang and his brother Gilo had a disagreement, and, as a result, Gilo and his supporters separated to migrate south and east. Like Nyikang for the Shilluk, Gilo is now cited as the culture hero and founder of the Anuak. Anthropologists posit that, before they arrived in their present country, the Shilluk practiced a nomadic form of pastoralism. As they eventually spread out and settled in more permanent communities, a horticultural mode of livelihood eventually replaced their primary dependence on cattle.

The distribution of Shilluk communities has been likened to beads on a string, spread out on the banks of the White Nile, the one separated from the next by a distance of from 180 meters to 1.5 kilometers. Settlements range in size from hamlets made up of the mud and thatched-roof huts of a few families to villages of some one hundred families. At roughly the center of Shilluk country is the village of Pachoda, the residence of each succeeding Shilluk “king” (see “Sociopolitical Organization”). Population densities in Shilluk country exceed all others among the Nilotic-speaking peoples of the southern Sudan. Each hamlet is formed around a cluster of patrilineal kin who claim membership in a common clan. Individual clans are dispersed widely throughout Shilluk country. Postmarital residence is patrilocal, and each homestead within a hamlet consists of a hut for each adult man as well as a separate dwelling for each of his wives.

The Shilluk keep small herds of cattle, in addition to larger flocks of sheep and goats. Cattle are normally used for food only in the context of ritual and ceremonial occasions. In the evening, the cattle are tethered around dung fires in an effort to lessen the adverse effects of biting flies and insects. Shilluk aggressively and successfully exploit the rich resources of the White Nile and regularly catch many species of fish with fishing nets and spears. They also hunt hippopotamuses. Less frequently, small hunting parties are organized to pursue antelope, buffalo, and giraffes. Hamlets are surrounded by gardens of millet, maize, and sesame, as well as other species introduced during the twentieth century.

The Shilluk are skilful hunters. They are also known for their impressive skills in spearing fish while wading or from rafts.

Many Shilluk are itinerant merchants in the local town of Malakal, and all are involved in, and affected by, the national economy of the Sudan.

Herding, hunting, and spear-fishing are primarily male activities; women traditionally have manufactured cooking utensils, cultivated gardens, and prepared food.

Each Shilluk settlement has a clearly defined territory associated with the founding lineage, diel, that formed the nucleus hamlet around which others came to settle. As a consequence, descendants of the diel maintain greater prestige and theoretical rights over land than newcomers (Howell 1941: 8).

The Shilluk are divided into some one hundred patrilineal and exogamous clans. Clans are not localized and have no specific territorial referents. Instead, clans are scattered widely through different hamlets. Conversely, the lineages that comprise clans are conceived of as localized groups. As Wall (1976:155) notes, the family homesteads gol or those of individual lineage members are grouped together to form hamlets of agnatically related kin. A hamlet of this type may include as many as fifty homesteads. Ultimately, these scattered hamlets may form a larger settlement with a clearly defined territory.

The Shilluk, like the other Nilotic-speaking peoples of southern Sudan, have a system of relationship terminology that is commonly known as “descriptive.”

Legal marital unions are established by the exchange of bride-wealth cattle, which pass from the agnatic kin of the groom to the adult members of the bride's family. A man is commonly 25 years old before his first marriage, whereas it is customary for a young woman marry before she reaches the end of her teen years. A wedding feast in the bride's father's homestead follows the exchange of bride-wealth cattle. At the end of these festivities, the bride and groom return to establish their own homestead in the hamlet of the groom's father. It is reported that a mock battle is enacted between the groom's and the bride's kin, once the last of the promised bride-wealth cattle are given. The ideal number of bride-wealth cattle should amount to at least ten animals, including cows, oxen, and a bull. In addition, the bride's family expects to receive diek nom, a number of sheep, as well as jam nom, gifts of spears and other goods. The latter gifts belong to the parents of the bride, but the sheep are distributed among the bride's agnatic kin. When a wife is pregnant for the first time, it is customary for her to return to her natal village to give birth.

The smallest unit of Shilluk social structure is the family gol living in a homestead of some two to three “huts” often surrounded by a fence of millet stalks (Leinhardt 1954: 5). One hut is used for cooking, while the remaining may be assigned to the wife (wives) and servants of the household head Seligman and Seligman 1932: 22). A group of homesteads, usually up to fifty, form a hamlet, the members of which keep their cattle together, and are gathered round a headman.  

The Shilluk are a patrilineal, patrilocal people and as such most moveable property (e.g. cattle, sheep, goats, etc) and land are owned and inherited by patrilineal descent.

Children are brought up in the house of their father. The Shilluk do not segregate the sexes. Siblings and cousins of both sexes may play together, and a boy may beat his sisters if he considers them unruly. There is a certain definite relationship between children and their mother’s brother na. It is the mother’s brother who usually gives a boy his first spear. The mother’s brother may also influence the behavior and mate selection of his sister’s daughter since he is entitled to a share of the cattle given to her as bride-wealth (Seligman and Seligman 1932: 55).

The smallest unit of Shilluk social structure is the family gol living in a homestead of one or two huts (Leinhardt, 1954: 5). A group of homesteads, usually up to fifty, form a hamlet, the members of which keep their cattle together, and are gathered round a headman; a group of hamlets forms a settlement, of which there are about a hundred in Shilluk-land. The settlement is composed of branches of different descent groups, one of which is dominant within the settlement and forms a nucleus around which the others form themselves into a distinct community. All Shilluk settlements collectively comprise a dual division of Shillukland, between Luak in the south and Ger in the north. These divisions are united by common loyalty to the reth, who is referred as King in the literature. The reth always comes from the Royal clan, the kwareth, founded by the first Shilluk king, Nyikang. The kwareth is the largest clan in Shilluk land, represented by the reining reth in the royal capital Fashoda and assigned delegates in many other settlements.

The Shilluk recognize four broad, fairly hierarchical, social classes.  These were, in a descending order, the kwareth  or royal house, the oro or disinherited branches of the royal house who perform special functions at the installation and death of the reth , the collo or commoners which includes the majority of the tribes, and finally the band reth or descendants of royal slaves obtained by capture (Howell 1952: 5).

At the hamlet level, the primary political figures of traditional life were settlement “chiefs,” who, ideally, were nominated from the diel, or founding lineage. The position of village “chief” is subject to the approval of the reth, or “king,” of the Shilluk. The reth of the Shilluk is a living symbol of the unity of Shilluk history, culture, and polity, and each succeeding reth is thought to be possessed by the spirit of Nyikang, the Shilluk culture hero and first king. Nyikang is intimately associated with the spirit the Shilluk call “Juok,” and, in consequence, each reth is thought to be an incarnation of the past within the world of the present. Because of this association between a spiritual power and a mortal human being, the Shilluk reth has sometimes been referred to as a “divine king.” The selection and the installation of a new reth are woven in a complex web of ritual and symbolism. Modern anthropologists still do not agree on the process through which a reth was selected in precolonial days. It is certain that the final candidate to become a new reth had to be approved by both northern and southern Shilluk. Civil war would erupt unless unanimous agreement was achieved. Evans-Pritchard (1948) suggested that the reth of the Shilluk reigned but did not rule. What he meant was that the reth was the incarnation of a sacred order of an ideal Shilluk society. His “kingly” status derived from sacred authority rather than secular power. In 1990s, the incumbent reth of the Shilluk was the thirty-first in succession since the origin of Shilluk polity. His status and authority have been transformed in the twentieth century, first by British colonial policy in Sudan and second by the strictures created by the independent government of Sudan.

Disputes within hamlets and settlements were respectively settled by village headmen and settlement chiefs, but an appeal to the reth was always possible. As the fountain of justice, the reth levied fines for crimes and offences.  Village elders and family heads also played significant roles in the administration of justice both by assisting chiefs and mediating minor conflicts.

In the past, mock warfare in the form of public ritual was an important part of ritual enacted with the designation of a new reth or divine king. In this ritual, representatives from the northern and southern half of Shilluk country converged at the reth's residence at Pashoda, roughly in the geographic center of Shilluk country.

In the contemporary world, most Shilluk avoided direct involvement in Sudan's second civil war.

Shilluk religious concepts are drawn into relief by an emphasis on the creator-god or divinity known as Juok (a common Nilotic term for a spiritual power), the veneration of Nyikang through the persons who become kings, and the recognition of the ways in which the spirits of the deceased can affect those who survive them. Juok is a ubiquitous spirit, a phenomenon manifest in all places and at all times. Juok can be addressed through sacrifice of cattle, goats, and sheep. Juok is also strongly associated in Shilluk thought with the river spirit that first gave birth to Nyikang. Most Western depictions of Shilluk religion have been colored by nineteenth-century visions of “primitive religion.” The Shilluk figured prominently in evolutionary schemes put forward to depict the course of religious evolution. Ironically, although the Shilluk have become well known in the anthropological literature, no prolonged research has been carried out by a trained observer in their settlements. Thus, much of what has been written about the Shilluk relies upon data that were collected in an inconsistent manner in the early twentieth century.

By the middle of 1990s, the majority of Shilluk had converted to Christianity, and a smaller minority have become Muslims. Much of "traditional" religious and ritual practiced had ceased to exist.

The Shilluk recognize a group of traditional religious practitioners called bareth, (litarlly, “king’s wives”). These are mostly ex-wives and shrine attendants of dead kings who, according to traditional Shilluk religion, incarnate the spirit of Nyakang, the cultural hero who founded the Shilluk kingdom. The bareth serve as mediums between the Shilluk and their reth by keeping shrines clean, receiving sacrifices, and officiating ceremonies.  

Important ceremonies among the Shilluk include election and installation of new [n[reth[/n], rites of passage—initiations, betrothals, weddings and burials -  and religious holidays.  Installation of a new reth involved ritually enacting a mock warfare between representatives from the northern and southern half of Shilluk country.  Religious ceremonials mostly focus on cognition and worship of Juok, the cult of Nyikang and the kings in whom he has been reincarnated, and the ancestral spirits.

The Shilluk have a large body of music, oral story, and dance performed during annual festivals, rites of passage, and other celebrations. They also admire elaborated body arts such as forehead scarring, ash decoration, and ornamenting the heir with grass and colorful feathers.  Other visual arts include pottery pipebowls made like animals.  

The Shilluk attribute diseases to the spiritual powers of Juok, or creator-god (Oyer 1919: 2). They conceived of changes in the prosperity of the whole land to variations in the physical and ritual well-being of successive kings who incarnate this eternal power.  They also recognize several mediums, including witches (medicine men), sorcerers, and evil spirits, which could sicken or heal individuals. Disease, or any other misfortune, believed to be caused by the wrath of one of these agents was cured by consulting the counter powers of one of the others.

Shilluk custom indicates that collective immortality was promised by the death and later re-birth of the spirit associated with the reth or kingship. While this sentiment persists, many Shilluk have adopted the Christian sense of eschatology.

Arens, W., 1979. “The Divine Kingship of the Shilluk: A Contemporary Reevaluation.” Ethnos 44:167-181.

Evans-Pritchard, E. E., 1948. The Divine Kingship of the Shilluk. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Howell, P. P., 1941.“The Shilluk settlement”. In Sudan notes and records, Vol. 24. Khartoum.

Howell, P. P., 1951. "Observations on the Shilluk of the Upper Nile: the Laws of Homicide and the Legal Functions of the Reth.” In Africa Vol. 22. International African Institute, Oxford.

Lienhardt, R. G., 1954. “The Shilluk of the Upper Nile.” In African Worlds, edited by D. Forde, 138-163. London: Oxford University Press.

Oyler, D. S., 1919. “The Shilluk's belief in the evil eye, the evil medicine man.” In Sudan notes and records, Vol. 2. Khartoum.

Seligman, C. G., and B. Z. Seligman, 1932. Pagan Tribes of the Nilotic Sudan. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Wall, L., 1976. “Anuak Politics, Ecology, and the Origins of Shilluk Kingship.” Ethnology 15:151-162.

Westerman, D., 1912. The Shilluk People. Philadelphia: United Presbyterian Church.

This culture summary is based on the article, "Shilluk" by John W. Burton, in the Encyclopedia of World Cultures, Vol. 9, Africa and the Middle East, John Middleton, Amal Rassam, Candice Bradley, and Laurel L. Rose, eds. Boston, Mass.: G. K. Hall & Co. 1995.  It was revised by John W. Burton in March 2008. Teferi Abate Adem wrote the synopsis and indexing notes, and expanded the sections on socialization, land tenure, social organization, social control, ceremonies, religious practitioners, arts and medicine, in April 2008.