80 the sudan handbookbegun to assert an Arab identity, illustrating the flexibility in ethnic
affiliation that is a persistent theme in Sudanese history.
Among the indigenous non-Arab peoples of northern Sudan, the
hill-dwelling Nuba of southern Kordofan are the most culturally and
linguistically diverse. Dozens of language groups are represented in a few
thousand square kilometres of the Nuba mountains. Some originate from
as far north as Nubia, but Nuba communities have their historical origins
in many different areas of the country, diverse populations having been
displaced over long periods of time and found refuge in these mountain
redoubts. Today, some Nuba are Muslims; some Christians; some are
neither; most groups are patrilineal, reckoning descent through a line of
male ancestors as Arab, or Arabized, peoples do, but some are matrilineal,
a form of social organization with a pre-Islamic origin. They share their
territory, often acrimoniously, both with transhumant Baggara pastoral-
ists and with the large-scale agricultural schemes established in recent
decades by incomers in the valleys between the hills.
The Nuba (known outside Sudan for their traditions of wrestling and
body decoration), are connected to northern Sudanese central riverain
culture and economy through labour migration. For several generations
there has been large-scale recruitment of Nuba into the ranks of the
Sudanese Armed Forces. Yet during the second civil war in the south,
resistance to acculturation and to the economic domination of the centre
drove many of them, under the leadership of Yousif Kuwa, a Miri Nuba,
to join the SPLA. (Raised as a Muslim, Yousif Kuwa described his political
awakening in cultural terms, explaining that he had grown up believing
he was an Arab, until he heard the Arab headmaster of his school say:
‘What is the use of teaching these Nuba, who are only going to work as
servants in houses?’) Despite the lack of a common language – apart from
Arabic – and their existence as distinct communities living in different
hill areas, an emerging political consciousness gave some Nuba a sense
of common destiny.
There are also similar, smaller, hilly redoubts on the Ethiopian border,
home to groups such as the Ingessana (Gamk in their own language),The Sudan Handbook, edited by John Ryle, Justin Willis, Suliman Baldo and Jok Madut Jok. © 2011 Rift Valley Institute and contributors and^ the^ Uduk^ (‘Kwanim^ Pa^ in^ their^ own^ language).^ These^ too^ are,^
(www.riftvalley.net).