98 the sudan handbookIndigenous Roots: ‘Traditional African Religion’What was there before the world religions established themselves in
Sudan? We can visit the extraordinary physical legacies of the ancient
past: Meroe, for instance, the pyramid field north of Khartoum, or
Jebel Barkal, with their royal temples, carvings of gods, and engraved
texts (not yet fully deciphered). In other regions that have remained
beyond the reach of the world religions until very recently, we have
ample evidence of highly developed cosmological, moral and spiritual
systems which had, and to a good extent still have, a degree of autonomy.
Their continuing influence depends upon their connection with regional
centres of charismatic leadership and in some cases institutional polit-
ical authority. Though without written scriptures, systems of ritual and
belief such as those of the Shilluk, Dinka, or the Nuer, kindred peoples
of southern Sudan, rest on a history of the material construction of
sacred sites and associated social connectivity and discipleship. When we
note the existence in old Meroe of what archaeologists term ‘pyramids’
built from the fourth century BC to the third century CE, we may also
recall the prophet Ngundeng’s Mound, in what is now Jonglei state,
built in the late nineteenth century; or reading about the court system
and royal rituals of the Funj kingdom and its dynastic connections with
the outlying provinces of Sennar articulated through kinship networks
defined by women, we can recognize parallels with the ceremonial and
social structure of the modern Shilluk or Anuak kingdoms. It is not too
fanciful to suggest that these features of social life reflect pre-modern
institutions that once formed part of shared cultural traditions in the
Nile Valley.
Beyond the most public and formal expressions of indigenous religious
systems, it is important to recognize that the elaborate life-rituals of
many groups across the Sudan are still central to their everyday beliefs.
Initiation to male or female adulthood, perhaps to formal age-sets, as
well as domestic rituals of birth, marriage and death are still key to
personal life and belief among a large number of communities, whether
nominally Muslim or Christian. Such practices may be oriented to
The Sudan Handbook, edited by John Ryle, Justin Willis, Suliman Baldo and Jok Madut Jok. © 2011 Rift Valley Institute and contributors
(www.riftvalley.net).