The Sudan Handbook

80 the sudan handbook

begun 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).