The Sudan Handbook

PeoPles & cultuRes of tWo sudans 85

that extends south to the Great Lakes region of Central Africa and is

distributed widely across southern Sudan, where it includes – besides

the Shilluk – the Anuak of Jonglei, the Jur-Luo of Bahr al-Ghazal and

the Acholi and Pari of Lafon in Eastern Equatoria. Unlike the Dinka and

Nuer, Shilluk political organization was historically centralized under a

monarchy with divine authority established near the town of Fashoda.

Interaction between the Shilluk kingdom and the polities to the north has

been continuous since the time of the mediaeval Funj sultanate; yet there

is strikingly little Islamic influence among the Shilluk. (This is in contrast

to the Dinka groups across the Nile on the east bank, the Abialang and

Dungjol Dinka, who are now mostly Muslim). The Shilluk king, the Reth,

still exerts a powerful influence on the affairs of the Shilluk people.

The south-western area of Sudan, the fertile wooded country on the

ironstone plateau between the floodplain and the Nile-Congo divide and

towards the border with Uganda, is the home of a number of communi-

ties who live largely by agriculture. The Bari-speaking peoples of Central

Equatoria, living on each side of the White Nile, include the Kuku of

Kajo-Keji, the Madi, the Pajulu and – around Juba – the Bari themselves.

In Western Equatoria, the Zande occupy an extensive area from Maridi,

through Yambio to Tambura. The last two towns are named after Zande

kings, scions of a conquering aristocracy, the Avongura, who created

the Zande empire in the eighteenth century – incorporating indigenous

peoples – in the area where Sudan, the Central African Republic and the

Democratic Republic of Congo now meet. The military-political organi-

zation of the Zande was dismantled by European colonial powers, but it

has left an enduring cultural and ethnolinguistic legacy.

Between the Zande and the Dinka to the north, and extending west to

Wau and Raga, live a range of much smaller groups, historically subject

to absorption by their larger neighbours, from the Jur-Bel and Jur-Modo

and Bongo in Lakes and Warrap to the Fertit peoples in Western Bahr

al-Ghazal, who extend to the border with Darfur. Finally, east of Juba, in

the mountainous areas of Eastern Equatoria, are a number of sizeable

groups, notably the Lotuko, the Acholi and the Didinga, who practise

The Sudan Handbook, edited by John Ryle, Justin Willis, Suliman Baldo and Jok Madut Jok. © 2011 Rift Valley Institute and contributors mixed^ economies^ of^ agriculture^ and^ livestock^ raising.

(www.riftvalley.net).