Nuer

Member of a Nilotic-speaking people living in southern Sudan. They inhabit the vast swamps of the White Nile-Bahr-el-Ghazal confluence. Pastoralists with many cattle, they have scattered permanent villages.

Social organization is based on a clan and segmentary lineage system with no king or chief, but only certain ritual functionaries, known as ‘leopard-skin chiefs’. Men are initiated into age sets and have their foreheads ritually scarred.

The Nuer God is named Kwoth and is associated with the firmament. But the word also denotes any spirit except ‘ghost’, as Kwoth is believed to be ubiquitous. When the ‘sons of Kwoth’ or ‘sky spirits’ enter into a man, he becomes a prophet. These sky spirits are associated with certain natural phenomena or human relations.