Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-tf8b9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T00:07:53.087Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Atuot ethnicity: an aspect of Nilotic ethnology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 December 2011

John W. Burton
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Evans-Pritchard's assessment of what contemporary social anthropologists might call ‘contextual ethnicity’ has offered many with no first-hand research experience in this region of Africa a prerogative in which some apparently revel: to opine on the bizarre and the obvious. Examples of the former persuasion are typified by articles which, with a passion for ‘theoretical purity’, openly declare an indifference to ethnographic fact (Newcomer 1972). Others attempt to account for the present distribution of pastoral Nilotes in the Southern Sudan as though ‘tribal’ groups and their tract of migration possessed the physical properties of pool balls pelleted across the swampland of the Upper Nile Basin (e.g. Southall 1976). Some must surely have had moment to wonder if the Nuer really exist at all. Of course they do, as even the uninterested tourist could note by observing the ethnic composition of labour groups in Khartoum, but only because so do the Dinka, who live north, south and west of Nuerland.

Résumé

La vraie identité des Atuot: un cas d'ethnologie nilotique

La peuplade du nom d'Atuot a été vaguement mentionnee dans les ouvrages où il y est fait référence. Avant les propres recherches de l'auteur, aucun observateur spécialisé n'a vécu parmi eux afin d'effectuer une enquête d'anthropologie sociale: c'est pour cette raison qu'ils ont souvent été classés à tort comme groupe Dinka ou Nuer. Le présent article examine brièvement un corpus limité de données historiques et ethnologiques en vue de mieux cerner la véritable identité Atuot. La conclusion s'efforce d'évaluer l'intérêt de ce sujet pour les études nilotiques.

Type
Outsiders: ethnic stereotypes
Information
Africa , Volume 51 , Issue 1 , January 1981 , pp. 496 - 507
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 1981

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Artin, Y. 1911. England in the Sudan. London: MacMillanGoogle Scholar
Beltrame, G. 1961. Some notes on the distribution of Nilotic peoples in the middle 19th Century. Sudan Notes and Records 42:118–122Google Scholar
Bryan, M. A. and Tucker, A. N. 1948. Distribution of the Nilotic and Nilo-Hamitic languages of Africa. London: Oxford Univ. PressGoogle Scholar
Burton, J. W. 1977. The peoples called Atuot. Sudanow 12:42–44Google Scholar
Burton, J. W. 1978. Ghosts, ancestors and individuals among the Atuot of the Southern Sudan. Man (N.S.) 13:600–17CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burton, J. W. 1979. Nuer prophets: ecological and demographic considerations. Sudan Notes and Records (in press)Google Scholar
Burton, J. W. 1980. The wave is my mother's husband: a piscatorial theme in pastoral nilotic ethnology. Cahiers d'Etudes Africaines.Google Scholar
Butt, A. 1950. The Nilotes of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan and Uganda. London: Oxford Univ. Press for the International African InstituteGoogle Scholar
Buxton, J. C. 1955. The Mandari, in Howell, P. P. (ed.) The Equatorial Nile Project and its effect in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. (5 vols.) Khartoum: Sudan Government PrinterGoogle Scholar
Buxton, J. C. 1973. Religion and healing in Mandari. Oxford: Clarendon PressGoogle Scholar
Collins, Robert O. 1971. Land beyond the rivers. The Southern Sudan 1898-1918. New Haven and London: Yale University PressGoogle Scholar
Crazzolara, J. P. 1933. Outlines ofa Nuergrammar. Vienna: Anthropos InstitutGoogle Scholar
Crazzolara, J. P. 1950. The Lwoo, Pt. I. Verona: Missioni AfricaneGoogle Scholar
Deng, F. M. 1973. The Dinka and their songs. Oxford: Clarendon PressGoogle Scholar
Crazzolara, J. P. 1974. Dinka folktales. New York: Africana Publishing Co.Google Scholar
Evans-Pritchard, E. E. 1935. The Nuer: tribe and clan. Sudan Notes and Records 18:37–87Google Scholar
Evans-Pritchard, E. E. 1939. Nuer time reckoning. Africa 12:189–216Google Scholar
Evans-Pritchard, E. E. 1940a. The Nuer. Oxford: Clarendon PressGoogle Scholar
Evans-Pritchard, E. E. 1940b. The political system of the Anuak of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. London: Percy Lund, Humphries and Co.Google Scholar
Evans-Pritchard, E. E. 1947. Further observations on the political system of the Anuak. Sudan Notes and Records 28:62–97Google Scholar
Evans-Pritchard, E. E. 1950. Nilotic studies. J.R.A.I. 80:1–6Google Scholar
Evans-Pritchard, E. E. 1951. Kinship and marriage among the Nuer. Oxford: Clarendon PressGoogle Scholar
Evans-Pritchard, E. E. 1956. Nuer religion. Oxford: Clarendon PressGoogle Scholar
Evans-Pritchard, E. E. 1960. The Sudan: an ethnographic survey, in Diamond, S. (ed.) Culture in history. New York: Columbia Univ. PressGoogle Scholar
Evans-Pritchard, E. E. 1971. Sources, with particular reference to the Southern Sudan. Cahiers D'Etudes Africaines 51:129–79Google Scholar
Fergusson, V. H. 1921. The Nuong Nuer. Sudan Notes and Records 4:146–56Google Scholar
Gessi, R. 1892. Seven years in the Soudan. London: Sampson, Low and MarstonGoogle Scholar
Gray, R. 1961. A history of the Southern Sudan. London: Oxford Univ. PressGoogle Scholar
Harrison, M. H. 1955. Report on a grazing survey of the Sudan. Khartoum: Sudan GovernmentGoogle Scholar
Howell, P. P. 1954. A manual of Nuer law. London: Oxford Univ. PressGoogle Scholar
Howell, P. P. 1955 (ed.) The Equatorial Nile project and its effect in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. Khartoum: Sudan Government Printer, volume 2.Google Scholar
Jackson, H. C. 1923. The Nuer of the Upper Nile Province. Khartoum: El Hadra PressGoogle Scholar
Johnson, D. 1979. Colonial policy and prophets: the ‘Nuer Settlement’. J. of the Anthropological Society of Oxford 10:1–20Google Scholar
Kiggen, J. 1948. Nuer-English Dictionary. London: St. Joseph's Society for Foreign MissionsGoogle Scholar
Kronenberg, A. and Kronenberg, W. 1965. Der Gegenwartige Stand der Literatur ttber Ethnische Gruppen im Sudsudan. Vienna: Bulletin of the Inter-National Committee on Urgent Anthropological and Ethnological Research, no. 7Google Scholar
Lienhardt, R. G. 1958. The Western Dinka, J.Tait, Middleton and D. (eds.) Tribes without rulers. London: Routledge and Kegan PaulGoogle Scholar
Lienhardt, R. G. 1961. Divinity and experience. Oxford: Clarendon PressGoogle Scholar
Lienhardt, R. G. 1963. Dinka representations of the relationship between the sexes, in Schapera, I. (ed.) Studies in kinship and marriage. R.A.I. Occasional Paper no. 16Google Scholar
Lienhardt, R. G. 1975. Getting your own back: themes in Nilotic myth, in Beattie, J. and Lienhardt, R. G. (eds.) Studies in social anthropology. Oxford: Clarendon PressGoogle Scholar
Millais, J. G. 1924. Far away up the Nile. London: Longman, Green and Co.Google Scholar
Nebel, A. 1954. Dinka Dictionary. Wau (Sudan): Verona FathersGoogle Scholar
Newcomer, P. 1972. The Nuer are Dinka: an essay on origins and environmental determinism. Man (U.S.) 7:5–11CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Petherick, J. 1869. Travels in Central Africa. London: Tinsley BrothersGoogle Scholar
Poncet, J. 1863. Notice geographique et ethnologique sur la region de Fleuve Blanc et sur ses habitants. Annales des voyages de la Geographie 4:5–62Google Scholar
Riad, M. 1959. The divine kingship of the Shilluk and its origin. Archiv. für Volkerkunde 14:141–284Google Scholar
Sahlins, M. 1961. The segmentary lineage: an organization for predatory expansion. American Anthropologist 63:322–342CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Santandrea, S. 1968. The Luo of Bahr-el-Ghazal. Bologna: Missionari CombonianiGoogle Scholar
Schweinfurth, G. 1873. The heart of Africa (trans. Frewer, E.) London: Sampson, Low and MarstonGoogle Scholar
Schweinfurth, G. 1888 (ed.) Emin Pasha in Central Africa. London: G. Phillip and SonGoogle Scholar
Seligman, C. G. 1916. Dinka Arrows. Man 16: no. 88Google Scholar
Seligman, C. G. 1932. Pagan tribes of the Nilotic Sudan. London: Routledge and K. PaulGoogle Scholar
Southall, A. 1976. Nuer and Dinka are people: ecology, ethnicity and logical possibility. Man (N.S.) 11:463–491CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tucker, A. N. 1935. A survey of language groups in the Southern Sudan. Bulletin of S.O.A.S. 7:861–896Google Scholar
Wall, L. 1976. Anuak politics, ecology and the origins of the Shilluk kingship. Ethnology 15:151–162CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ward, J. 1905. Our Sudan. London: John MurrayGoogle Scholar
Yirol District Notes n.d. Box 212/14/6 Sudan Archive, Univ. of DurhamGoogle Scholar