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Nuer Bridewealth

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 August 2012

E. E. Evans-Pritchard
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Extract

Like many other African peoples the Nuer marry by the family and kin of the bridegroom handing over cattle to the family and kin of the bride. The marriage is brought about by this payment and by the performance of a series of ceremonial acts. Though these ceremonies and payments of cattle proceed pari passu as inter-connected movements towards the completion of the union they can be treated separately. It should be remembered, however, that Nuer do not consider the union to be complete till a child has been born of it, even though spouses may continue to cohabit where the union proves to be unfruitful.

Type
Research Article
Information
Africa , Volume 16 , Issue 4 , October 1946 , pp. 247 - 257
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 1946

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References

page 247 note 1 These are described in my brochure, Some Aspects of Marriage and the Family among the Nuer, Rhodes-Livingstone Institute, 1945Google Scholar (first published in 1938 in the Zeitschrift für Vergleichende Rechtswissenschaft). The economic and political life of the Nuer has been treated in my book, The Nuer, Clarendon Press, 1940Google Scholar.

page 248 note 1 The single calf is sometimes called puang(de) and they say: ‘It is like a gift thrown in for nothing.’ The single cow is sometimes called yang luak, the cow of the byre, and is given to conclude the claims on the paternal side. One of the cows is usually the yang kwoth, the cow of the spirit of the father.

page 248 note 2 These animals join the herd of the claimant's father, if he is alive, and count as his portion also. The father therefore receives 10 beasts.

page 248 note 3 This animal joins her husband's herd if he is alive.

page 248 note 4 The last cow is sometimes a poor beast that has been refused by some kinsman but is taken in charity by the bride's brother to make up the total. The cattle of the brother also count as the cattle of the mother, so that her total portion is 10 beasts. As they all join the father's herd, if he is alive, his actual portion is 20 head of cattle.

page 249 note 1 This animal joins her husband's herd if he is alive.

page 252 note 1 See The Nuer, chap. v.

page 254 note 1 Mr. Jackson, , writing in 1923 (Sudan Notes and Records, vol. vi, p. 154)Google Scholar , gave 13 to 15 cattle as an average bridewealth and said that the tendency at that time wasforeven that number to diminish. He remarked that some ten or twelve years earlier the payment of 40 was said to have been not unusual. Mr. Coriat, writing somewhat later, said that the original bridewealth ofthe Gaawar tribe was 5 o head of cattle, but that it had dwindled to 15 or 30.