By E. E. Evans-Pritchard
(E.E. Evans-Pritchard (1902-1973) was professor of Social
Anthropology at the University of Oxford from 1946 until his
retirement in 1970. His studies of the Nuer (pronounced Nu-er, with
the accent on the last syllable) were made in the late 1930s. He
lived among the Nuer for three years. The Nuer were a cattle-herding
tribe living by the Nile River. He became a Catholic in 1946.)
Whether they are speaking about events which happened in the
beginning or long ago, or about happenings of yesterday and today,
God the creative spirit is the final Nuer explanation of everything.
When asked how things began or how they come to be what they are,
they answer that God made them or that it was his will that they have
come to be what they are. The heavens and the earth and the waters
on the earth, and the beasts and birds and reptiles and fish were
made by him, and he is the author of custom and tradition. The Nuer
herd cattle and cultivate millet and spear fish because God gave them
these things for their sustenance. He instituted their marriage
prohibitions. He ordained that there should be totems. He gave
ritual powers to some men and not to others. He decreed that the
Nuer should raid the Dinka and that Europeans should conquer the
Nuer. God has made one man black and another white, one man fleet
and another slow, one strong and another weak. Everything in nature,
in culture, in society and in men is as it is because God made it so.
Above all else, God is thought of as the giver and sustainer of life.
He also brings death. Nuer say that since it is his world he can
take away what he has given. It is true that Nuer seldom attribute
death-- in such cases as death by lightning or following the breach
of a taboo--to the direct intervention of God, but rather to natural
circumstances or to the action of a lesser spirit; but they
nevertheless regard the natural circumstances or the spirit as agents
of God; for it is he who causes a man to die and the final appeal in
sickness is made to him. Nuer have often told me that it is God who
takes the life, whether a man dies from spear, wild beast, or
sickness, for all these are "instruments of God."
In the Nuer conception of God he is thus creative spirit. He is also
a person. I have never heard Nuer suggest that he has human form,
but though he is himself ubiquitous and invisible he sees and hears
all that happens and he can be angry and love (the Nuer word is nhok,
and if we here translate it "to love" it must be understood in the
preferential sense of agapo or diligo: when Nuer say that God loves
something they mean that he is partial to it). As a person he is the
father of men.
God as the Father of Men A very common mode of address to the Deity
is "Gwandong," a word which means "grandfather" or "ancestor," and
literally "old father," but in a religious context "Father" or "our
Father" would convey the Nuer sense better; and "Gwara" or "Gwandan,"
"our Father," are also often used in prayers. God is the Father of
men in two respects. He is their Creator and he is their protector.
God is also the Father of men in that he is their protector and
friend. He is "God who walks with you," that is, who is present with
you. He is the friend of men who helps them in their troubles, and
Nuer sometimes address him as "maadh," "friend," a word which has for
them the sense of intimate friendship. The frequent use in prayers
of the word rom in reference to the lives, or souls, of men indicates
the same feeling about God, for it has the sense of the care and
protection parents give to a child and especially the carrying of a
helpless infant. The Nuer habit of making short supplications to God
outside formal and ritual occasions, also suggests an awareness of a
protective presence, as does the affirmation one hears every day
among the Nuer, "God is present." Nuer say this, doubtless often as a
merely verbal response, when they are faced with some difficulty to
be overcome or some problem to be solved. The phrase does not mean
"there is a God." That would be for Nuer a pointless remark... God's
existence is taken for granted by everybody. Consequently when we
say, as we can do, that all Nuer have faith in God, that word "faith"
must be understood in the Old Testament sense of "trust" and not in
that modern sense of "belief," which the concept came to have under
Greek and Latin influences. There is in any case, I think, no word
in the Nuer language which could stand for "I believe."
A Nuer either knows (ngac) or he does not know (kwic). But though
God is sometimes felt to be present here and now, he is also felt to
be far away in the sky. However, heaven and earth are not entirely
separated. There are comings and goings. God takes the souls of
those he destroys by lightning to dwell with him and in him they
protect their kinsmen; he participates in the affairs of men through
divers spirits which haunt the atmosphere between heaven and earth
and may be regarded as hypostasizations of his modes and attributes;
and he is also everywhere present in a way which can only be
symbolized, as his ubiquitous presence is symbolized by the Nuer, by
the metaphor of wind and air. Also God can be communicated with
through prayer and sacrifice, and a certain kind of contact with him
is maintained through the moral order of society, which he is said to
have instituted and of which he is the guardian. But in spite of
these communications and contacts the distance between heaven and
earth is too great to be bridged.
It is in the light of their feeling that man is dependent on God and
helpless without his aid and that God, though a friend and present,
is yet also remote, that we are to interpret a word the Nuer
frequently use about themselves when speaking to or about God: doar.
It means "simple" or "foolish" or "ignorant." Nuer say that they are
people who do not understand the mysteries of life and death, and of
God and the spirits and why things happen as they do.
When they use the word doar in a religious context, they are speaking
of themselves being foolish in comparison with God and in his eyes.
I think that the same idea is expressed in speaking of themselves as
cok, small black ants, in their hymns to spirits of the air, that is,
they are God's ants, or in other words what a tiny ant is to man, so
man is to God.
Humility Before God
In speaking about themselves as being like ants and as being simple
people, the Nuer show a humbleness in respect to God which contrasts
with their proud, almost provocative, and towards strangers even
insulting, bearing; and indeed humbleness, a consciousness of
creatureliness, is a further element of meaning in the word doar, as
is also humility, not contending against God but suffering without
complaint. Humbleness and humility are very evident on all occasions
of religious expression among the Nuer; in the manner and content of
prayer, in the purpose and meaning of sacrifices, which are generally
made to avoid, stay, or restrict misfortunes, and, perhaps most
evidently, in their sufferings. Here I want only to say that when
misfortunes happen, Nuer accept them with resignation.. Whatever the
occasion of death and other misfortunes may be, whether they be what
the Nuer call "Dung cak," "the lot of created things," or whether
they be the result of what they call "dueri," "faults," they come to
one and all alike, and Nuer say that they must be accepted as the
will of God. The best that can be hoped for is that God will hear
the prayers and accept the sacrifices of those who suffer and spare
them any burden.
Nuer do not complain when misfortunes befall them. They say that it
is God's will (rwac Kwotl), that it is his world (e ghaude), and--I
have often heard Nuer say this in their sufferings--that he is goagh,
good. When a child dies women lament, but only for a little while,
and men are silent. They say that God has taken his own and they
must not complain; perhaps he will give them another child. This is
a common refrain with the Nuer, especially in their invocations at
mortuary ceremonies. They say of the dead man that God has taken him
and that he was in the right in the matter, for it was his man; he
has taken only what was his own. Also, when a byre is destroyed by
lightning, Nuer tell him that they do not complain. The grass of the
thatch is his, and he has a right to take what belongs to him.
Likewise if a cow or an ox of your herd dies, Nuer say that you must
not complain if God takes his own beast. The cattle of your herd are
his and not yours. If you grieve overmuch, God will be angry that
you resent his taking what is his. Better be content, therefore,
that God should do what he wishes, seeing not that he has taken one
of your cows but that he has spared the others. If you forget the
cow, God will see that you are poor and will spare you and your
children and your other beasts. I cannot convey the Nuer attitude
better than by quoting part of the verse in the Book of Job: "The
Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the
Lord." Selection I, (London, 953), edited by Hastings and Nichols,
condensed from pp 24-31.
This article was taken from
"The Dawson Newsletter," Winter 1995,
P.O. Box 332, Fayetteville, AR 72702, $8.00 per year.
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|
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| Approximately 3 million | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| South Sudan | |
| Languages | |
| Nuer language | |
| Religion | |
| African Traditional Religion Christianity |
|
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Dinka, other Nilotic peoples |
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