AMONG THE DINKAS OF THE UPPER NILE.

Otago Witness, Issue 3123, 28 January 1914, Page 73

AMONG THE DINKAS OF THE UPPER NILE.

By D. N. MacDiabmid

“In the course of a chequered career 1 have seen many unwholesome spots; but for a God-forsaken, dry-sucked, flyblown wilderness commend me to the Upper Nile; a desolation of desolations, an infernal region, a howling waste of weed mosquitoes, flies, and fever, backed by a groaning waste of thorn and stones —waterless and waterlogged. I have passed through it, and now have no fear for the hereafter.” So wrote E. S. Grogan in his famous book, *' From the Cape to Cairo.” But surely the author was suffering from acute malaria when he wrote it 1 At any rate, it certainly does not apply to the whole of the Upper Nile Province. True, the mosquito ie apt to make one take a -jaundiced view of the country and of life, especially when most of the insects in the province have managed to' enter one’s mosquito net. Bui when the nights are cool, as they are here at Melut just now, when the mosquitoes are last disappearing before the northerly wind, when the days are bright and game is plentiful, there are many worse places in the world than the Upper Nile Province. Here from our camp at Melut, 420 miles south of Khartoum, we have a most pleasant outlook. Before us roils the placid Nile, the giver of life to the Soudan and Egypt. Here and there on its broad surface are floating clumps of feathery papyrus, while now and again a river steamer passes on its way to Gondokoro or to Khartoum. Away on the other bank of the river, nestling among the clumps of forest, are to be seen the villages of the Shilluks. Behind us is the long grass so typical oinland Africa, while further back are scattered trees or patches of open bush. It is back here that the Dinkas live; they were driven inland years ago by repeated slave raids, and even now have not regained confidence enough to re-settle along the river banks. , . , A few months’ residence in such a country as the Soudan is too short to give one any adequate knowledge of its peoples and problems, but it is sufficiently long to allow certain impressions to become strong and vivid. One is easily able to affirm, tor instance, that there could be few more interesting journeys than the 2000-mile trip bv river boat and desert tram from Alexandria to Melut.. One is also greatly impressed at the manner in which so few British officials in so short a time have established order and good government m such a huge country as the Anglo-Egyptian Soudan, and this so soon _ after the . terrible days of the Mahdi rebellion. So excellent is the police administration m this and other provinces in the Soudan that when a tn.in in a distant inland village has committed any misdemeanour it is sufficient to send word to the sheikh of Ithe. J, 3 man is wanted. The sheikh tells the offen der to go down to the police post, and the man, picking up his two spears to protect him on the way, meekly tramps down to the river settlement, and submits to the chains being placed on his legs for a 111 But* i? r is the study of the native races and the conditions under which they live that has been of most interest on the present tour. Treks of a week s duration into the interior of the province have taken up most of my time here, and have been of most absorbing interest. , Itis here that one sees the Uinka living in the same primitive manner in which his father, and his father’s father lived before him. He is as naked, with the exception of a few beads round his arras and neck, and perhaps his waist, as was Adam before the fall—and as unashamed, instead of clothes the men smear all over their bodies a coating of white ash made from the burnt dung of their cattle The result of this whitening process c m be imagined; it gives them a ghastly appearance, and makes them look like oalimited crapses. But when they wash off this unnatural covering, which they sometimes clc and appear in their all-black naturalness, they are fine looking men. the chief objection to the ablutionary process, however, a that it is done in the public water hole from which by and by the passim* traveller makes his tea. As far as one can gather, the Uinka code of morals, especially those relating to marriage are of a distinctly high character. The cattle fines for misconduct are, very heavy, and always have to be paid by the offending man or his parents. Women, among the Dinkas, although unable to hold pro perty, being themselves property, are on a higher level ihan among the Modernised Africans, as divorce among the Dinkas is far more difficult than among the Moslems. At the present time the inland Dinkas ate almost entirely pagan. It is only those that settle at the r.ver centres that adopt Islam, that being tlx religion of the only civilisation with which they come into contact. Even those who do adopt the Moslem faith wear it much as they do their clothes—very lightly at lie river settlements, and hardly at all when up country. This, however, will soon change if steps arc not taken to prevent it, as the second generation will certainly be more or less zealous Moslems. Several peculiarities of the Dinkas strike one as very curious. For instance, the ex traordinary manner ' in which these people, like human storks, stand on one leg to rest. Balanced by his spear etuck in the ground, a Dink.i cow herd will stand for an hour or more on one leg, with one foot placed in the hollow just above the knee of the other leg. It seems probable that this practice Las been adopted on acco mt of the long grass in which the Dirkas five. Sitting down they would be unable to see their cattle straying or to know when their enemies were approaching. , . . Another curious custom and one vri'cn is a serious handicap to those desirous of acquiring the language, is their habit ef knocking out the front lower teeth of every hoy at the age of eight years. This alters the shape of the mouth considerably, as it causes the upper incisors to protrude,_ and necessitates that missionaries to the Dinkas should either adopt a similar practice or else be reconciled to never obtaining a correct Dinka accent Up to the present the latter alternative has been preferred at the Sudan United Mission Station, from which I write.