THE DIVINITY OF DENG AND TRAGEDY OF NGUNDENG’S SPIRITUAL EMBLEM (DÄNG): IN WHOSE INTEREST DOES THE EXPERIENCES OF OUR ANCESTORS DIVIDE US?.- By Makneth Aciek

Many things beckoned my attention in 2020 when I visited the UN Protection of Civilians (POC) sites around Juba, but the most compelling of which was uncommon tenderness which I received from a little girl named Nyaviva (Nya+Viva). This amazing child grasped my hand as friends and I were walking through the camp. I knelt down and did all I could to speak to her in my rustic Thoknaath, and after the introduction, I was taken aback by the fact that one of factors underlying her continues stay in the POC camp would come to bear her name.

Her name carries an interesting phenomenon about our predicaments and how most of us anticipate the future. It defines our political world- a world where familiar quickly becomes unfamiliar and neighbors turn into strangers; a world where many are seduced into infinite possibilities of rejoicing in the play of tribal identities and sensation that comes with them, but surprisingly Nyaviva was not scared of me when I revealed to her my Jieng identity.

In a country where events have radicalized communities’ behaviors, this adoring child did not see me as person of enemy origin and the underlying psychology of ‘us versus them’ was not grounded in her mind. In fact, she was friendlier than my own company of comrades who doubled as friends. We were friends, and yet not friends; political tribalism and historical prejudices interposed a subtle line which we were conscious of in our state of adulthood, and which rendered genuine engagement impossible. However, I did find genuine gesture of friendship in little Nyaviva, four years old whose smile was wide and warm, and whose heart was pure and knew no guile.

I strongly believe there are many children who got their names from the misfortunes of 2013, but those who are not aware of Nilotic commemorative style of naming will be inclined to view such names as present-day functional systems rather than as sources that carry narrative of our time into the future. We will age and die, but still such names will not grow old, they will reverberate into the future, and this reminds us of how little Nyaviva is destined to carry a heavy weight of history in her shoulders.

Tenth to eleventh generation from now there might be Chieng-nyaviva should God bless her with children, but again no one will remember actual details or know revealing stories behind this name. This had been our problem! Our history is recorded in folklores and our past events are marked through embodied communal acts, but we often intend to interpret them according to our position of political interest; this has led to misunderstandings with harmful, if not tragic, consequences.

We contradict the common experiences of our ancestors! The perpetual desire to use their spiritual idioms to mobilize people for internecine war is a self-sabotage of highest order; it has made our home a place where all form of sadness dwells, and tightened trouble around our children. Everything that was imagined by our forefathers aims at ending the bitterness of human life, not for destruction.

For quite some time now, I have been wondering how the community is mapping out the future for Nyaviva’s generation- the children who were born and raised in an environment dominated by a story which is both mythic and true. Will the political future of these children still be tormented by the same winds and the drama called Ngundeng’s prophecies which had been our biggest undoing for decades?

 I can imagine Nyaviva watching her elders assuring themselves again and again, in the most positive language, that the apocalyptic battle prophesied by Ngundeng would take place in their own lifetime, but this expectation is contrary to the experiences of our ancestors which are encoded in her genetic memory. The genes of our children carry notable feature of Nilotic concept of human’s relationship to Divinity and ideals for creating a moral community which is at peace with itself; it is in this sense that Nyaviva considered me as one of her own even though popular opinion around her suspected and condemned my intentions.

The political invocation of Ngundeng’s prophecies, and the widespread attention it receives both within South Sudan and diaspora, attests to the crucial role that the spiritual tradition of divinity of Deng plays as the basis for Nuer’s political identity. However, the symbols and spiritual idioms that were the foundation of Ngundeng’s divine authority belonged to a common Nilotic tradition that transcends tribal identity. In fact, Ngundeng as spiritual leader did not differ in temperament and character from ancient Padang masters of Divinity of Deng. He preached peace as they did; he built mound, as they did, which he called Puom Longar; he made sacrifices, as they did, and prayed for rain and fertility in the land.

In a time where peace eludes us, the legacy of Ngundeng should be used as tool for unity and reconciliation, for it represents the immediate symbols of our shared cultural values which can be used to restore harmony among our communities. It seems difficult for the Naath and Jieng in politics to imagine true harmony to which one can return in the context of long history of war propaganda, but such harmony can be found in the mythologies and storied-knowledge of our peoples, and this requires us to rise above the proclivity of self-serving politicians (and their allies of wandering elders) to misinterpret and retell themes that are older than their concept of Westphalian state and its politics.

Dinka-Nuer myths are powerful tools that could bring communities together, because they contain meanings and intentions of our ancestors that suggest particular ways of interpreting their cosmology and how human beings should live in harmony. But the current generation continued with wordings of myths and pay no attention to their initial meanings. Between the Nuer and Dinka, there are shared imaginative patterns and networks of symbols that speak to the puzzle of human existence; their common story of beginnings revolves around the union of Ran (Human) and Divinity. Even the Naath narrative of of Koat-Lic (a tamarind tree which is associated with the origin of all Nuer sections, except the Jikany) points to the fact that Geah and Haak, the first Naath were descendants of Ran whose father is Kuoth (God); this means Ran existed long before Koat-Lic.

The concept of Ran as a single entity that originated from divine helped our ancestors create moral community, and generations have used this concept to articulate themselves to their environment and cooperate in time of hardships. However, the divisive nature of our politics is now attempting to reconfigure the very concept which sustained our forefathers; quite often we hear sections of our society lamenting about Ngundeng’s ballads, but confusion arises when these ballads are used as source of explanation for our despair. Some people have misinterpreted Ngundeng’s stories because it is in their interest to keep others ignorant and exploit them politically; creating false hope among the local people and deny them opportunities to explore practical ways of overcoming their troubles. They make people ignore set of rules and procedures for solving their problems.

I have felt for years the insufficiencies and inaccuracies of the information given by some elders and self-claimed experts on Ngundeng’s prophecies; among these English-speaking elders, the knowledge of facts relating to the history of divinity of Deng is visibly limited. Such prophecies are erroneously given meanings in the context of contemporary events and political arrangements; many innocent Nueri are made to consider the songs of Ngundeng as the root of their political associations, but the religion of Deng to which he was the priest, is not the root of Nueri culture.

In fact, Ngundeng’s legacy does not glorify Nueri! There is absolutely nothing in his popularized songs which dignifies Nueri heritage; it is rather a tragic story that begins with Naath shackled in misery and wars. The community had undergone all form of sufferings with this story, innocent children and women have borne and continue to bear the burdens of this story with dignity and pride. I asked one of Nueri elders in 2019 why would a community continue to revere story which does not contribute to her self-aggrandizement, but surprisingly he told me that all the catastrophes experienced by Nueri were designed by Ngundeng as retribution for Nueri’s disobedience to his teachings.

But did Nueri really disobey Ngundeng and his divinity of Deng? This narrative of curse is rather a political concoction which was developed in 1990s by some Naath ruling elites to justify their short comings. The historical facts seem to suggest that the Divinity of Deng was initially known among the Nuer as foreign Deity; but its idioms and symbols began to pervade their spiritual thought during Nueri settlement in the east, and became potent during SPLM/A wars. Aspiring politicians tend to see Ngundeng’s legacy as piece of clockwork: item of a kind that they could interpret, and might decide to reinterpret if it suits them better.

Aspirations of local politicians and Ngundeng’s stories are cleverly annealed so that they appear to represent the Will of the Divine! This twin theory has unfortunately been used as credible way to understand the political history of Naath, but it does not represent all Nueri. The melding of these two entities, the 19th century prophecies of Ngundeng Deng and today’s ambitions of Nueri politicians, has misrepresented the mighty Naath community and profoundly reconfigured the relationship between them and their neighbors. The apocalyptic battle it preaches has fermented in the minds of innocent Nueri, and has made them the subject of hallucination; the indoctrination is so bad that most of these people seem not to acknowledge the fact that promises and threats contained in this narrative of apocalyptic battle have their roots in the legacy of colonialism and 1990s war propaganda of SPLM/A factions; there is no element of truth to them!

It is a known fact, when one group prepare for war against another, whether they are tribes/ethnic groups or nations, first they must demonize the enemy. During the period when the SPLM/A split into Torit and Nasir factions, Dinka and Nuers became enemies; and the ideals which were/are instrumental in maintaining moral community were violently disrupted and replaced by propaganda machines of local warlords. They spread myths about how different Dinka and Nuer were from one another, and this has jeopardized the ability of traditional institutions to bring about restitution and restore harmony among the peoples.  

Most of us were brought up in this toxic environment of war propaganda and each of us, in one way or another, has doses of misinformation. Such misinformations have come to all of us from the way we heard our parents and community leaders talk about “us versus them”, and the stereotypes which developed out of those misinformations have been merged into current realities and are still shaping our present. How do we move beyond stereotypes to more authentic knowledge of one another?

As a Dinka child growing in 1990s, the national sounds I could hear were the echoes of my tribal folks; the only truth I could claim came from a single-story and local narrative of my village. It took me many years of growing up to discover that the people I was socialized to mistrust are actually my very own. It took me many years of growing up to unlearned what I had been taught and acknowledged the fact that Dinka and Nuer are one people with common understanding; their languages maybe mutually incomprehensible, but they have the same logic systems and axiological referents. A cursory look at the recent events in our country reveals a deliberate attempt by certain class of politicians to institutionalize divisive ethnic tendencies among communities.

However, the pre-colonial Nuer and Dinka identities were not based on ethnic arrangement, but on clan; the today’s ethnic groupings are based on history and mythologies of colonialism which the local culture-brokers are capitalizing on for political reasons. We had clans which related in common usage of cattle, marriages and spiritual idioms; these spiritual idioms described symbols which were at the epicenter of their social and political organization. Those who derive pleasure and success from the miseries and confusion have violently disrupted any form of social organization among our civil populations and used their spiritual idioms to perpetuate conflict; this is what the politicized narrative of Ngundeng’s prophecies represents!

Today’s generation must grow up and move the public discourse from grievance cycle in which it has been stuck for the past three decades to amity- move our people way from misrepresentations of “divine expectation” to reconciliation. Growing up is difficult, it happens slowly while years run out so fast; it requires taking the time to understand what the differences are among our communities and what do they have in common- and that means knowing one’s history in its full complexity; it means moving away from mythological expectation to our shared Nilotic heritage.

We cannot really know each other authentically without full understanding of where we came from. The conflict driven nature which is now characterizing our interactions is a colonial construct. Our people are not inherently violent; their psychological makeup contains strong ideals about reciprocity. Their happiness and even their survival depend on the degree of harmony between them and their surroundings; the chronic issues of cattle raiding and inter communal violence stem from unresolved politically motivated grievances. The traditional Nueri and Jieng sport of cattle-rustling was characterized by the general prescriptions such as: Do not vandalize; do not take the life of another human (Ran); do not steal cattle from your immediate neighbors or kinsmen, etc.

This list of avoidances, though moral in content, were spiritual in expression. They were rooted in religious beliefs and observances connected with divinity; people owned them and no one would dare break the moral norms of the community. Our people went contrary to these norms only in recent time when those who claimed to be liberators dramatically supplanted the authority of ancestral powers, and introduced new concept of warfare which they referred as “government war” (koor Kume in Thoknaath, and tong Akuma in Thongjieng). No one cared about the consequences of this type of warfare and the gentle character, which enables the rope of life to stay unbroken in one’s hand, was adulterated.

I have been investigating the 18th and 19th centuries oral and written materials on our peoples, but I did not find anything which suggests any violent nature. Most of the storied-knowledges of that period carry a common theme about cooperation and relationship building; this is the general pattern which composes the stories of Nueri migration to the east. The central story of this migration portrays themes of mutual exchanges where landless clans find accommodation and get their own pastures and water-supplies through diplomacy or peaceful arrangements. It was not a violent expedition!

According to stories I gathered from Padang elders (particularly Rut, Dongjol, Luac, Eastern Ngok and Thoi Clans), the Nuer immigrants arrived after the Sobat Valley was devastated by flood on a scale never witnessed before. This cataclysmic flood has dominated the localized memories of all Padang confederations, today’s generation still remember its name as it was called “Amol Magok” by their ancestors. As the deluge cleared the region of cattle and sorghum, Padang communities perished in big numbers; survivors dispersed, leaving behind the dead bodies unburied.

Eastern Ngok (Ngok Lual Yak) left their original home at Yom which is now part of Longechuk County; the Dongjol abandoned their villages at the banks of Yal stream (Khor Adar) and the Luac vacated low plains pastures of Malou which is now northern Nasir County. Part of Padang fled southward and found refuge at Duk Ridge. Several decades after the deluge, majority of survivors refused to come back and reoccupy their ancestral villages which they had abandoned to the flood; they were so traumatized by the memories of unburied relatives, and terrified that their ghosts would haunt them should they return. The available narrative suggests that these Padang confederations began reoccupying their original home during “Latjor migration”

Careful study on the Nuer eastward expansion reveals many details which have escaped today’s inattentive elders, the stories we claim to know about this migration were given to us by politicians; such stories confuse us because we have learned them from those who can’t teach. There is nothing like Dinka-Nuer animosity in those stories; this is the truth, the very truth most of us are reluctant to learn!

Details of Latjör migration are recorded in his song which is known among Padang and eastern Nuer as “Dït Latjör”; according to the modest translations I got, the verses of this song give full descriptions of events before Jikany left their original homeland at Cieng-Tang/Ngueny-Yiel, which I believe is now Guit county. Latjör’s expedition was inspired by eastward movement of a certain flock of birds whom Nueri associate with divinity; out of curiosity, he journeyed east to find the place where they had come from. He arrived at the Sobat valley few years after the flooding of Amol Magok; he moved through the grasslands that Dongjol had abandoned to the flood. While wandering between the low plains of Malou and Machar marches, Latjör met and befriended one of Dongjol warriors, named Padiet Gakgak. The narrative has it that the two men made an agreement that permitted Latjör to settle around the banks of Sobat River and Khor Adar (Yal); amazed by the beauty of the land he has just acquired, Latjör returned to his home villages of Cieng-Tang a happy man and mobilized his fellow Jikany for migration.

The arrival of Nuer to the east provided the much-needed cultural renaissance to Padang communities of that time; Nueri came with cattle, the symbols of cultural universe which Padang had lost to the deluge. Nueri become cattle givers and Padang played the role of land givers; it was a mutual engagement, totally devoid of hostilities. The material situation was so bad for Padang that Gawaar, the first group of Nuer who wandered to the east, refused to call them Dinka but animals in human form (Let).

Stories of Bar Gawaar occupation of Duk ridge narrate how Puol Bidit (one of Gawaar influential figures at the time) established a relationship with cattle-less Dinka whom Gawaar called Let; Puol offered them a cow when he first came into contact with them, his kind gestures were remembered when he was fleeing Bough Kerpeil’s exasperation. Bough was unanimously given the leopard-skins by Gawaar, but later became suspicious of Poul Bidit aspiration to take away leadership from him; he bolstered his position with magic and made many attempts to cast spells on his opponent. Poul fled to Duk ridge and settled among the “Let”; when he narrated how his life was threatened by Buogh's magic, they taught him how to use magic and gave him the powerful one which he used to kill Buogh.

This story displays the common pattern among Dinka and Nuer, where the isolated individuals are accommodated. The central theme of the story among Bar Gawaar repeats how the “Let” transferred the authority over their land to Poul and his descendants. With a patronizing arrogance and adamance characteristic of our time, many have constantly maintained that these “Let” were not Dinka; but all the territories transferred to Gawaar bear Dinka names! This evidence is usually dismissed as too fanciful for serious consideration, but it points us to the original idea of peaceful transaction between “land givers and cattle givers”.

The common usage of cattle would later enmesh the Nuer settlers and natives Padang in a web of interpersonal relationships; Padang young men gradually adopted six-line pattern of facial scarification (Gär), observed custom and manners of their new cattle givers. This is the period where Nuer cattle owners assimilated almost half of Padang young population, it was a peaceful and voluntary kind of assimilation as one of Padang elders jokingly told me that their kinsmen were assimilated for the love of Nuer cattle and daughters rather than fear of Nuer military might. Padang young adults flocked in large numbers and joined Nuer ritual of initiations because their fellow Nuer set-mates would contribute cattle to their ambitions of getting wives and start the families of their own. On the other hand, marriage was difficult for Padang young adults who refused six-line facial scarification; girls mocked any man without marks on his forehead as a mere boy or someone with no virtue among men.

The influx of Padang young adults to Naath age sets would later reconfigure the demographic realities of eastern Nuer; all clans were swelling with initiates of Padang origin leaving persons with Nuer blood as insignificant minorities. It was at this period that the word “diel” was used to separate the assimilators from their assimilated majorities; any Nuer whose presence in the Sobat valley could be explained through migration was easily identified as “Diel”. New form of kinship was formulated and persons of Naath linage were bound together by the “kinship of “diel” (maar dïla) and intermarriages among the diel were originally prohibited.

The concept of Maar dïla (kinship of diel) is/was unmeaning among the western Nuer; it was an invention of eastern Nuer to bail themselves out of the discomfort of being minority among the Nuer-speaking Padang, unfortunately it did not bail them out from being dominated by the abstract and spiritual ideas of their assimilated Dinka. The assimilated Padang carried with them the spiritual idioms of their ancestors to new communities like bees carrying pollen, it was at this time that the symbols, aphorisms and ritual instructions associate with “Divinity of Deng” poured into Nueri cultural universe.

The early days of compounded Naath communities saw many turmoils, most of which being spiritual-political crises because assimilated Padang Dinka had not given up the spiritual traditions of their forefathers, and as a consequence were indignant to take spiritual guidances and instructions from Nuer master of leopard skins or earth masters. This is one of the problems Ngundeng did intend to solve in my own estimation; he came up with spiritual symbols and idioms which resonated with both immigrant Naath and assimilated Padang. He incorporated belief systems acceptable to Jieng into his inherited office of earth-mastery; the idea of spirit possession and creation of moral community through mound building were all part of Padang spiritual traditions. During his spiritual formative years while still at Gajaak, Ngundeng had built a small mound and acted as if possessed by its spirit. Historical evidences suggest that he did all these to manage the spiritual expectations of mixed communities, maintain peace between immigrants diel and autochthonous Padang Dinka, resolve blood feuds and create consensus among the peoples.

Ngundeng was many things to many peoples at the Sobat valley; to the Naath, he was the earth-master (Kuar Muon); and to the Jieng, he was a powerful Beny bith (master of fishing spear). The incorporation of the legends which belonged to “Ayuel Longar” and “Luang Deng” into his Nuer heritage of earth-mastery suggests that his well-known prophetic works contain two distinct spiritual narratives characterizing two distinct Nilotic experiences which he virtually annealed so that they appear to be one. To restore peace and harmony in new lands, Ngundeng conditioned his people to adopt the attributes of “Deng” as divinity of fertility and peace who makes hard things “soft”; brings softness to barren wombs to conceive, softens impenetrable sun-cracked clay soil to grow crops and nutritious pastures, and in time of dispute, brings calmness to angered hearts.

Divinity of Deng was initially known among the Naath as foreign or free deity who gives children to barren women, and as consequence many children born in 1830s were given names that speak to His generous nature. The stories surrounding Ngundeng’s birth and the name he carried represent the only known attributes of divinity of Deng among the Nuer at that particular period; however the knowledge of the ability of Deng to calm agitated and angered hearts was very limited or perhaps did not constitute any part of their imaginative lives. The connotation of coolness as prerequisite for peacemaking was tremendously emphasized by Ngundeng to cast Deng as the only one to whom Nueri should collectively return to if they were to overcome the challenges of their new homeland.

Part of reasons why people eventually responded to Ngundeng’s towering call after a long period of rejection was that, the idiom of softness/coolness was analogous to a little-known Nuer practice of certain medicinal substance called “niany” which was believed to restore social ties disrupted by conflict between kinsmen. Individuals in possession of this magical substance would mix it with water and sprinkle it on the ground like a rain to cool the hearts of person with whom one had quarreled. It was on the premise of softness/coolness that Ngundeng transformed his “calming rod” (däng) into one of symbols of the divinity of Deng; he had his däng carved from the wood of cordia tree (akoch in Dinka & kot in Nuer), a very wood which Padang Dinka used when laying to rest a master of fishing spear (Beny bith).

In most cases, woods from Cordia tree were associated with rainmaking, fertility and peace; all of which speaks to Deng’s power to give life, and Ngundeng’s choice of fashioning his däng from such tree was inspired, in my opinion, by desire to arrest the chronic violence of his time, and to restore sense of order and morality among the peoples. Having watery wood of cordia tree as one of the emblems of his syncretistic divine authority makes sense within the context of promoting peace and fertility; däng imaginary composition of wet and softness/coolness found accommodation within the attributes of the divinity of Deng and gradually became a symbol for regional peace.

Contrary to the fondest expectations of time, Ngundeng did not imagine his däng as instrument of war! There are many layers of historical evidences which suggest that the militarization of Ngundeng’s däng was based on confusion and misinterpretation of events surrounding the famous battle of “Pading”; this battle which had been widely used as a reference to what däng can do against enemies of the Nuer was not initiated by the prophet himself. It is obvious that Ngundeng never participated in any fighting during his tenure; his first gesture was to avoid the battle, but when the chances of doing so were limited, he sacrificed the bull and waved his däng in the air to explore Deng’s powers for something akin to poetic justice.

The notion that portrays däng as emblem of war was concocted three decades ago, and carried to the public through sensational war propaganda; but not single historical evidence, written or oral, shows any military significance of däng beyond the battle of Pading. Ngundeng only used it for oath-making, marriage vows and rain-rituals; how this Nilotic instrument of peace became a part of today’s explosive tribal dynamics constitutes a crime on our peoples- the most revolting crime in history Greater upper Nile region! It has no local parallel in sheer horror and barbarity of damages it has done and continue to do to the imaginative lives of our peoples.

There had been a sinister plan to deploy Ngundeng’s legacy in the equation of power struggle all along, those who assume to have a better claim over his legacy have reinterpreted the prophet’s songs and erased certain historical facts about him in order to fit the procedural structure of their case. New meanings and understandings are being invented about Ngundeng as the deciding factor in the political turmoil of our young Nation, but such expectation only pushes our people beyond the lanes of compromise. Divinity of Deng did not choose a particular individual to be His favorites neither will He decide who to take the leadership of our country. What bound us together as South Sudanese is the commonness of our destiny, and the fade of the country is in our hands. We must pull the rope of destiny toward the path of reconciliation and unity, not the expectation of the apocalyptic battle!

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