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Dinka People
The Dinka people () are a Nilotes, Nilotic ethnic group native to South Sudan. The Dinka mostly live along the Nile, from Mangalla-Bor to Renk, South Sudan, Renk, in the region of Bahr el Ghazal (region of South Sudan), Bahr el Ghazal, Upper Nile (two out of three provinces that were formerly part of southern Sudan), and the Abyei area of the Ngok Dinka in South Sudan. They number around 4.5 million, according to the 2008 Sudan census, constituting about 40% of the population of that country and the largest ethnic group in South Sudan. The Dinka refer to themselves as (singular) and (plural). Origins The Dinka originated from the Gezira (state), Gezira in what became Sudan. In medieval times this region was ruled by the kingdom of Alodia, a Christian, multi-ethnic empire in Nubia. Living in its southern periphery and interacting with the Nubians, the Dinka absorbed a sizable amount of Nubian language, Nubian vocabulary. From the 13th century, with the disintegration of Alodia ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dinka Language
Dinka (natively , or simply ) is a Nilotic dialect cluster spoken by the Dinka people, a major ethnic group of South Sudan. There are several main varieties, such as Padang, Rek, Agaar, Ciec, Malual, Apaak, Aliab, Bor, Hol, Nyarweng, Twic East and Twic Mayardit, which are distinct enough (though mutually intelligible) to require separate literary standards. Jaang, Jieng or Muonyjieng is used as a general term to cover all Dinka languages. Recently ''Akutmɛ̈t Latueŋ Thuɔŋjäŋ'' (the Dinka Language Development Association) has proposed a unified written grammar of Dinka. The language most closely related to Dinka is the Nuer language. The Luo languages are also closely related. The Dinka vocabulary shows considerable proximity to Nubian, which is probably due to medieval interactions between the Dinka people and the kingdom of Alodia. The Dinka are found mainly along the Nile, specifically the west bank of the White Nile, a major tributary flowing north from Uganda, no ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sorghum
''Sorghum bicolor'', commonly called sorghum () and also known as great millet, broomcorn, guinea corn, durra, imphee, jowar, or milo, is a species in the Poaceae, grass genus ''Sorghum (genus), Sorghum'' cultivated for its grain. The grain is used as food by humans, while the plant is used for animal feed and ethanol production. Sorghum originated in Africa, and is widely cultivated in tropical and subtropical regions. Sorghum is the world's fifth-most important cereal crop after rice, wheat, maize, and barley. Sorghum is typically an annual, but some cultivars are perennial. It grows in clumps that may reach over high. The grain is small, in diameter. Sweet sorghums are cultivars grown for forage, syrup production, and ethanol. They are taller than those grown for grain. Description Sorghum is a large stout grass that grows up to tall. It has large bushy flowerheads or panicles that provide an edible starchy grain with up to 3,000 seeds in each flowerhead. It grows ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Slavery In Sudan
Slavery in Sudan began in ancient times, and had a resurgence during the Second Sudanese Civil War (1983–2005). During the Trans-Saharan slave trade, many Nilotic peoples from the lower Nile Valley were purchased as slaves and brought to work elsewhere in North Africa and the Orient by Nubians, Egyptians, Berbers and Arabs. Starting in 1995, many human rights organizations have reported on contemporary practice, especially in the context of the Second Sudanese civil war. According to reports of Human Rights Watch and others, during the war the government of Sudan was involved in backing and arming numerous slave-taking militias in the country as part of its war against the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA). It also found the government failed to enforce Sudanese laws against kidnapping, assault and forced labor, or to help victims' families locate their children. Another report (by the International Eminent Persons Group) found both the government-backed militias and the r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shilluk Kingdom
The Shilluk Kingdom, dominated by the Shilluk people, was located along the left bank of the White Nile in what is now South Sudan and southern Sudan. Its capital and royal residence were in the town of Fashoda. According to Shilluk folk history and neighboring accounts, the kingdom was founded by Nyikang, who probably lived in the second half of the 15th century. A Nilotic people, the Shilluk managed to establish a centralized kingdom that reached its apogee in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, during the decline of the northern Funj Sultanate. In the 19th century, the Shilluk were affected by military assaults from the Ottoman Empire, resulting in the destruction of the kingdom in the early 1860s. The Shilluk king is currently not an independent political leader, but a traditional chieftain within the governments of South Sudan and Sudan. The current Shilluk king is Reth Kwongo Dak Padiet who ascended to the throne in 1993. The monarchy (the Reth) has been political and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Funj Sultanate
The Funj Sultanate, also known as Funjistan, Sultanate of Sennar (after its capital Sennar) or Blue Sultanate (due to the traditional Sudanese convention of referring to black people as blue) (), was a monarchy in what is now Sudan, northwestern Eritrea and western Ethiopia. Founded in 1504 by the Funj people, it quickly converted to Islam, although this conversion was only nominal. Until a more orthodox form of Islam took hold in the 18th century, the state remained an "African empire with a Muslim façade". It reached its peak in the late 17th century, but declined and eventually fell apart in the 18th and 19th centuries. In 1821, the last sultan, greatly reduced in power, surrendered to the Ottoman Egyptian invasion without a fight. History Origins Christian Nubia, represented by the two medieval kingdoms of Makuria and Alodia, began to decline from the 12th century. By 1365 Makuria had virtually collapsed and was reduced to a rump state restricted to Lower Nubia, until fi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Humped Cattle
The zebu (; ''Bos indicus''), also known as indicine cattle and humped cattle, is a species or subspecies of domestic cattle originating in South Asia. Zebu, like many Sanga cattle breeds, differs from taurine cattle by a fatty hump on their shoulders, a large dewlap, and sometimes drooping ears. They are well adapted to withstanding high temperatures and are farmed throughout the tropics. The zebu is used as a draught and riding animal, dairy cattle and beef cattle, as well as for byproducts such as hides and dung for fuel and manure. Some small breeds such as Nadudana also known as the miniature zebu are also kept as pets. In some regions, zebu have significant religious meaning. Taxonomy Both scientific names ''Bos taurus'' and ''Bos indicus'' were introduced by Carl Linnaeus in 1758, with the latter used for humped cattle in China. The zebu was classified as a distinct species by Juliet Clutton-Brock in 1999, but as a subspecies of the domestic cattle, ''Bos taurus ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mongol Invasion Of Persia And Mesopotamia
The Mongol conquest of Persia and Mesopotamia comprised three Mongol campaigns against Islamic states in the Middle East and Central Asia between 1219 and 1258. These campaigns led to the termination of the Khwarazmian Empire, the Nizari Ismaili state, and the Abbasid Caliphate of Baghdad, and the establishment of the Mongol Ilkhanate government in their place in Persia. Genghis Khan had unified the Mongolic peoples and conquered the Western Xia state in the late 12th and early 13th centuries. After a series of diplomatic provocations on the part of Muhammad II, the ruler of the neighbouring Khwarazmian Empire, the Mongols launched an invasion in 1219. The invaders laid waste to the Transoxianan cities of Bukhara, Samarkand, and Gurganj in turn, before obliterating the region of Khorasan, slaughtering the inhabitants of Herat, Nishapur, and Merv, three of the largest cities in the world. Muhammad died destitute on an island in the Caspian Sea. His son and successor, Jalal al-D ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Soba (city)
Location of Soba in medieval times (below on the right) Soba is an archaeological site and former town in what is now central Sudan. Three kingdoms existed in medieval Nubia: Nobadia with the capital in Faras, Makuria with the capital in Dongola, and Alodia (Alwa) with the capital in Soba. The latter used to be the capital of the medieval Nubian kingdom of Alodia from the sixth century until around 1500. E. A. Wallis Budge identified it with a group of ruins on the Blue Nile from Khartoum, where there are remains of a Meroitic temple that had been converted into a Christian church. In the 10th century Ibn Selim el-Aswani described the city as large and wealthy, but he probably never visited it and modern archaeological investigations show it to have been a moderate centre. Built mainly of red brick, the abandoned city was plundered for building material when Khartoum was founded in 1821. Since the 1990s, development from the growth of suburbs in Greater Khartoum has ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
White Nile
The White Nile ( ') is a river in Africa, the minor of the two main tributaries of the Nile, the larger being the Blue Nile. The name "White" comes from the clay sediment carried in the water that changes the water to a pale color. In the strict meaning, "White Nile" refers to the river formed at Lake No, at the confluence of the Bahr al Jabal and Bahr el Ghazal Rivers. In the wider sense, "White Nile" refers to all the stretches of river draining from Lake Victoria through to the merger with the Blue Nile: the "Victoria Nile" from Lake Victoria via Lake Kyoga to Lake Albert, then the "Albert Nile" to the South Sudan border, and then the "Mountain Nile" or "Bahr-al-Jabal" down to Lake No. "White Nile" may sometimes include the headwaters of Lake Victoria, the most remote of which being from the Blue Nile. The 19th-century search by Europeans for the source of the Nile was mainly focused on the White Nile, which disappeared into the depths of what was then known as "Darkest ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sobat River
The Sobat River is a river of the Greater Upper Nile region in northeastern South Sudan, Africa. It is the most southerly of the great eastern tributaries of the White Nile, before the confluence with the Blue Nile. Geography The Sobat River is formed by the confluence of the west-flowing Baro River and the north-flowing Pibor River, on the border with Ethiopia. The river enters the White Nile at Doleib Hill, near the city of Malakal in Upper Nile State. When in flood the Sobat River produces an enormous discharge carrying a white sediment, which gives the White Nile its name. Hydrology The Sobat and its tributaries drain a watershed approximately in size. The river's mean annual discharge is 412 m³/s (14,550 ft³/s).; online aGoogle Books/ref> See also *List of rivers of South Sudan This is a list of streams and rivers in South Sudan, arranged geographically by drainage basin. There is an alphabetic list at the end of this article. The list may not be comprehe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bahr El Ghazal River
The Bahr el Ghazal () or Naam River ( Nuer) is a river in South Sudan. The South Sudanese region of Bahr el Ghazal takes its name from the river. The Bahr el Ghazal is the main western tributary of the Nile. It is long, flowing through the Sudd wetlands to Lake No, where it joins the White Nile. Hydrology The Bahr al Ghazal's drainage basin is the largest of any of the Nile's subbasins, measuring 520,000 km (200,800 mi) in size, but it contributes a relatively small amount of water, about 2 m3/s (70 ft3/s) annually, due to tremendous volumes of water being lost in the Sudd wetlands. Seasonally, the river's discharge ranges from nothing to 48 m3/s (1,700 ft3/s). According to some sources, the river is formed by the confluence of the Jur River and Bahr al-Arab rivers. However other more recent sources say the river rises in the Sudd wetlands with no definitive source, that the Jur River joins at Lake Ambadi, and the Bahr al-Arab joins below that.; online ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Luo Peoples
The Luo (also spelled Lwo) are several ethnic group, ethnically and language family, linguistically related Nilotic, Nilotic ethnic groups that inhabit an area ranging from Egypt and Sudan to South Sudan and Ethiopia, through Northern Uganda and eastern Congo (DRC), into western Kenya, and the Mara Region of Tanzania. Their Luo languages belong to the Western Nilotic languages, western branch of the Nilotic languages, Nilotic language family. The Luo groups in South Sudan include the Shilluk people, Shilluk, Anuak people, Anuak, Pari people, Pari, Acholi people, Acholi, Balanda Boor people, Balanda Boor, Thuri people, Thuri and Luwo people, Luwo. Those in Uganda include the Alur people, Alur, Acholi people, Acholi, Jonam and Jopadhola, Padhola. The ones in Kenya and Tanzania are the Luo people, Joluo (also called Luo people, Luo in Kenyan English). The Luo (Kenya and Tanzania), Joluo and their language Dholuo are also known as the "Luo proper" by Kenya based observers, even tho ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
