Online Encyclopedia

DINKA (called by the Arabs Jange)

Online Encyclopedia
Originally appearing in Volume V08, Page 277 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
Spread the word: del.icio.us del.icio.us it!

DINKA (called by the
See also:
Arabs Jange)
  , a widely spread negro
See also:
people dwelling on the right
See also:
bank of the White Nile to about 12° N., around the mouth of the
See also:
Bahr-el-Ghazal, along the right bank of that
See also:
river and on the banks of the
See also:
lower
See also:
Sobat . Like the
See also:
Shilluk, they were greatly harried from the north by Nuba-Arabic tribes, but remained comparatively
See also:
free owing to the vast extent of their country, estimated to cover 40,000 sq. m., and their energy in defending themselves . They are a tall
See also:
race with skins of almost blue black . The men
See also:
wear practically no clothes, married
See also:
women having a short apron, and unmarried girls a fringe of iron cones round the
See also:
waist . They
See also:
tattoo themselves with tribal marks, and extract the lower incisors; they also pierce the ears and lip for the
See also:
attachment of ornaments, and wear a variety of feather, iron, ivory and brass ornaments . Nearly all shave the head, but some give the hair a reddish colour by moistening it with animal
See also:
matter . Polygamy is general; some headmen have as many as
See also:
thirty or more wives; but six is the
See also:
average number . They are
See also:
great cattle and sheep breeders; the men tend their beasts with great devotion, despising agriculture, which is
See also:
left to the women; the cattle are called by means of drums . Save under stress of famine cattle are never killed for food, the people subsisting largely on durra . The Dinkas reverence the cow, and
See also:
snakes, which they call " brothers." Their
See also:
folklore recognizes a good and evil deity; one of the two wives of the good deity created man, and the dead go to live with him in a great park filled with animals of enormous
See also:
size . The evil deity created cripples . The Dinka came, in 1899, under the control of the Sudan government, justice being administered as far as possible in accord with tribal custom .

A compendium of Dinka

See also:
laws was compiled by Captain H . D . E . O'Sullivan . See G . A . Schweinfurth, The Heart of Africa (1874); W . Junker, Travels in Africa, Eng. edit . (
See also:
London, 1890—1892) ; The Anglo-
See also:
Egyptian Sudan, edited by Count
See also:
Gleichen (London, 1905) .

End of Article: DINKA (called by the Arabs Jange)
[back]
DINGWALL
[next]
DINKELSBUHL

Additional information and Comments

There are no comments yet for this article.
» Add information or comments to this article.
Please link directly to this article:
Highlight the code below, right click and select "copy." Paste it into a website, email, or other HTML document.