Nuer occupation/invasions and their effects on other Jurs (Dinka, Anyuak, Burun…)
The vast area appropriated by the Nuer during the nineteenth century was formerly occupied by a Dinka, Anyuak and Burun population. The fate of this population is one of the most interesting questions pertaining to Nuer expansion. How many Dinka, Anyuak, Burun… were killed by the Nuer? How many died of starvation? How many migrated to other areas? And how many were assimilated into Nuer community?
Although Nuer territorial appropriation had virtually ceased by the early 1800s, the Nuer continued to raid/invade the Dinka for cattle, Anyuak and Burun for land until present.
Three large-scale Nuer raids against the Southern Dinka that took place in 1914, 1916, and 1928 are of particular interest. In each of these instances the Nuer Warriors penetrated over ninety miles into Dinka territory and twice captured over five thousand head of cattle. These raids/invasions were, in many respects, comparable to the initial thrusts of the Nuer during their earlier period of territorial expansion, and document the scale of devastation wrought by Nuer aggression.
During the closing phase of Nuer expansion, the Gaawar and Lou Nuer pushed the Ric, Ghol, and Nyarraweng Dinka south as far as Faijing in present-day Twij County. The Nuer progressively gained the upper hand in these conflicts, and in 1906 launched a large-scale raid on the Faijing settlement that forced the Dinka to withdraw about sixteen miles further south to Kongor. Then in 1908 the Gaawar Nuer attacked the Dinka at Kongor, burning their crops and settlements, killing over a hundred people and took over eighty captives mostly young girls.
In 1908-10, the British sought to end the Nuer occupation toward Dinkaland and established control over the area. A new border between the Nuer and Dinka was established at the favor of Dinka at Duk Padiet, fifty miles north of Kongor, and the Ghol, Ric, and Nyarraweng were awarded about four thousand aquare miles of territory they had previously lost during Nuer expansion. Although a substantial portion of this grant represented an uninhabited no-man’s-land between the Nuer and the Dinka, the Nuer were also required to relinquish territory under active occupation. The Nuer undoubtedly viewed the transfer as a government-sponsored Dinka invasion.
In February, 1910, several months before the Duk Padiet post was established, the Gaawar Nuer attacked a group of Ghol Dinka who had precipitously reoccupied Faijing, kill over two hundred individuals and captured ninety captives along with countless cattle. Less than five days later, a large party of Lou Nuer crossed the government-delineated border and overran the Ghol and Nyarraweng Dinka villages around Duk Padiet, capturing five thousands head of cattle and inflicting “severe losses” on the Dinka populace. The police post at Duk Padiet was also attacked, but the Nuer Warriors were repulsed, losing twenty-six men while killing six policemen and wounding three in the engagement.
The Nuer Warriors raiding party pressed south to within a few hours walk of the government station at Bor, ninety miles deep into Dinka territory. In the course of these raids/invasions they captured “large numbers” of cattle, young women, and children (in addition to the five thousand cattle noted above). In the area under attack, the Bor Dinka “suffered very severely” (ibid.). After a span of less than three weeks, the Nuer Warriors successfully withdrew with their spoils.
Elements of the Ghol and Nyarraweng Dinka who fled the Nuer advance were reportedly harried by the Twij Dinka, who “stole all the women and cattle they could lay hands on.” Two other large groups of Dinka refugees moved north into Nuer territory in an attempt to evade the Lou Nuer onslaught.
In May 1916, the Nuer Warriors again struck deep into Dinka territory, penetrating to within twenty miles of the Bor post. At this point, a contingent of 500 Nuer tribesmen was spotted by Dinka scouts sent out to reconnoiter, and a large number of Dinka accompanied by a Sudanese army officer and some soldiers moved out to intercept them. After initial contact was made, the Nuer retreated with the soldiers and Dinka in pursuit. Employing a stratagem they were to use on other occasions, the Nuer thus drew their antagonists into an ambush. Suddenly, the Nuer Warriors were heavily reinforced and attacked in strength, slaughtering, scattering the Dinka and wiping the army detachment and kill them all to the last man.
The following year (1917) the British launched a major punitive expedition against the Lou Nuer, resulted in heavy casualties have been inflicted on both sides. Few days later, the Gaawar and elements of Lou Nuer launched a large-scale raid that penetrated deep into Southern Dinka territory, following the now familiar pattern established in 1914 and 1916. Seventy villages were burned down to ashes and the crops destroyed, over two hundred Dinka were killed, four hundred young women and children were taken as captives and three thousand cattle taken. A Nuer raiding party with an estimated strength of fifteen hundred Warriors also attacked the government post at Duk Faiwil in the course of this raid. The Nuer succeeded in driving off fifty head of government cattle, but suffered heavy casualties: forty-eight men killed and eighty wounded.
Being further removed from early incursions of the Nuer, the Twi, like the Bor, have suffered far less from yearly raids/invasions and have fattened upon their brother Dinka’s misfortunes. There is no doubt that they (the Twi) regarded the yearly flight for refuge into their country by the Nyarraweng and Ric as a chance for profit and were in the habit of annexing a large percentage of the herds of these tribes when the latter retired disorganized upon them for support.
Dinka alliance with the Nuer had analogous effects. The alliance of a Dinak tribal section with a segment of one Nuer tribe provided security against raids by other Nuer only for that particular Dinka section, and only if the latter lived among their Nuer kin and affine. Moreover, the presence of such Dinka elements within a Nuer tribe did not deter them from raiding other Dinka (including, in some instances, other sections of the same Dinka tribe). Since Dinka refugees were often derived of their cattle by members of other Dinka tribes, they were not reluctant to urge their Nuer hosts to raid/invade the latter.
The Nuer Warriors typically attack a Dinka village at dawn when the cattle are lodged in shelters or tethered near the homesteads. As a result of Nuer Warriors invasions, many Dinka families come into Nuer country to escape hunger and the other attendant miseries to which they have been reduced by constant Nuer raiding/invasion that always leave them cattleless. The Dinka seldom offer any concert resistance, but rather sought to escape with as many cattle as possible. Later a counterattack might be undertaken with the aid of reinforcements from other communities. This strategy of initial withdrawal conceded the destruction of the settlement and in harvest season raids, the loss of grain supplies.
In 1912, the Eastern Jikany Nuer and Lou Nuer undertook their own reprisal against the Anyuak. The Nuer Warrios invasion/raid was directed against the Anyuak villages on the North bank of the Baro/Sobat River from the Ethiopian border to Itang/Achua, a distance about fifty miles. Later reports indicated “All the villages in this formerly prosperous neighborhood have been devastated.
Ten Nuer contigents of three hundred men each could simultaneously attack as many communities and later regroup at one or two captured villages with their stolen cattle to await any counterattack that might be launched. A large [Raik Dinka] raiding surprised a Nuer village and, Dinka-like, sat down to a happy day wrangling over the spoil. It was their last, for meanwhile the Nuer Warriors surrounded them, and in the ensuing panic slaughtered them to the last man.
The discipline of Nuer forces is also demonstrated by a remarkable capacity of continues to press and assault while sustaining very heavy casualties. When, the Eastern Jikany Nuer Warriors were attacked early in 1912 by a heavy armed Ethiopian force of Gala/Oromo and Amhara, intent on taking slaves, the Nuer lost over 100 men in the course of overrunning the invaders’ machine gun emplacement. The invaders’ (Ethiopians) mission was not only failed, but also lost over 300 soldiers and 50 missing. The Nuer also made a number of concerted attacks on fortified government posts. In one instance in which a Nuer raiding party was intercepted by a government patrol, the Nuer lost 85 men in the initial engagement but nevertheless counterattacked the same night and again the following day before withdrawing to home territory.
It is also quite clear that Nuer military domination of the Dinka and other Jurs was grounded in their capacity to field a numerically superior fighting force, and in the organizational features through which mobilization on a large scale was effective. Other aspects of the Nuer advantage were secondary and derivative. Nuer Warriors tactics are relatively simple and straightforward.
Systematic Nuer cattle raids/invasions, conducted on an annual basis, created a periphery of debilitated Dinka communities that yielded readily to Nuer territorial appropriation. Seasoned Nuer raiding parties were pitted against famine-ridden Dinka groups struggling to survive through periods of scarcity resulting from previous raids. Under the circumstances it is not surprising that the Dinka were unable to mount any effective resistance to continuing Nuer territorial expansion.
As this expansion proceeded, displaced Dinka groups were pushed into adjacent areas where they came into conflict with the existing population whose land and grazing rights they infringed. These conflicts undoubtedly contributed to a lack of unity in meeting subsequent Nuer attacks. Successful Nuer cattle raids thus engendered conditions favorable to territorial expansion, and the continuation of this expansion was further facilitated by the aftermath of prior Dinka defeat.
Persons of the Dinka decent form probably at least half the population of most [Nuer] sub-tribes. These Dinka are either children of captives or immigrants who have been brought up as Nuer, or are themselves captives and immigrants who are residing permanently among Nuer. They are “Jaang-Nath,” “Dinka-Nuer,” and, it is said, “caa Naath,” “they have become Nuer.”
There must also have been pockets of the original Dinka, Anyuak and Burun occupants of the country overrun by the Nuer Warriors who submitted and gave up their language and habits in favor of those of the Nuer. At any rate, there are today in all Nuer sub-tribes many small Dinka lineages and village are often named after them (Dinka, Anyuak, Burun…)
Nuer raids/invasions always resulted in the capture of substantial numbers of young women and children. Captives taken by the Nuer always includes boys, girls, and young women of
Marriageable age, but the captives always outnumber the casualties inflicted on Dinka, Anyuak, Burun… by the Nuer Warriors. The loss of a single productive female is thus estimated to reduce her natal population by 3.4 individuals several generations later, and to add a like increment to the population she joins.
The capture of 372 young women and girls a year during the period of 1818 to 1905 would remove 32,625 productive females from the Central Dinka and Anyuak population and thus eventually decrease that population by 110,915 individuals. The capture of 125 boys a year over the same period would decrease the Central Dinka and Anyuak population by an additional 5,250 persons. In sum, the proposed rate of capture would effectively transfer 116,165 persons from Central Dinka and Anyuak population to that of the Nuer.
North of the Sobat River, the British faced even more formidable and intransigent opposition from the Eastern Jikany Nuer who lived along the Ethiopian frontier. They were well armed with rifles and ammunitions from Ethiopia and raid neighbors, the Burun and Koma to the North, the Dinka and Anyuak to the South – as well as Ethiopian tribes in the Western foothills.
Under the command of Lt. Col. Bacon a powerful patrol was finally launched against the Eastern Jikany Nuer from Nasir in January 1920, complete with machine guns and airplanes. The three sections of Eastern Jikany Nuer Warriors attacked the advanced troops; sustaining heavy losses conflicted on both sides. The Jikany Warriors were led by Captain of war, Mr. Mut Dung
The Dinka, Anyuak, Burun… had no recourse other than withdrawal. Under these circumstances, the rapid Nuer Conquest/occupation of the vast Western Dinka region [Mayom, Mankien…], Southern Dinka region [Nyuong Nuer territory], Central Dinka region [Fangak, Ayod, Waat…], Eastern Dinka, Anyuak and Burun region [Eastern Jikany Nuer and Lou Nuer territory] is not difficult to understand.
Had the Nuer ever wished to occupy the whole greater Upper Nile, from Renk to Mading Bor and from Ruweng/Biemnom to Buma-Gambella, it seems unlikely that the other coward Jurs (Jaang, Bar, Burun, Chai…) could have stopped them.
RS: NUER CONQUEST
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