Beaded Jewelry

     Beads were brought to Africa by traders from Arabia, Europe, and India, where they were exchanged for goods, slaves, and services. The Arabs traded mainly in northern Africa, while Europeans and Indians traded mostly in the western parts of the continent. African tribal lords and chiefs who obtained these beads began making decorative jewelry out of them. Wearing the jewelry was, in fact, wearing one’s wealth, and it became a sign of social status to wear a large amount of beaded jewelry in different colors.

     The original African beads were made out of gold, silver, or glass. The material was melted and then poured into a clay mold that had compartments in the shape of beads. After the beads were formed, they were processed in a kiln to make them hard and durable.

     Today, there are hundreds of different kinds of African beads. Most are made of glass, with plastics and ceramics added to the glass. People of different tribes in southern Sudan wear their beads in different ways. Women of the Dinka tribe, for example, often wear a long string (or strings) of rather large beads that are black on one side and white on the other. Toposa women sew small, multicolored beads in intricate rows onto the goatskin skirts they wear, and like to adorn themselves with thick rings of beads as necklaces and headdresses woven from beads of many different colors. Boys and men wear beads too, though not in such great quantities as the women. In some tribes, the style of beads worn indicates the wearer’s marital status and place in society.

     Below, a Toposa woman appears in her beaded finery.

Cattle Raids

     In the last post, I wrote about cattle camps in southern Sudan. The camps are an important part of the culture of South Sudan, and generally people look forward to going to the camps where they can be close to each other and to their beloved cattle. But there is a downside to the cattle camps: deadly raids take place there, in which one group tries to steal another group’s cattle.

     The need for young men to raise dowries drives much of the cattle raiding. In southern Sudan, when a man marries, he must pay a dowry of cows to the bride’s family. Typically around 30 cows are paid, but in some cases as many as 100; the groom negotiates with the men of the bride’s family to decide the exact number. By the time he is ready for marriage, a man will have acquired a small herd of cows of his own. To collect the rest of the dowry, he asks his relatives to contribute some of their cattle to his herd. After the wedding takes place, the cows are transferred to and distributed among the various members of the bride’s family. This procedure bonds together all the members of each family who have participated in the exchange.

     In recent years, families have been requiring increasingly large numbers of cows for dowries. Young men often cannot obtain the required number through peaceful means, so they stage raids to steal each other’s cattle. During the dry months from December to May, when herders must compete for smaller amounts of resources and also move their cattle toward the Nile River in search of water, the raids increase. Cattle raids have become very violent since the early 1990s, which was the height of the civil war in Sudan. At that time civilians easily acquired guns from soldiers, and began using them when seizing cattle. People of both sides in the attacks are often maimed or killed, and the raids ignite feuds among the different tribes which last for years. Some tribes abduct young children as well as cattle during the plunders.

     Occasionally, when a young man cannot raise the demanded number of cattle, he will choose to elope with the girl rather than conduct raids to try to obtain more cows. However this choice often generates even more conflict than cattle raiding. Because of the dowry she will bring, a girl is a source of wealth to her family. So when she elopes, her father may organize a rescue party to go after her and try to bring her back.

     Pictured below is a patient who suffered gunshot wounds while raiding cattle, being tended by nursing staff at the Peace Village Clinic in Kuron. This small clinic is not prepared to treat wounds of the severity he has, so he was encouraged to seek treatment at a better-equipped hospital perhaps 75 km away. The patient was fearful of doing so, because the hospital lies in territory claimed by the tribe whose cattle he was raiding, and he feared retaliation if he ventured there to seek treatment. 

Sudanese Cattle Camps

     Cows are at the center of life for the people of South Sudanese tribes. Cows provide milk for food, and in a society that has little use for money, a family’s wealth is stored in its cattle. The number of cattle a family owns determines their worth and standing in society.

     In South Sudan, families traditionally keep a permanent home in a small village-like setting. Crops such as maize, sorghum and millet are grown nearby these permanent communities. But they keep their herds of cattle on the plains, in cattle camps. In order to protect the animals from predators and cattle raiders, a large number of herders will band together to form a cattle camp, and hundreds of animals will be kept in each camp. The head of the camp identifies a good location for the camp: one that is near good grazing land and a source of water, and able to be defended from cattle thieves and predatory animals. The herders carry spears and guns to protect their livestock. During the dry months from November to May, when water is scarce, the herdsmen move their camps toward the Nile River.

     The most capable of the young men are sent to the cattle camps to care for and protect the cows. Older men, women and children also go to the camps. For young boys, the camps are a kind of school in which they can learn the skills necessary for their traditional way of life: how to milk cows, how to give commands to the cows, how to help cows give birth, how to castrate a bull that is not desirable for breeding, how to burn cow dung to keep away insects and use the residual ash as a skin protector. They also learn how to make a paste from ash, dirt, and cow urine, and spread it over the horns of the cows to prevent insects from biting the cattle, and how to fish. When not learning how to care for cows, they are busy tending sheep and goats. Women and girls in the camps take care of young children, prepare food, and do the majority of the milking. They make butter and yogurt from the milk in large gourds, and take the surplus milk they collect to nearby towns to sell or trade for other goods.

     The camps are rough settlements: full of dust, and teeming with cattle, cattle dung, and insects. People sleep on thin mats under the stars and make do with very few possessions. In the evenings when the youths return with the cattle from grazing, the community gathers together and the camps take on a party-like atmosphere. Men decorate the horns of their cattle with tassels and other ornaments, and parade them through the crowds. There are wrestling and jumping contests, singing, and dancing to the beat of goatskin-covered drums. Stories are told, which teach morals and other lessons. Boys and girls are free to flirt, and often engage in sexual activity.

     Today, the youth of Sudan increasingly must choose between going to the cattle camps, or staying in town and getting an academic education. The long wars are over, peace has returned, and oil has recently been discovered in South Sudan. A new way of life may soon take hold there. Sudanese elders must decide whether to continue passing down the traditional skills and rituals, or help the young prepare for urban life and modern jobs. In a few decades, life in the cattle camps may be a thing of the past.


     Below, a family heads off to cattle camp near Kuron, South Sudan.

 

Landmines in South Sudan

     During Sudan’s 21 year long civil war, armies on both sides – the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) and the Sudan Armed Forces - planted landmines thickly near major battlefields. Mines were laid on main roads, in villages, near wells and across fields. This limited people’s ability to travel from place to place and restricted their access to drinking water, grazing land for their cattle, and farmland. All aspects of life were affected: women were afraid to go out and collect firewood, children could not go to school, people could not trade with each other, hospitals and other infrastructure could not be built. After the war ended, the fear of stepping on mines blocked the return of refugees and interfered with the delivery of humanitarian aid.

     Today, 19 of the 25 states in southern Sudan are still strewn with explosive devices. The densest presence of mines in South Sudan has been found in Eastern Equatoria and Central Equatoria, the states which share borders with Kenya and Uganda. It is also believed that a high concentration of undetonated charges exists along the borders with Eritrea and Ethiopia in the east, but these areas have not yet been surveyed to determine the extent of the problem.

     In 2010, a study was conducted to determine the extent of the damage that had been done by landmines. Between the signing of the Peace Agreement that ended the civil war in 2005 and 2010, a total of 661 persons were either killed or injured by mines and other explosive devices in Sudan. 41% of them were children, and 13% were women or girls. These numbers do not include the number of people killed or maimed by landmines during the long war.

     Clearing mines from a space of ground is painstaking work. De-mining teams mark out a small area, then work their way across it inch by inch while listening for a beeping sound coming from their monitors that indicates the presence of metal parts in devices buried under the ground. They work 45 minute shifts at a time in the burning sun, wearing plastic face shields that make it impossible for them to drink water. They must work in the dry season, when the soil is so compacted they cannot activate a mine by stepping on it.

     Since 2005, efforts to clear the most densely contaminated areas have been in progress, and a whopping 19,000 landmines and 800,000 other unexploded ordnances have been found and destroyed in southern Sudan. Many kilometers of roads have been cleared, and assistance has been provided to large numbers of people who are victims of mine blasts. In addition, over four million people have received mines awareness education. Nevertheless, explosive devices still pose a significant threat to the safety of people in South Sudan: it is estimated that only 20% of the total land has been cleared of mines, 64% has yet to be cleared, and 16% still has not been assessed for the presence of such devices. 

Hair Braiding

     Hair braiding has been around for many centuries – in Africa, it can be traced back as far as 3500 BCE. It was practiced by the ancient Egyptians and is still a popular activity today in many parts of Africa, including South Sudan.

     Hair braiding is done to enhance a woman’s – or a man’s – beauty, but it is also a social event among women. It can take a long time to complete a hairdo – up to several hours – so there is plenty of time to talk. Girls learn the skill by watching as older women in their communities make knots and braids in the hair of young children. They practice the designs on each other, learning traditional patterns and inventing new ones. Some of the styles are tribe specific, and often the length of the braid is extended with string-like materials. Sometimes colorful beads or other materials are woven into the hair.

     Micro braids, or invisible braids, are a popular style among girls in South Sudan today. These are braids that are very thin - from a distance they appear to be threads woven into the hair. Once in place, micro braids will stay in place for months if left untouched. Below, students at St. Bakhita School in Narus, Sudan, are engaged in the art of hair braiding during their free time.

HIV and AIDS in South Sudan

     Sudan lies on the boundary between sub-Saharan Africa, where HIV/AIDS is rampant, and North Africa where it is relatively rare. The civil war, which lasted more than two decades and only ended in 2005, effectively isolated the country and shielded it from the AIDS epidemic which affects neighboring countries to the south. Hence the HIV infection rate is comparatively low in Sudan. It’s estimated to be about 1.6% nationwide; however it is higher in the south, where it is estimated to be about 3.1%, and in some areas – particularly crowded towns located near the border with Uganda – it is much higher, possibly as high as 10%. Ironically, the coming of peace seems to have also brought changes that have increased the frequency of HIV: refugees and internally displaced people have returned to their homelands, and trade across the borders with neighboring countries has increased.

     Besides refugees and internally displaced people, the populations most at risk for HIV infection include sex workers, soldiers, truck drivers, and women and girls generally. Commercial sex work is common in many parts of South Sudan, especially in urban areas. Many of the prostitutes are from neighboring countries, but the ones who are Sudanese are mostly very young girls who have little knowledge of HIV and are unlikely to use condoms. Condoms are not available in many parts of the country in any case, and are often unaffordable.

     Knowledge and awareness of HIV is very low in South Sudan generally, with many people never having heard of the disease and most unaware of steps that can be taken to prevent the spread of it. In Sudanese culture, contracting a disease is often blamed on witchcraft or superstition. The spread of HIV is also aided by the practices of polygamy and widow inheritance: if a polygamous man contracts HIV, infects his wives and subsequently passes away, his widows will then be inherited by other polygamous men who will in turn contract the virus and spread it to their other wives.

     HIV is also passed from mothers to their babies. Without intervention, an infected mother will pass the virus to her baby 24-45% of the time. Many women in South Sudan don’t know that HIV can be passed from mother to child, and few of them are able to give birth in a facility equipped to do HIV testing.  

     A particularly deadly obstacle to the treatment and prevention of HIV is the characteristic of the disease that once infected, individuals generally appear to be healthy for some time afterward. They may remain apparently well for 8 or 10 years, and during this time infect many other people. Because of this, many healthcare facilities in Sudan have begun testing all incoming patients for HIV, regardless of the reason they come in for treatment. Early detection of the disease is key to preventing its spread.

     Pictured below is a patient at the Mary Immaculate Hospital in Mapuordit, who is dying of AIDS. This is one institution that tests all patients for HIV, and about 5% currently test positive. Many of the affected individuals identified refuse treatment however, presumably because they don’t understand what the consequences of this choice are. 

Mapuordit, South Sudan

     Mapuordit (Mah-poor-deet’) is a small town located in central South Sudan. Twenty years ago, no one was living in Mapuordit. But in 1993, during the civil war, government soldiers bombed the town of Yirol, 80 kilometers away. People fled Yirol and went west, and eventually found a forested area safely off the main road, where they settled. The trees in the area obscured their huts from planes passing overhead and provided some security and peace during the war. After choosing the place where they would stay, the people sacrificed a grey and brown bull. The name of a large bull with this coloring in the Dinka language is “Mapuordit”, and the people named their town after the sacrificed bull.

     Today more than 30,000 people live in Mapuordit. They live clustered together in small  “compounds”, or groups of tukuls (huts), which are connected by a network of dirt footpaths. The tukuls are constructed by packing mud around a framework of sticks and adding a grass roof, and are sometimes raised six feet or so off the ground. Often a family will construct a small platform outside their tukul for preparing food, and store their pots and cooking equipment on a shelf made of sticks above the platform.

     While in Mapuordit, we visited a family living in a small, square tukul. Inside there were two twin-sized beds outfitted with mosquito netting along the side walls, a narrow space in between the beds with the door at one end of the space and a small table at the other; a radio/CD player sat on top of the table. Several suitcases were neatly piled up behind the heads of the beds; presumably the family’s possessions were stored inside. The family did their cooking outside, over a wood fire. Washed clothes were spread out on the roof to dry in the sun. There was no running water, no electricity, no toilet facility inside their tukul.  

     The small neighborhood-like compounds always seem to be full of people: older adults sitting under trees in the shade, women and children carrying water or loads of firewood home on their heads, individuals busy with household chores, and invariably lots of folks holding small children and babies. The photo below shows women and children gathered in a typical compound scene: