Nilotic the thread

[Nilotic]

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What do you think the average Nilotic man would be with good diet? I have three south Sudanese friends, tallest is 6’7, second tallest is 6’3 and the other is my height 6’0. I think you guys have the tallest genes in the world.

I think the average Nilotic man in South Sudan may reach 6'2 with improvements in diet and nutrition. My sister is 6'2 so maybe it could be higher for the men after a period of 30 or so years with an improved diet for the population.

My younger cousins are all taller than me; one of them is 6'8 and I simply can't believe it; the boy was born in Africa but he arrived in Australia at 5 years of age.

 

[Nilotic]

Would it be more viable to export the oil through Kenya. This would be better and it would offer more leverage for south sudan

No, it would not be economical for us unless we find more oil reserves and start exporting them; the largest block (Block B) has yet to come online. The Block is the size of England.

Block E is also very large and it has not come online, so our oil production could increase significantly once we activate it.

We have territorial disputes with Kenya; they took an area the size of Lebanon (Ilemi triangle) from us when we were preoccupied fighting the North.

I honestly think that we should just continue exporting the oil through the North while diversifying our economy.

If we continue to export less than 300 000 bpd, we should build refineries and sell refined oil products for $3 billion annually and use those funds to invest in our infrastructure.

 

[Based]

Muh Ancient South Sudanese ancestors welcome to SomaliSpot!

My question is, What do South Sudanese think of Somalis? Just curious.

 

[Nilotic]

Muh Ancient South Sudanese ancestors welcome to SomaliSpot!

My question is, What do South Sudanese think of Somalis? Just curious.

Unfortunately we're not fully Nilotic and are just the descendants of your proto-Nilotic ancestors as well; we apparently have additional Niger-Congo admixture that reaches 20% in the more genetically pristine Nilotic groups like the Dinka and Nuer.

I'm not going to lie to you; there is a great deal of Islamophobia in our community due to our wars with the North -- but this seems to be confined to the older generation...

..Millennials and Gen Z don't care about that sort of thing; South Sudanese and Somali youth seem to easily form friendships with each other.

We also have Dinka Muslims on the border with the North, so we'll be more open and less hostile as time goes by and the old generation recedes.

There is a small Somali business community in South Sudan.

Thanks for the welcome.

 

[Hotchick12]

What do you think about the Nubians?

 

[Nilotic]

What do you think about the Nubians?

The Nubians are seen and regarded as innocent by everyone in the region; they are respected by South Sudanese and are respected in Sudan and Egypt for being moral and hospitable.

I like the Nubians.

 

[Leftside]

S.Sudan is now part of the East African Community (EAC). What is your take about your country being part of this bloc? Do you think it holds any benefits now, maybe in terms of trade or otherwise. There is even some talk about this bloc becoming an EU like union with one currency plus free movement of trade and labour. It might even become a political federation in the future.
What's your opinion on this matter?

 

[Nilotic]

S.Sudan is now part of the East African Community (EAC). What is your take about your country being part of this bloc? Do you think it holds any benefits now, maybe in terms of trade or otherwise. There is even some talk about this bloc becoming an EU like union with one currency plus free movement of trade and labour. It might even become a political federation in the future.
What's your opinion on this matter?

Conceptually the EAC is a fantastic idea and could serve as the basis for creating a strong economic union, however, it's going to end up just being a farce -- just like the AU and IGAD.


We are simply not ready for economic integration with any of our neighbours; structural and policy clearances should be made if we our to integrate into a union with Nations that are significantly better off than us and have been independent since the 60s.

I am completely opposed to anything that resembles the EU at this juncture; we can't even manage our National currencies, so a Euro type currency is not a good idea for the region.

The proposal for the free movement of people is premature; this sounds terribly selfish, but I would only accept this arrangement once we control all the strategic and lucrative industries in our own Nation.

In principle I support further African economic integration but I have reservations; and one of the reasons for my reservations is due to the fact that our mis-leaders in Juba squandered 16 years from 2005 till now. We were essentially independent during the Interim Period (2005-2011) and should have achieved far more than we did.


The oil revenue provided us with $20 billion since 2005 and they did absolutely nothing with it; our budget was higher than virtually all our neighbours and we still have nothing to show for it. It's embarrassing.



Our visionary, PHD holding leader (during the North-South war) died (2005) in a suspicious helicopter crash on his way back from Uganda literally just 2 weeks after we signed the peace agreement with the North; he was then replaced by a primary school educated moron -- our current President and we've been catching Ls ever since.

 

[Abdisamad]

He seems legit because it would be too much of a hassle to research the intricate details of the Balkans like that; even esteemed historians from outside would get many things wrong.

He has to be half Somali otherwise what would possess a non-African to come here?

You mean @Molotoff thats my Bosnian blood brother

 

[Asaana]

Some Northerners are under the mistaken impression that the two million people that were taken as slaves by the Afro-Arabs in the 19th century represent the base of our population -- the Nilotics; the victims of that particular slave trade were the 'Fertit' -- a collection of a dozen or so Bantu tribes that were merely peaceful farmers.

The Fertit only have 100, 000 members today as a consequence of the slave raids they endured at the hands of the North; the area was initially suppose to be part of the Central African Republic but the British wrestled it from France and made it part of Sudan.

We (Nilotics) are not peaceful and did not suffer such a grand humiliation. We defeated the Funj kingdom that conquered the Northerners; our lands in Upper Nile State used to belong to the Afro-Arab subjects of the Funj before we took it in the 15th and 16th Centuries.

While it's true that the Nilotics are fierce fighters, the only reason Upper Nile State went to the South was due to Israeli intelligence. Even today in Malakal the elite are Afro-Arab and much of the population is against the secession unlike the rest of Southerners.

As for the Funj, they were culturally Arabized Nilotics, not true Northerners (Nubians and Bejas).

 

[Asaana]

Our visionary, PHD holding leader (during the North-South war) died (2005) in a suspicious helicopter crash on his way back from Uganda literally just 2 weeks after we signed the peace agreement with the North; he was then replaced by a primary school educated moron -- our current President and we've been catching Ls ever since.

He was definitely assassinated. His death screwed over both the North and South.

 

[Nilotic]

While it's true that the Nilotics are fierce fighters, the only reason Upper Nile State went to the South was due to Israeli intelligence. Even today in Malakal the elite are Afro-Arab and much of the population is against the secession unlike the rest of Southerners.

As for the Funj, they were culturally Arabized Nilotics, not true Northerners (Nubians and Bejas).

Ah, a "true Northerner" appears.

I'm not referring to the areas we took in the civil war; I'm talking about land we took from the Afro-Arab subjects of the Funj in the 15th and 16th Centuries when we migrated South from our homelands in the Gezira.

The elite in Malakal are Shilluk and always have been; the Afro-Arabs (the Suleim) are mostly nomads but they do conduct business, however, that doesn't make them "elite".

The likely descendants of the Funj confederation are the Gumuz and the Koman -- and maybe the Maban; these tribes are technically not Nilotic but they represent a related population that resided in the same area that we sprang from. The Funj dominated areas as far as the 3rd Cataract.

Are you suggesting that Sennar and Blue Nile are suddenly not "true Northern Sudanese" areas because it was a hub of Nilotic tribes? That seems pretty arbitrary.

Nilotics (and Nilotic related groups like the Funj) have been in North Sudan since the Mesolithic; Mesolithic Wadi Halfa, site 117, Wadi Tushka and Nabta Playa all point to Nilotic presence. We are not some interlopers from the South -- as some Northerners would like to believe.

It's ironic because the Nubians of Sudan and Egypt are descendants of the Nubae...relatively recent migrants from the Western desert -- Darfur; the Nubae were invited to the Nile Valley by the Romans under Diocletian to serve as a buffer between Rome, the Kasu (Kush) and the Blemyes (Beja).

What makes you more legitimate residents of North Sudan than the Nilotic tribes that descend from Mesolithic groups in Northern Sudan?

 

[Nilotic]

He was definitely assassinated. His death screwed over both the North and South.

The assassination of Garang ruined everything; had Dr. John Garang lived, Sudan would have remained united because he would have won the 2008 elections and a confederacy may have been put into place -- obviating the need for our separation.

 

[Asaana]

Ah, a "true Northerner" appears.

I'm not referring to the areas we took in the civil war; I'm talking about land we took from the Afro-Arab subjects of the Funj in the 15th and 16th Centuries when we migrated South from our homelands in the Gezira.

The elite in Malakal are Shilluk and always have been; the Afro-Arabs (the Suleim) are mostly nomads but they do conduct business, however, that doesn't make them "elite".

The likely descendants of the Funj confederation are the Gumuz and the Koman -- and maybe the Maban; these tribes are technically not Nilotic but they represent a related population that resided in the same area that we sprang from. The Funj dominated areas as far as the 3rd Cataract.

Are you suggesting that Sennar and Blue Nile are suddenly not "true Northern Sudanese" areas because it was a hub of Nilotic tribes? That seems pretty arbitrary.

Nilotics (and Nilotic related groups like the Funj) have been in North Sudan since the Mesolithic; Mesolithic Wadi Halfa, site 117, Wadi Tushka and Nabta Playa all point to Nilotic presence. We are not some interlopers from the South -- as some Northerners would like to believe.

It's ironic because the Nubians of Sudan and Egypt are descendants of the Nubae...relatively recent migrants from the Western desert -- Darfur; the Nubae were invited to the Nile Valley by the Romans under Diocletian to serve as a buffer between Rome, the Kasu (Kush) and the Blemyes (Beja).

What makes you more legitimate residents of North Sudan than the Nilotic tribes that descend from Mesolithic groups in Northern Sudan?

Huh? I think you misunderstood me, I have no idea why you're being so hostile.

When I said "Northerner" I meant those inhabiting the Northern region of Sudan, not the entirety of modern day Sudan itself. So yes, Northerners are the Nubians and the Bejas since they're from the Northern desert. You got really defensive over semantics.

The Funj, Gumuz, or whatever you want to call them are not Northerners. They are from the Southeast of modern day Sudan - which btw, is simply "Sudan", not "North Sudan".

Sennar is Central Sudan and Blue Nile is Southern Sudan. So yes, those aren't "true Northern Sudanese" areas. Nilotic tribes are native to these areas and were pushed South for reasons listed in your previous post. This was well documented, there's even an illustration of a Dinka tribe getting attacked by slave hunters in Rufaa in 1870, which is now an established city in Gezira state.

Majority of the Nubae were enslaved and killed within the past two centuries, thus making the Blemyes and ancient riverine groups the main ancestors of modern day Nubians.

 

[Nilotic]

Huh? I think you misunderstood me, I have no idea why you're being so hostile.

When I said "Northerner" I meant those inhabiting the Northern region of Sudan, not the entirety of modern day Sudan itself. So yes, Northerners are the Nubians and the Bejas since they're from the Northern desert. You got really defensive over semantics.

The Funj, Gumuz, or whatever you want to call them are not Northerners. They are from the Southeast of modern day Sudan - which btw, is simply "Sudan", not "North Sudan".

Sennar is Central Sudan and Blue Nile is Southern Sudan. So yes, those aren't "true Northern Sudanese" areas. Nilotic tribes are native to these areas and were pushed South for reasons listed in your previous post. This was well documented, there's even an illustration of a Dinka tribe getting attacked by slave hunters in Rufaa in 1870, which is now an established city in Gezira state.

Majority of the Nubae were enslaved and killed within the past two centuries, thus making the Blemyes and ancient riverine groups the main ancestors of modern day Nubians.

It's extraordinarily difficult to convey tone over the internet, so please accept my apologies for wording my response in a way that made it appear hostile.

If Northern Sudanese are people that are indigenous to the Northern area of Sudan, then wouldn't the anthropological and genetically verified existence of Nilotics as far North as Wadi Halfa prove that we're indigenous to the Northern areas of Sudan?

I referred to Mesolithic sites in order to demonstrate that we've not always been as far South as the Gezira and Kordofan. Ancient Egyptian tomb paintings clearly show interactions with Nilotic populations.

The Dinka left the Gezira by the 16th Century, so I don't know what tribe is being shown in that painting but I doubt they're Dinka. Could you please direct me to the original source for that painting?

It would be interesting if there really was a small Dinka section (s) that stayed behind as recently as 1870.

How is it that the majority of the Nubae that conquered the riverine populations then got enslaved and killed off while the riverine groups apparently remained 1500 years after being conquered and absorbed?

The Nubae took the region 1700 years ago and imposed their language and culture on all the populations that are now called Nubians; they absorbed them completely -- at least in a linguistic, cultural and identity sense.

The language spoken by the Nubians today is from the Nubae, so how were the Nubae apparently differentiated from the conquered riverine groups and surgically targeted for enslavement and evisceration when the riverine groups no longer existed as distinct Nations or ethnic groups?

The riverine groups lost their Sovereignty, language, culture and identity to the Nubae almost 2000 years ago so I doubt that there was a separate and distinct riverine population just two centuries ago.

The Nubians are the direct product of the Nubae conquering, settling and culturally absorbing all the riverine populations. There are no Nubians without the Nubae.

 

[Asaana]

It's extraordinary difficult to convey tone over the internet so please accept my apologies for wording my response in a way that made it appear hostile.

If Northern Sudanese are people that are indigenous to the Northern area of Sudan, then wouldn't the anthropological and genetically verified existence of Nilotics as far North as Wadi Halfa prove that we're indigenous to the Northern areas of Sudan?

I referred to Mesolithic sites in order to demonstrate that we've not always been as far South as the Gezira and Kordofan. Ancient Egyptian tomb paintings clearly show interactions with Nilotic populations.

The Dinka left the Gezira by the 16th Century, so I don't know what tribe is being shown in that painting but I doubt they're Dinka. Could you please direct me to the original source for that painting?

It would be interesting if there was a small Dinka section that stayed behind.

How is it that the majority of the Nubae that conquered the riverine populations got enslaved and killed off while the riverine groups apparently remained?

The Nubae took the region at the time of the Romans and imposed their language and culture on all the populations that are now called Nubians; they absorbed them completely.

The language spoken by the Nubians today is from the Nubae, so how were the Nubae apparently differentiated from the conquered riverine groups and surgically targeted for enslavement and evisceration when the riverine groups no longer existed as distinct Nations or ethnic groups?

The riverine groups lost their Sovereignty, language, culture and identity to the Nubae so I doubt that there was a separate and distinct riverine population just two centuries ago.

There's a Nilotic minority that claim and inhabit Wadi Halfa, those folks are Northerners. Anyone that has a traceable village/town in the Northern region is a Northerner.

Interactions with Nilotic groups in Ancient Egypt is indeed well documented, i've seen the hieroglyphics. That being said, having a brief presence in the far North thousands of years ago doesn't mean you're entitled to claim it in the modern day (and my previous stanza clarifies this).

As for the source, it's an image from page 345 of the book Die Gartenlaube ("The Garden Arbor"). The Dinka were largely south of Gezira in the 16th century but there were still Dinka villages remaining at the time of the illustration.

Do you have a source for your last three paragraphs? There were many migrants from Western Sudan in Nubia arriving from the roman era all the way to the 19th century. The Mahdi had slave soldiers that were specifically from the Southwestern region (Nuba) and they notoriously died out in the hundreds of thousands both in Sudan and fighting for the British in the great lakes region.

 

[exposedmeat]

welcome @Nilotic, do u think south sudan will ever join north and whats u take on the growing christianity in u community in south sudan is it good thing or bad, u got religion or u atheist

 

[Nilotic]

There's a Nilotic minority that claim and inhabit Wadi Halfa, those folks are Northerners. Anyone that has a traceable village/town in the Northern region is a Northerner.

Interactions with Nilotic groups in Ancient Egypt is indeed well documented, i've seen the hieroglyphics. That being said, having a brief presence in the far North thousands of years ago doesn't mean you're entitled to claim it in the modern day (and my previous stanza clarifies this).

As for the source, it's an image from page 345 of the book Die Gartenlaube ("The Garden Arbor"). The Dinka were largely south of Gezira in the 16th century but there were still Dinka villages remaining at the time of the illustration.

Do you have a source for your last three paragraphs? There were many migrants from Western Sudan in Nubia arriving from the roman era all the way to the 19th century. The Mahdi had slave soldiers that were specifically from the Southwestern region (Nuba) and they notoriously died out in the hundreds of thousands both in Sudan and fighting for the British in the great lakes region.

I think you misunderstood what I was trying to convey. I'm not trying to make modern claims to the lands in the far North; I am saying that we had a presence there from 9000 BC to at least 1,000 BC -- when Nilotics are first depicted on ancient Egyptian murals..


..That's thousands of years and it's anything but brief.

I can't find anything on the "The Garden Arbor" and its a relation to a remnant Dinka section being subject to slave raids in 1870.



I'm going to provide some much needed historical context regarding the Nubians; I'll provide material on their origins in Darfurn and how they found themselves to be on the banks of the Nile in Southern Egypt. The Nubians were called 'Nubae', 'Nobate', 'Noba', 'Nobiin', 'Nuba' and 'Nubian'.


Origins in Darfur:


According to the linguist Robin Thelwall:

We are very confident that Nobiin (and later Dongolawi) came to the Nile from a centre of dispersion in Darfur-Kordofan which they occupied and controlled for perhaps 4000 years. We know that there were Nubian speakers on the Nile at least as early as the 500s CE and probably much earlier.

In the Egyptian Sudan, Budge speaks of these Nobatae or Nuba as "a powerful tribe of nomads who lived in the Western Desert and adds "The Nobatae appear to have come originally from Dar Fur and Kordofan and in Diocletian's time their settlements extended to the Oasis of Kharga ." Again he says "The people who lived in the deserts on the West of the Nile... were known to classical writers as 'Nubae' or 'Nubians', and 'Nobadae' or 'Nobatae' . In Roman times the Nubians consisted of a league of great tribes of the Western Desert."( A History of the Arabs in the Sudan)

The first reference to the Nubae (Nubians) is by Erastothenes in 200 BC. Darfur had its own Nubian languages; one of them (Meidob) is now extinct. It's clear that the Nubians came from this area.


Roman invitation of the Nubians to Southern Egypt:


Procopius of Caesarea (500-565 AD) details the dynamics in Southern Egypt; he details the security threats posed by the Blemmyae and the Nubians. He then outlines the steps taken by Emperor Diocletian:



My evidence concerning the invitation of the Nubians to Southern Egypt by Diocletian.

…] so he persuaded these barbarians [the Nobatae] to move from their own habitations, and to settle along the River Nile […]. For in this way he thought that they would no longer harass the country about Pselchis at least, and that they would possess themselves of the land given them, as being their own, and would probably beat off the Blemmyae and the other barbarians.
And since this pleased the Nobatae, they made the migration immediately, just as Diocletian directed them, and took possession of all the Roman cities and the land on both sides of the River beyond the city of Elephantine.

It's clear that all the riverine populations that lived on the banks of the Nile from Elephantine down to Kush were absorbed by the Nubians -- per the invitation of the Roman Emperor Diocletian.

Introduction of Nubian languages to the Khartoum area:

It is highly likely that the Nubian language was brought to the Khartoum region by the Nuba of Ezana who introduced the Tanqasi culture... Although not all of Rouse's formal criteria for providing a migration have been met, the combine evidence of the Ezana inscription, of archaeology and of linguistics strongly supports a migration in the South which destroyed Meroe and introduced a Nubian language to that part of the Nile Valley. (Trigger, 1965:137)

Nubian contact and relations with the powers of that time:

The parts on the left side of the course of the Nile are inhabited by the Nubae, a large tribe, who, beginning at Meroe, extend as far as the bends of the river, and are not subject to the Ethiopians but are divided into several separate kingdoms (Kirwan 1974: 46). The composition of what these separate kingdoms might be is very difficult to sort out historically and geographically. Generally, it seems the Nubian tribes settled between the kingdom of Meroe in the South and Egypt in the North. The Nubians were perceived as "piratical" maurading tribes disrupting the trade between Egypt and the lucrative Sub-Saharan world represented by the kingdoms of Meroe and Aksum. ( The Encyclopaedia of Eastern Orthodox Christianity, John Anthony)

Nubian infiltration of the Kushite kingdom:


According to D. A. Welsby;

In the sources we have a plethora of names which may refer to a single people, among them Nubae, Nobades, Nobates, Annoubades, Noba, Nouba and Red Noba. The significance of these names is unclear, they may be different names used loosely by our sources, Greek, Roman, Aksumite, Byzantine and Arab, for the same people, refer to sub-groups, or refer to different peoples altogether. Certainly archaeologically we cannot recognise different cultural assemblages to match each name, but we do not have a single culture covering the whole of the area occupied by these peoples. It is these people or peoples who coalesced into the three Nubian kingdoms first attested in the sixth century.

It is assumed that the Nubians gradually infiltrated the Kushite state, with or without the acquiescence of the Kushite rulers, and that, with the weakening of Kushite central authority, they were able to take over the reins of power and eclipse the Kushite ruling class. Another manifestation of this rise to prominence is the sudden appearance on the one hand of their traditional hand-made ceramics in the southern part of the middle Nile Valley, and the demise of the finer Kushite pottery as well as the apparent demise of the Kushite state and religious institutions, Kushite art, architecture, and literacy in the Meroitic language.

A graffito in Greek, carved on the wall of the former Temple of Isis at Philae sometime after 537, reads ‘I, Theodosios, a Nubian’ (Nouba) and provides evidence for the name used by the Nubians to describe their ethnicity.

The Nubians were known to Greek, Roman, Ethiopian and Arab writers as 'Nubae', 'Nobades', 'Nobates', 'Noba' and 'Nuba'. The only groups that are Nubian in the Nuba mountains are the Hill Nubians; their variant of Nubian is spoken in Dilling, Kadaru and other areas around it.

The Arabs must have applied the name 'Nuba' to the other (unrelated) groups that live in the Nuba mountains.

The Nubians of Sudan and Egypt are the direct descendants of the Nubae from Darfur; they were not wiped out or obliterated due to the ravages of the slave trade just two centuries ago.

 

[Apollo]

@Nilotic

Could you perhaps from time to time contribute to the Culture and History section with theories/articles etc on the origins of Nilotes. I haven't done too deep research into it and you seem like a specialist in it.

I read some stuff that it isn't even a real language family, but just a 'left over' group lazy European linguists grouped all non-Niger-Congo and non-Afro-Asiatic Africans in who live above the equator.

However, genetics does show it is a real group.. although there are many many odd outliers/edge cases, especially the Nilo-Saharan speakers in the Western Sahel (Songhai), North Sudanese Nubians, and even many of the ones living on the border area between Ethiopia-Sudan who aren't directly tied to the Anuak-Dinka-Nuer seem a bit unique genetically (often related to Paleo-Omotics - 50-50/75-25 between them and the Anuak-Nuer). The Kunama and Nara also seem very odd to me, some theories out there that they came from East Chad / Darfur and migrated East a millenia or so ago (they got linguistic cousins in East Chad called the Maban grouping) and mixed with Eritreans subsequently. Lastly, many people don't know this but the Mbuti Pygmies are technically Nilotes (linguistically) and obviously have different origins as well. Nilotes are way more complex than people think.

 

[Nilotic]

welcome @Nilotic, do u think south sudan will ever join north and whats u take on the growing christianity in u community in south sudan is it good thing or bad, u got religion or u atheist

I think that the separation is final and we're going to drift further and further apart as time goes by; the benefit of this is that animosity will also subside and doors will be opened for cooperation and coordination between the two halves of Greater Sudan.

I'm pretty indifferent to Christianity as I'm an agnostic; I would like to reduce the influence of Christianity and have it supplanted by philosophy; an emphasis on morals and ethics would be incredibly beneficial.