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46-683: Until the early 1940s, all of the Moro Nuba resided on the tops of mountains in the Nuba Mountains, similar to many other Nuba peoples. Various Nuba ethnic groups , including the Moro, were driven up to higher elevations because of tribal wars , wandering nomads , government slave raids, and attacks from Sudanese forces during the Mahdist War . Specifically, the Moro sought protection in the hills from slave traders. After Sudan came under Anglo-Egyptian rule ,

92-627: A military coup in October 2021. [REDACTED] Media related to Moro Nuba at Wikimedia Commons Nuba peoples The Nuba people are indigenous inhabitants of southern Sudan . The Nuba are made up of 50 various indigenous ethnic groups who inhabit the Nuba Mountains of South Kordofan state in Sudan , encompassing multiple distinct people that speak different languages which belong to at least two unrelated language families . Estimates of

138-481: A syncretic form of Christianity, introduced by British-sponsored missionaries , combining the Christian faith with traditional ritual practices. The Moro are neighbored by various Baggara tribes who also live in the Nuba Mountains, who dominate local trade. As a result, the Moro also identify with Christianity as an ethnic faith to differentiate themselves from their Baggara competitors, who are Muslim. Additionally,

184-404: A disadvantage. The exchange of men or women served as a uniting force between groups. Dual exogamy, in which two groups continually intermarry with each other, is a traditional form of arranging marriages in numerous modern societies and in many societies described in classical literature. It can be matrilineal or patrilineal. It is practiced by some Australian tribes , historically widespread in

230-428: A people had religious respect for the blood of a totemic clan, for the clan totem is a god and is present especially in the blood, a sacred substance. In some forms of Hinduism such as Shaktism , people can only marry outside their gotra which is a traditional group of people who may be distantly related but have been living in the same area or have an ancestral home in the same area. Morgan maintains that exogamy

276-527: A place of refuge, bringing together people of many different tongues and backgrounds who were fleeing oppressive governments and slave traders. The Nuba Mountains mark the southern border of the sands of the desert and the northern limit of good soils washed down by the Nile River. Many Nuba, however, have migrated to the Sudanese capital of Khartoum to escape persecution and the effects of Sudan's civil war. Most of

322-624: A result, the Moro are often forced to move away from their land to work in mechanized agriculture for other parties, in order to generate income. In addition, the Sudanese government has sponsored the immigration of Baggara and Jellaba ethnic groups into indigenous Moro lands, effectively pushing out the Moro from their farming lands. As a response, the Moro organized the Nuba Mountain Political Union , though success has been limited. Modern Moro culture, including religion, has been described as an "accretion" of outside influences, as

368-490: A sarong over their legs and sometimes a cloak tie on the shoulder. Both sexes practice scarification and circumcision for boys and female genital mutilation for girls. Some men shave their heads, older Muslim men wear skull caps and grow beards, women and girls braid their hair in strands and string it with beads. The majority of the Nuba living in the east, west and northern parts of the mountains are Muslims, while those living to

414-535: A written language, meaning that much of their history, especially migration and movement, has been forgotten. Because of its close proximity to the Sudan- South Sudan border, violence between both states in various conflicts, notably the Second Sudanese Civil War , has taken place in the Nuba Mountains, including the hills where the Moro live. The Moro, among other Nuba peoples, have been subject to

460-514: Is the Sudan we dream of. One that respects diversity and enables all Sudanese citizens to practice their faith in a safe and dignified environment." In the Middle Ages , the Nuba Mountains were part of the kingdom of Alodia . The Nuba people reside in one of the most remote and inaccessible places in all of Sudan, the foothills of the Nuba Mountains in central Sudan. At one time the area was considered

506-540: Is viewed as a combination of two related aspects: biological and cultural. Biological exogamy is the marriage of people who are not blood relatives . This is regulated by incest taboos and laws against incest . Cultural exogamy is marrying outside a specific cultural group; the opposite being endogamy , marriage within a social group. Exogamy often results in two individuals that are not closely genetically related marrying each other; that is, outbreeding as opposed to inbreeding . This may benefit offspring as it reduces

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552-452: The Turkic societies , Taï societies ( Ivory Coast ), Eskimo , among Ob-Ugrians and others. In tribal societies, the dual exogamy union lasted for many generations, ultimately uniting the groups initially unrelated by blood or language into a single tribe or nation. Linguistic exogamy is a form of cultural exogamy in which marriage occurs between speakers of different languages. The custom

598-518: The shal is the much larger yard, the tog placed in front. The fence of the tog is made of strong tree branches as high as the roof of the huts. Small livestock like goats and chickens and donkeys are kept in the tog. Each compound has tall conical granaries called durs which stand on one side of the tog . At the back of the compound is a small yard where maize and vegetables like pumpkin, beans and peanuts are grown. The Nuba people speak various languages not closely related to each other. Most of

644-556: The Moro adjust to the modern world while embracing traditional practices. Additionally, the Moro do not refer to themselves as the Moro, as they have no common tribal name, only being referred to as the Moro by neighboring ethnic groups. In between 1929-1940, colonial administration enforced a policy dubbed the Nuba Policy , which attempted to preserve the indigenous cultures of the Nuba peoples and additionally prevent their Arabization . To do so, they grouped various Nuba peoples, including

690-509: The Moro began to migrate downwards into the surrounding plains of the Nuba Hills. A strong government under Condominium rule meant that intertribal wars were much more infrequent, and also ceasing previous government attacks on Nuba peoples. The Moro also migrated downwards because of population growth and a lack of farmable land. Additionally, a yellow fever epidemic in 1940 caused the Moro to burn their farms in attempts to rid their villages of

736-594: The Moro had no system of tribal leadership. However, colonial powers implemented a system of elected meks , who had assistance from junior chiefs from surrounding hills. The Moro are split into five specific age groups, which are ngere (ages 1–15), epidi (ages 15–22), udoming (ages 23–30), maji (old adults, and utari (elders). Epidi commonly engage in stickfighting as a form of entertainment and friendly competition, and they are encouraged to do so. Each age group also has specialized responsibilities, such as ngere helping with household tasks and udoming leaving

782-544: The Moro maintain this strong sense of ethnic identity by disallowing intermarriage between other ethnic groups, and the integration of non-Moro into their society. Some scholars suggest this is how the Moro have resisted Islamization in the Nuba mountains, which has affected other neighboring ethnic groups. Society is organized into patrilineal clans, with several clans occupying each hill. Individual clans also have specialized roles, including performing religious ceremonies and leading raiding parties. Before Condominium rule,

828-462: The Moro, and began attracting working-age males into mechanized agriculture from outside the hills. The Moro do not have ownership over their land, despite being indigenous to it. A series of land registration acts starting in 1905 and culminating with the 1970 Unregistered Land Act , decreed that any land not registered to private owners was government property, including land in the Nuba Mountains and other previously excluded indigenous lands. As

874-406: The Moro, into provinces governed by singular meks , or governing chiefs. Because of their close proximity, it was necessary for ethnic groups to differentiate from one another to preserve their cultures, which strengthened their ethnic identity salience and widened divisions between neighboring ethnic groups. For example, despite Sudan being a majority Muslim country, most Moro people practice

920-405: The Nuba people is their passion for athletic competition, particularly traditional wrestling . The strongest young men of a community compete with athletes from other villages for the chance to promote their personal and their village's pride and strength. In some villages, older men participate in club- or spear-fighting contests. The Nubas’ passion for physical excellence is also displayed through

966-461: The Nuba people speak one of the many languages in the geographic Kordofanian languages group of the Nuba Mountains . This language group is primarily in the major Niger–Congo language family . Several Nuba languages are in the Nilo-Saharan language family . Over one hundred languages are spoken in the area and are considered Nuba languages, although many of the Nuba also speak Sudanese Arabic ,

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1012-504: The Nuba peoples was renewed again in the region in 2011 in South Kordofan and Blue Nile . Exogamy Exogamy is the social norm of mating or marrying outside one's social group . The group defines the scope and extent of exogamy, and the rules and enforcement mechanisms that ensure its continuity. One form of exogamy is dual exogamy , in which two groups continually intermarry with each other. In social science , exogamy

1058-609: The Nuba population vary widely; the Sudanese government estimated that they numbered 2.07 million in 2003. The term Nuba should not be confused with the Nubians , an unrelated ethnic group speaking the Nubian languages living in northern Sudan and southern Egypt, although the Hill Nubians , who live in the Nuba Mountains, are also considered part of the Nubian people. The Nuba people reside in

1104-591: The Popular Defense Force (PDF), on several Nuba villages were meant to be in retaliation for this drop in support, which was seen as signaling increased support of the SPLA . The PDF attacks were particularly violent, and have been cited as examples of crimes against humanity that took place during the Second Sudanese Civil War During the military dictatorship of Omar al-Bashir , Nuba people in

1150-625: The base camp located in Kauda . At that time, al-Hillu was the governor of the Nuba Mountains. During the course of the following months, relief supplies from the UN were airdropped to stem the starvation of many in the mountains. The ceasefire in Nuba Mountains was the foundation for the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) signed in January 2005. This fragile peace remains in force, but infighting in

1196-704: The capital Khartoum were repeatedly attacked and some even killed by pro-government students and agents of the National Intelligence and Security Service. As a result of discrimination by governments and parts of the Sudanese society, Nuba people have been largely excluded from the official national Sudanese identity, and hardly ever been represented in the government. Following the Nuba Cultural Heritage Festival in 2011 in Omdurman, Nuba residents of Greater Khartoum have been celebrating Nuba culture in

1242-538: The capital. Part of these celebrations has been the selection of educated, young Nuba women as Beauty Queens of the Nuba Mountains. In 2014, Natalina Yacoub , at the time a student at Ahfad University for Women , was chosen as Nuba Beauty Queen and subsequently gave the first TEDx talk of a Nuba person. Being a member of the Christian minority in Sudan , she presented a Christmas gift on 24 December 2019 to then-Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok , who subsequently tweeted: "This

1288-522: The common language of Sudan. The Nuba people are primarily farmers, as well as herders who keep cattle, chickens, and other domestic animals. They often maintain three different farms: a garden near their homes where vegetables needing constant attention, such as onions, peppers and beans, are grown; fields further up the hills where quick growing crops such as red millet can be cultivated without irrigation; and farms farther away, where white millet and other crops are planted. A distinctive characteristic of

1334-866: The crossfire of intense violence between both forces, and have been targeted by Sudanese militias for their support or association with the Sudan People's Liberation Movement and Army ( SPLM/A ). The 1989 Popular Defense Forces Act , which allowed militias to act as paramilitary forces on behalf of the Sudanese government, was particularly devastating for Moro people as ethnic militias like the Baggara were more inclined to violence against differing ethnic groups. In addition, displaced Nuba peoples have been relocated into "peace camps", where they are used as cheap labor for mechanized agriculture. Large populations of displaced Moro have also fled to Omdurman , South Sudan , and Egypt . Various human rights concerns have been raised over

1380-413: The defect. Outbreeding favours the condition of heterozygosity , that is having two nonidentical copies of a given gene. J. F. McLennan holds that exogamy was due originally to a scarcity of women among small bands. Men were obliged to seek wives from other groups, including marriage by capture , and exogamy developed as a cultural custom. Émile Durkheim derives exogamy from totemism . He said that

1426-474: The disease, which in turn destroyed their farmland and forced them to migrate downward. Down-migration of the Moro into surrounding plains allowed for them to engage in agriculture , especially cotton which had developed into a cash crop of Sudan. They also grow maize , sorghum , groundnuts , gourds , okra , horse beans , and sesame , all of which are indigenous to them. Additionally, down-migration resulted in increased interaction between various clans of

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1472-418: The foothills of the Nuba Mountains. Villages consist of family compounds. A family compound consists of a rectangular compound enclosing two round mud huts thatched with sorghum stalks facing each other called a shal . The shal is fenced with wooden posts interwoven with straw. Two benches run down the each side of the shal with a fire in the middle where families will tell stories and oral traditions. Around

1518-654: The hills. Often the villages do not have chiefs, but are instead organized into clans or extended family groups with village authority left in the hands of clan elders. After some earlier incursions by the SPLA, the Second Sudanese Civil War started full scale in the Nuba Mountains when the Volcano Battalion of the SPLA under the command of the Nuba Yousif Kuwa Mekki and Abdel Aziz Adam al-Hillu entered

1564-507: The mountains and began to recruit Nuba volunteers and send them to SPLA training facilities in Ethiopia. The volunteers walked to Ethiopia and back and many of them perished on the way. During the war, the SPLA generally held the mountains, while the Sudanese Army held the towns and fertile lands at the feet of the mountains, but was generally unable to dislodge the SPLA, even though the latter

1610-437: The origin of exogamy. Edvard Westermarck said an aversion to marriage between blood relatives or near kin emerged with a parental deterrence of incest . From a genetic point of view, aversion to breeding with close relatives results in fewer congenital diseases. If one person has a faulty gene, breeding outside his group increases the chances that his partner will have another functional type gene and their child may not suffer

1656-536: The plains to work in mechanized agriculture. The transition of age groups is often accompanied by ceremony closely related to agriculture. The Moro Nuba speak the Moro language of the Kordofanian languages group, in the major Niger–Congo language family. Additionally, Moro is structurally similar to Bantu languages, despite not sharing any cognates. It follows a subject-verb-object word order . The Moro people do not have

1702-403: The rest of the 1,000,000 Nuba people live in villages and towns of between 1,000 and 50,000 inhabitants in areas in and surrounding the Nuba mountains. Nuba villages are often built where valleys run from the hills out on to the surrounding plains, because water is easier to find at such points and wells can be used all year long. There is no political unity among the various Nuba groups who live on

1748-478: The risk of "neonatal and postneonatal mortality." In French populations, the children of first cousins develop cystinosis at a greater rate than the general population. Cultural exogamy is the custom of marrying outside a specified group of people to which a person belongs. Thus, persons may be expected to marry outside their totem clan(s) or other groups, in addition to outside closer blood relatives. Researchers have proposed different theories to account for

1794-419: The risk of the offspring inheriting two copies of a defective gene. Nancy Wilmsen Thornhill states that the drive in humans to not reproduce or be attracted to one's immediate family is evolutionarily adaptive, as it reduces the risk of children having genetic defects caused by inbreeding, as a result of inheriting two copies of a deleterious recessive gene. In one Old Order Amish society, inbreeding increases

1840-600: The rituals (such as rain stones for the rain magic), and some also undergo what they recognize as spiritual possession. In the 1986 elections, the National Umma Party lost several seats to the Nuba Mountains General Union and to the Sudan National Party, due to the reduced level of support from the Nuba Mountains region. There is reason to believe that attacks by the government-supported militia,

1886-422: The south are either Christians or practice traditional animistic religions. In those areas of the Nuba mountains where Islam has not deeply penetrated, ritual specialists and priests hold as much control as the clan elders, for it is they who are responsible for rain control, keeping the peace, and rituals to ensure successful crops. Many are guardians of the shrines where items are kept to insure positive outcomes of

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1932-578: The south, plus the Government of Sudan involvement in Darfur have resulted in issues which may break the peace agreement. Southern Sudan voted to secede from Sudan in the 2011 South Sudanese independence referendum . This provision was agreed to in the CPA. This resaulted in the formation of a new country, South Sudan , from the southern portion of Sudan. However, conflict between northern and southern forces, and against

1978-506: The unprovoked attacks on Nuba peoples, including the Moro. Attacks on the Nuba sponsored by the Sudanese government have been touted as genocide -by-attrition, as an intentional erasure of these peoples. The Sudanese government has also been accused of the ethnocide of the Moro, who claim indigenity to the Nuba Mountains. Such targeted violence continues to happen today, perpetrated by Sudan's Rapid Support Forces (RSF) who operate under General Abdel Fatteh al-Burhan , who took power through

2024-440: The young men's vanity—they often spend hours painting their bodies with complex patterns and decorations. This vanity reflects the basic Nuba belief in the power and importance of strength and beauty. The primary religion of many Nuba people is Islam , with some Christians , and traditional shamanistic beliefs also prevailing. Muslim Men wear a sarong and occasionally a skull cap. Older women and young women wear beads and wrap

2070-703: Was introduced to prevent marriage between blood relations, especially between brother and sister, which had been common in an earlier state of promiscuity. Frazer says that exogamy was begun to maintain the survival of family groups, especially when single families became larger political groups. Claude Lévi-Strauss introduced the "Alliance Theory" of exogamy, that is, that small groups must force their members to marry outside so as to build alliances with other groups. According to this theory, groups that engaged in exogamy would flourish, while those that did not would all die, either literally or because they lacked sufficient ties for cultural and economic exchange, leaving them at

2116-452: Was usually undersupplied. The Governments of Sudan under Sadiq al-Mahdi and Omar al-Bashir also armed militias of Baggara Arabs to fight the Nuba and transferred many Nuba forcibly to camps. In early 2002, the Government and the SPLA agreed on an internationally supervised ceasefire. International observers and advisors were quickly dispatched to Kadugli and several deployed into the mountains to co-located with SPLA command elements, with

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