Nuba is a generic name for the group of amalgamated peoples who inhabit the Nuba Mountains of South Kordofan state, in Sudan. Although the term is used to describe them as if they composed a single group, the Nuba are multiple distinct peoples and speak different languages. Estimates of the Nuba population vary widely; the Sudanese government estimated that they numbered 3.7 million. The Nuba people are one of the African people with the most blackest phenotype and originators of wrestling game in the world.
Nuba woman and her child from Nuba mountain, South Sudan
The main Nuba Tribes are:
Moro, Ottoro, Heiban, Leira, Koalib, Shawai, Tira, Miri, Acheron, Fungor, Kau, Nyaro, Lukha, Masakin, Kuku Lumun, Tacho, Turuna, Lafofa, Kadugli, Talodi, Tegali, Tulushi, Keiga, Kanga, Katcha, Dilling,Nymang, Tima, Katla, Korongo, Tumtum,Temin, Um Danab, Lugori, Sabori, Tillo, Shatt, Affiti, Kaderu, Julud, Wali, Karko, Hugeirat, Dalokah, Daju,Ghulfan, Turug,Tingal, Kajaja,Dair,Chioro, Rashad, Tagoi, Tumali,Tumma, and Moreb.
Nuba tribe man
Some of the tribes mentioned above are big and compromise within themselves several smaller subgroups. Keiga, Tira,Ghulfan, Korongo are the best examples for such complexity.
Nuba warriors holding spear.oskarlewis
Geography and Population
The geography of the region is central to its history. The Nuba hills themselves rise sharply from the plains, sometimes in long ranges, sometimes as isolated massifs or single crags. They rise some 500-1000 metres from the surrounding plains. The mountains are rocky, with cultivable hillslopes and valleys. Though they dominate the landscape, the area covered by the hills themselves is less than a third of the total area of the Nuba Mountains; the remainder of the land is extensive clay plains, some forested, some farmed. It is some of the most fertile land in Sudan—a fact that is both a blessing and a curse to the Nuba. While drought-induced famine is almost unknown in the Nuba Mountains, the fertile soils have also attracted the attention of
outsiders.
The total number of Nuba is not known. The 1955/6 census was the only systematic attempt to enumerate Sudan's different ethnic groups, and found 572,935 Nuba, 61% of the population of South Kordofan. But by that stage there was already large-scale labour migration, so at least another five per cent must be added to the figure. On the basis of subsequent censuses and population growth statistics, it can be estimated that by the time the war intensified in 1989, the Nuba population was more than 1.3 million, plus migrants.
Since then, the number in the Nuba Mountains has probably decreased, due to deaths, fewer births, and mass outmigration to Khartoum. There has also been massive population movement within the Nuba Mountains, with hundreds of thousands forcibly displaced to government towns and "peace camps", and a large number living as internal refugees in the areas secured by the SPLA. Currently, the best estimate for the population under the administration of the SPLA is about 200,000 people; those under government control number about one million
Nuba people
Language
The Nuba Mountains area is a “beautiful mosaic” of languages and dialects, which vary considerably according to the different ethnic groups, tribes and zones. Most of the Nuba peoples speak one of the many languages in the geographic Kordofanian languages group of the Nuba Mountains. This language group is in the major Niger–Congo languages family. Several Nuba languages are in the Nilo-Saharan languages family.
The Nuba peoples possess extraordinarily rich and varied cultures and traditions. Sometimes it is said that they live on "ninety-nine hills". A measure of the variety of Nuba cultures can be obtained by looking at the linguistic variety, as summarised by an early anthropologist of the Nuba, Siegfried Nadel:
It has been said that there are as many Nuba languages as there are
hills. This is but a slight exaggeration. Students of the Nuba
languages have reduced this bewildering complexity to certain
comprehensive categories.."
Nuba warrior
More recently, the noted linguist of the Nuba, Roland Stevenson, classified more than fifty Nuba languages and dialect clusters into ten separate groups. In 1963 Joseph Greenberg added them to the Niger–Congo family, creating his Niger–Kordofanian proposal. The Kordofanian languages have not been shown to be more distantly related than other branches of Niger–Congo, however, nor have they been shown to constitute a valid group. Today the Kadu family is excluded, and the others usually included in Niger–Congo proper.
Roger Blench notes that the Talodi and Heiban families have the noun-class systems characteristic of the Atlantic–Congo core of Niger–Congo, but that the two Katla languages have no trace of ever having had such a system, whereas the Kadu languages and some of the Rashad languages appear to have acquired noun classes as part of a Sprachbund rather than having inherited them. He concludes that Talodi and Heiban are core Niger–Congo whereas Katla and Rashad form a peripheral branch along the lines of Mande.
There is thus more linguistic diversity within the Nuba Mountains than the entire rest of Sudan, and indeed as much diversity as the whole of Africa south of the Equator. To give one illustration: the Katla language is linguistically closer to Shona and Ndebele than it is to the Nyima language, whose speakers live on the next range of hills. (Nyima belongs to the Nilo-Saharan language group, along with Dinka, Acholi and others, whereas Katla, like the majority of Nuba languages, is in the Niger-Kordofanian group, which includes Bantu languages.)
Over one hundred languages are spoken in the area and are considered Nuba languages, although many of the Nuba also speak Sudanese Arabic, the official language of Sudan.
Below is Roland Stevenson`s classification of Nuba languages;
A- Languages:
Heiban, Laro, Tira, Talodi, El Liri, Miri, Kadugli, Katcha, Korongo, Nymang, Affitti, Temin, Keiga Jirru, Katla, Tima, Daju, koalib.
B- Dialects and dialect clusters:
Moro, Shawai, Fungur, Kau, Nyaro, Werni, Lukah, Masakin, Acheron, Kuku Lumun, Tacho, Lafofa, Tegali, Rashad, Tingal, Kajaja, Tagoi, Yumale, Moreb, Tulushi, Keiga,Kanga, Tumma, Tumtum, Kamdang, Turug, Abu sinun, Chiruro, Liguri, Sabori, Tillow, Daloka, Shatt, Dair, Kadaro,Gulfan, El Hugeirat,Dilling, Karko, wali.
Talodi–Heiban
The Heiban languages, also called Koalib or Koalib–Moro, and the Talodi languages, also called Talodi–Masakin, are closely related.
Lafofa
Lafofa (Tegem) was for a time classified with Talodi, but appears to be a separate branch of Niger–Congo.
Rashad
The number of Rashad languages, also called Tegali–Tagoi, varies among descriptions, from two (Williamson & Blench 2000), three (Ethnologue), to eight (Blench ms). Tagoi has a noun-class system like the Atlantic–Congo languages—apparently borrowed,—while Tegali does not.
Katla languages
The two Katla languages have no trace of ever having had a Niger–Congo-type noun-class system.
Kadu languages
Since Schadeberg 1981c, the "Tumtum" or Kadu branch is now widely seen as Nilo-Saharan. However, the evidence is slight, and a conservative classification would treat it as an independent family.
History
The Nuba Hills or South Kordufan is a part of the greater Kordufan region and shares its specific history as a region, together with the Sudanese history as whole. Due to the insignificance of the area for the historians in writing its history relied mostly on the ancient manuscripts and documents of the ancient neighbouring kingdoms of Sinnar and Darfur, together with the oral traditions of the natives of Kordufan(2-Kordufan and the region to the west of the Nile, London 1912, p. 75), on the other hand, the specific history Nuba people is linked necessarily to that of the ancient Nubian Christian Kingdoms of North Sudan.
The most probable hypothesis held on by most researches, is that which considers Nuba “ancestors” to be the “original inhabitants” or the remnants of indigenous populations that once lived of Kurdufan region from the earliest epochs of history, backed by the fact that the name “Kordufan” itself is believed to be of Nubian derivative related to the two terms of “Kuldo”, which means “man” and “fan” which means country.
The Nuba as a people have had their identity defined by outsiders. They are themselves a cluster of more than fifty different ethnic groups, thrown together by a common experience of oppression and discrimination by outsiders, notably the ruling elite of Sudan.
http://kwekudee-tripdownmemorylane.blogspot.ca/2013/08/nuba-people-africas-ancient-people-of.html
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