The Cow and the Thing Called "What": Dinka Cultural Perspectives on Wealth and Poverty.

• Author: Deng, Francis M.

God asked man, "Which one shall I give you, Black Man; there is the Cow and the thing called `What,' which of the two would you like?" The man said, "I do not want `What.'" God said, "But `What' is better than the Cow!" The man said, "No." Then God said, "If you like the Cow, you had better taste its milk before you choose it finally." The man squeezed some milk into his hand, tasted it, and said, "Let us have the milk and never see `What.'"(*)

While certain basic indicators of affluence or poverty are globally accepted, whether individuals or groups perceive themselves as rich or poor may not always be a matter of objective determination. Subjective factors attributable to culture may play a vital role in the way people view themselves in terms of wealth and poverty. Building largely on oral literature from the Dinka in southern Sudan, this paper aims to explore the gap between objective poverty and the subjective perception of wealth.

From a policy standpoint, there are both positive and negative implications in the way people are classified or perceive themselves. To be labeled poor is to establish a case for corrective measures toward poverty alleviation, which is positive, but it could also breed apathy, self-pity and dependency. A positive self-perception might breed complacency; which would be negative, but it could also enhance the sense of worth as a resource for self-reliance.

GLOBAL PERCEPTION OF POVERTY

Although it is widely acknowledged that measuring poverty is complex, a commonly used measure is income or consumption among individuals or households. It is also considered relevant to take into account such social indicators as life expectancy, infant mortality and school enrollment.(1) There is a comparative dimension to the determination of poverty by both horizontal and vertical parameters. Horizontal parameters relate to comparisons at the same level of development, while vertical parameters relate to stratified levels of development. Countries or regions may be assessed in relation to others at the same level of development and on a scale of development progression. For example, while the poverty line of U.S.$1 a day is used to make international comparisons of consumption-based poverty, poverty lines are frequently closer to about U.S.$2 dollars a day for middle-income countries.

Global perspectives on poverty imply both integration into the comparative framework and marginalization or exclusion within that framework, which then closely corresponds to a state of poverty as relative deprivation. People are said to be relatively deprived

if they cannot obtain, at all or sufficiently, the conditions of life--that is, the diets, standards and services--which allow them to play the roles, participate in the relationships and follow the customary behavior which is expected of them by virtue of their membership of society. If they lack or are denied resources to obtain access to these conditions of life and so fulfill membership of society they may be said to be in poverty.(2) In the global comparative framework, and by virtually all indicators, the people in sub-Saharan Africa are among the poorest in the world, and the southern Sudanese among the poorest of the poor. Unlike most of Africa, however, the South is less integrated into the global community, being among the least touched by the forces and benefits of modernity. Their marginalization in the modern world is both the result of their cultural outlook and the legacy of British colonial administration. Government policy in southern Sudan was "to build up a series of self-contained racial or tribal units with structure and organization based upon the indigenous customs, traditional usage and beliefs."(3) Part of the motivation for the policy was fear of southern nationalism as the people were introduced to rapid education and modernity.(4) The Nilotics, especially the Dinka and the Nuer, fiercely resisted British rule for two decades. The 1924 rebellion against the British was led by young officers of Dinka background in the Egyptian army. Whatever the motivation, the British administration closed off the South and permitted only the Christian missionaries to pass into southern territory in order to exercise a pacifying influence among the natives. This, combined with Nilotic conservatism, isolated them from modern development.

In order to appreciate Dinka self-perception, their world view and cross-cultural perspectives on their material status, it is necessary to understand the indigenous cultural framework of their values, institutions and patterns of behavior.

THE DINKA AND THEIR VALUES

The Dinka are the largest ethnic group in the Sudan, numbering several million in a country of around 20 million people and several hundred tribes. Their culture is dominated by cattle (and to a lesser extent by sheep and goats), to which they attach a social and moral significance far beyond their economic value. Although there are no reliable statistics, the Dinka are probably among the wealthiest in cattle on the African continent. The average bridewealth (i.e., what a man pays in marriage) is around 50 cows, while daughters of prominent families are sometimes married with over 100 cows. Bloodwealth (i.e., compensation paid for homicide) is normally estimated to be the equivalent of the average bridewealth as it is intended to be used for obtaining a wife in begetting children to the name of the deceased, or, in the case of a female, to compensate for the loss of potential bridewealth or reproductivity.

Although the Dinka are mainly known to the outside world as devoted owners of cattle, they are also cultivators.(5) As important as cattle are to them, land has an even greater intrinsic value to the Dinka, not only because they depend on it for a wide variety of reasons, including farming, gathering and grazing, but also because it is associated with the ancestors. A Dinka will swear on the land to establish his truthfulness, symbolizing his submission to the judgment of his ancestors. Before drinking or eating, especially in a new setting, one must make an offering to the ancestors by leaving portions on the ground. And before adults can share in the consumption of new crops, festive offerings must first be made to the ancestors. These rituals, which are associated with the value of ancestral land, have a bearing on the rules favoring perpetuity in traditional land tenure.

On balance, however, the Dinka derive their distinctive socioeconomic identity, cultural values and institutions from their preoccupation with cattle. Through the payment of bridewealth, cattle provide the foundation for the family and the continuation of the lineage, as these lines from an ox song indicate:

Tell the family of Atong If they should cease to have cattle They will be extinct.(6) The overriding goal of every Dinka is to marry and produce children, especially sons, "to keep the head upright" after death. The Dinka and their ethnic kindred, the Nuer, are considered "by far the most religious peoples in the Sudan."(7) But their religion does not promise a heaven to come, and although they believe in some form of life hereafter, death for them is an end from which the only salvation is continuity through posterity What the Dinka fear the most is not death itself, but dying without male progeny, in whom the survival of their individual identities, their source of immortality, is vested. Relatives of a man who dies unmarried assume a moral obligation to marry a woman for him, to live with one of them and beget children to his name. Equally, a man who dies leaving behind a widow of childbearing age bestows a moral obligation on his kinsmen to have one of them cohabit with her to continue bearing children in his name. While in Western law a dead person cannot be defamed, among the Dinka it is a more serious offense to insult or otherwise defame a dead person. It is by respecting the dead that their identity and influence can continue through living memory

To be sustained after death, respect--a highly esteemed value in Dinka society--must begin in this life. Respect for others is expressed by the word atheek, which has various strands of meaning, stemming from the same root. One strand might be called "good manners," which emphasizes self-control and non-aggression.(8) This sense is closest to the English word "respect." The second range of meaning might be summed up as "avoidance." Avoidance between relatives-in-law and between senior son and father are examples. In this sense, atheek may apply to situations where the English word "respect" does not. The Dinka conceive of respect in this sense as embodying both voluntary deference and that which is required by the relationship between the parties. It is significant, for instance, that ryoc, a verb which means "to fear," is also used to denote "respect." It is difficult to distinguish voluntary respect from mandatory respect, but in certain cases, especially those of avoidance, the evidence is clear. For instance, "respecting" or "avoiding" a menstruating woman is directly connected with fear of spiritual contamination. The same is true of "respecting" clan divinities and emblems. Killing them or being present when acts of violence are committed against them is considered spiritually very dangerous. Respecting a powerful foe out of fear falls into this category

Seeing respect as both voluntary and mandatory explains the stratified shaping and sharing of respect and its divine and secular manifestations. It is the right of the dead, whose life is perpetuated through younger generations, to be shown respect, for only thus can their participation among the living be adequately immortalized. The giving of respect is a condition for receiving it. If a man shows no respect to people who owe him greater respect, he would be shown only mandatory respect, if any.

Since the values of continued identity and influence...