النوبة الجدد: أختلافهم الثقافي - الموّالات الثقافية والشعوذة والسحر ونزع الزوجات عنوة

Quote: In the last century, the Nuba were held captive to superstition and witchcraft, and they lived in constant fear of the evil spirits. Superstitions exist concerning fatal diseases, which will attack those who cross the frontiers of diacritical limitations. Therefore, ‘it would seem probable, however, that the Tira mother today may carry her axe of iron as a prophylactic, consciously or unconsciously, against the demons of puerperal fever or deficient lactation.’63 During the season of the year called ‘Ramaicha’, each generation of men over five days beat the younger generation. This ritual was believed to keep the spirits happy and so ensure good crops. At another time of the year, men used to thrash any women, except for those three or more months pregnant, so the spirits would bless them with many children. These practices were held among the Moro.64 Some of Nuba customs which existed among villages all around Heiban Mountain was the sacrificial killing of a goat and the blood of the slaughtered animals was smeared above the doorways of huts. And that a particular and familiar friend could not be called by his proper name, but only ‘Aurika’. Similarly, brother-in-law should not be called by his proper name; he must be called ‘Kwair’. With regard to father-in-law, mother-in-law, son-in-law and daughter-inlaw, the term ‘Ngwuma’ for all these ‘in-laws’ relationships is always used, and never the proper name. Once upon a time, there existed some food taboos in which the people believed that by eating some of the forbidden articles, they would certainly become lepers. Another custom which once existed among a certain section of the Nuba, and one of the many reasons why the population did not increase as rapidly as it should, was that of burying infants with their dead mothers. In some cases, the father could resist the custom, and the child was given a chance of life. But if the father of an infant were to die, the mother would keep the child inside the hut for two months for fear that the spirit of the father might want to take the child. If the child did not yet learn to walk after a considerable period of time, the native practice was to seat the infant on a flat rock; and, for a company, he would be given some large black ants. The infant would quickly learn to use his organs of propulsion.65 This conjectures the relationship between fear and response, the instant reaction of the infant to walk is the result of the casual effect of fear. One of the Nuba’s ancient custom which the Condominium Government was to deal with was the lynch law administered by the mob against the presumed ‘rain-stopper’. This tradition was widely known among all Nuba tribes. For example, the Tira tribesmen killed one about 1914, and all the Government had done was to take one or two of the offenders and put them into the army. They had killed another one in the 1920s, forcibly restraining two Government police while they did so, and the Government had made them pay a number of cows as blood money. These alleged ‘rain-stoppers’ were beaten to death with blows on the body. Using sticks, the mobs avoided striking the head believing that anyone doing so was liable to be the victim of the next thunderbolt. The authorities had to put up with this issue through the question that ‘when a man commits an act which he firmly believes will have a certain effect, knowing that effect to be anti-social, and that effect comes to pass, while a sceptical twentieth century Government declines to agree with him that the effect was the result of his act, has he committed a tort, a felony or nothing at all؟ .