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The Nuer Concept of "Thek" and the Meaning of Sin: Explanation, Translation, and Social
Structure
Author(s): T. O. Beidelman
Source: History of Religions, Vol. 21, No. 2 (Nov., 1981), pp. 126-155
Published by: The University of Chicago Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1062221
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T.O.Beidelman
THE NUER
CONCEPT
OF THEK
AND THE
MEANING
OF SIN:
EXPLANATION,
AND
TRANSLATION,
STRUCTURE1
SOCIAL
But let the frame of things disjoint,
Both the worlds suffer...
[Shakespeare, Macbeth, 3.2.16]
The purpose of this essay is threefold: (1) at the simplest level
to examine a key term in the thought of an African people, the
Nuer, a society of interest to anthropologists and others because through it Evans-Pritchard presented seminal ideas about
understanding alien societies; (2) to explain an exotic concept
while indicating the difficulties inherent in the translation of
such notions into terms meaningful to us;2 (3) to touch upon
11 began considering the meaning of thek over a decade ago; however, this
paper was written for a conference on phenomenology and the social sciences
sponsored by Professor Paul Secord and held at the University of Houston in
December 1979. I should like to thank Dr. Jon Anderson, Dr. W. Arens, Dr.
Karen Blu, Sandra Cohn, Dr. Gillian Feeley-Harnik, Dr. Peter Huber, Dr. Ivan
Karp, Lisa Lenz, Professor John Middleton, and Professor Rodney Needham
for reading drafts of this.
2 Cf. T.
O. Beidelman, "The Moral Imagination of the Kaguru," American
Ethnologist 7 (1980): 27-42 (hereafter cited as "Moral Imagination").
? 1981 by The University of Chicago. 0018-2710/82/2102-0002$1.00
History of Religions
127
what is meant by explanation in cultural anthropology. These
are difficult tasks, and I doubt that readers will gain a clearer
idea of how I advocate going about them by an extensive
discussion of methodology per se. Instead, I suggest indirectly
what useful anthropological explanation may be by expounding
a deeper, implicit meaning to Nuer concepts. Such an exposition
suggests principles of belief and feeling which the Nuer hold
about a wide range of persons, beings, things, and acts which
Evans-Pritchard himself declined to join together by any unifying theme other than the fact that the Nuer avoid all such
phenomena. In doing this, I raise issues not explicitly discussed
by Nuer themselves. That the Nuer do not do so need not mean
that deeper meanings do not exist, but rather that these are
so engrained that the Nuer take them for granted as the only
way the world would be. Such analysis resembles methods
required by linguists and philosophers in determining a metalanguage-methods about, yet beyond, the language analyzed.3
If I present such an interpretation correctly, it will be to the
extent that I perform a two-way translation, opening my mind
to a Nuer perspective and finding suitable parallels in Western
experience. For anthropologists, translation and explanation
are indissolubly linked to ethnographic investigation.4
Nuer Religion5 and the work of Evans-Pritchard in general
hold a special place in the study of religions of preliterate
peoples. In this, as in his earlier work among the Azande,
Evans-Pritchard considers an exotic system of thought in
terms which convey a sense of seriousness, dignity, and universal
relevance which is absent from most works of his predecessors
who examined belief systems of supposed savages. EvansPritchard's works on the Nuer remain high achievements in
ethnography, but not beyond criticism. Precisely because of
their richness of detail and insight, they provide especially
useful vehicles by which we may examine some of the hardest
problems in anthropological explanation.
Like his earlier study, The Nuer,6 Nuer Religion stresses
3Roman Jakobson, "Two Aspects of Language and Two Types of Aphasic
Disturbance," in Fundamentals of Language by Roman Jakobson and M. Halle
(The Hague: Mouton, 1956), p. 81 (hereafter cited as "Two Aspects").
4 Cf.
Rodney Needham, Belief, Language and Experience (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1972), pp. 152-55, 158-69 (hereafter cited as Belief); cf. Malcolm Crick,
Explorations in Language and Meaning (London: Malaby Press, 1976).
5 E. E. Evans-Pritchard,
Nuer Religion (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1956)
(hereafter cited as Religion).
6 E. E. Evans-Pritchard, The Nuer (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1956) (hereafter
cited as Nuer).
128
Nuer Thek and the Meaning of Sin
ideas and feelings attached to words and strives to place these
within a broader structure. This is both the strength and
weakness of his approach.7 Dumont has argued that The Nuer
is an attack on the functionalism of Evans-Pritchard's predecessors, being, perhaps, the first structuralist analysis.8 Dumont means that the lineaments of Nuer society, its configurations of social groups, beliefs, economic values and modes of
life, are of one piece and are best understood in terms of
themselves, not simply determined by functionalist prerequisites outside the cognitive forms of that society. Such an
argument has value and need not be confined to structuralism
as it is understood in the narrower, current sense. One might
then assume that Dumont's interpretation would apply even
better to Nuer Religion than to The Nuer, since Evans-Pritchard
had the opportunity here of summarizing his lifework on Nuer
culture. Yet no such deeper structural synthesis appears. Instead, as Ivan Karp notes,9 Evans-Pritchard's definitions of
many Nuer religious terms suffer from being linguistic and not
semantic. By this Karp means that the material is organized
in terms of linguistic covariation, with the assumption that a
particular term or concept is determined by the other terms
with which it cooccurs. This is obviously an approach at odds
with the assumptions about deeper structure implicit in Dumont's reading. Of course, I am also aware that such a plea for
structure may appear anathema to those who claim that a
society is neither more nor less than what its members say it is.
A society or culture exhibits lineaments or patterns which
make sense within themselves, what Empson terms "primitive
social meaning,"10but because of their ingrainedness and unquestionability, these meanings pose problems for those outside seeking to understand and translate what appears alien
to them."1 Nor are informants sufficient to explain matters,
7 Cf. Audrey Richards, "A Problem of
Anthropological Approach," Bantu
Studies 15 (1941): 45-52 (hereafter cited as "A Problem").
8 Louis Dumont, "Preface to the French Edition of E. E. Evans-Pritchard's
The Nuer," in Studies in Social Anthropology, ed. J. Beattie and R. G. Lienhardt
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975), pp. 328-42. Given the works of the Dutch,
among others, Dumont's assertion is, of course, wrong. When The Nuer appeared,
Richards made similar perceptive criticisms regarding Evans-Pritchard's structural abstraction, though less in praise (see "A Problem").
9 Karp to Beidelman.
10William Empson, The Structure of Complex Words (London: Chatto &
Windus, 1964), p. 380 (hereafter cited as Structure).
11M. Merleau-Ponty, Signs
(Signes, published 1960) (Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1964), pp. 118-20 (hereafter cited as Signs).
129
however sophisticated they may be, for a symbolic structure
cannot be fully analyzed by those who hold fast to it. As
Merleau-Ponty observes: "Rather than their having got it, it
has, if we may put it this way, 'got them'."12 Also, the Nuer
language appears to present especially complex problems in
translation.13
Nuer Religion relies upon two modes of explanatory translation: (1) The Nuer have been barraged by questions from an
ethnographer trying to understand what is self-explanatory to
the Nuer themselves.'4 Queried, the Nuer provided limited
explanations of particular situations or usages, but no overall
principles embracing these various explanations. Their socalled explanations, as provided in Nuer Religion, remain embedded within the language and logic of their system. But it is
not the meanings that the Nuer attach to each separate term
or situation that present the greatest challenge to an outsider's
understanding, but rather, the "logic" of the system, and that
appears to rest outside the critical scrutiny of the Nuer who
hold to and live by that logic. (2) The anthropologist lumps
together many social situations that seem to represent comparable events, that is, happenings where people seem to act
in comparable ways. Yet lumping such events together may
not be readily justified, since such categorizations may not
reflect associations consciously made by the people themselves.
In both (1) and (2) we are faced with problems of translation,
a profoundly difficult task at the heart of good social anthropology and one which poses similar problems in comparative
sociology, history, art criticism, and comparative literature.]5
Translation requires special imagination;16 unfortunately, we
have no way of being sure that the anthropologist has gained
12
Ibid., p. 117.
Needham, Belief, pp. 14-31.
Little anthropological work discusses how members of one preliterate society
understand the beliefs and values of another; yet this must happen, for we know
that the Nuer are no closed society, since they absorbed neighboring Dinka in
large numbers and have intermittent contact with others; see Aidan Southall,
"Nuer and Dinka Are People," Man, n.s. 11 (1975): 463-91.
16 Some difficulties
posed by the problem of translation are discussed by Winch
in his reanalysis of Evans-Pritchard's famous study of the
Azande; see Peter
Winch, "Understanding a Primitive Society," in Rationality, ed. Bryan Wilson
(New York: Harper Torchback, 1964), pp. 78-111 (hereafter cited as Rationality).
Runciman recognizes but underestimates the problem; see Stephen Runciman,
"The Sociological Explanation of 'Religious' Beliefs," European Journal
of
Sociology 9 (1969): 149-91, esp. 162-69 (hereafter cited as "Sociological Explanation"); cf. also Merleau-Ponty, Signs, pp. 119-20; A. MacIntyre, "Is Understanding Religion Compatible with Believing?" in Wilson, Rationality, pp. 62-77.
16 Cf.
Merleau-Ponty, Signs, p. 120.
13
14
130
that deeper understandingor has simply imposed his own
culture on others.17
Nuer Religion emphasizes the meaning of terms as people
speak about them, whereas "the meaning of language (communication) cannot be separatedfrom the diverse complexity
of social life, from acting and feeling, from the matrix of
culture."'8As Wittgensteinobserves:"Ourtalk gets its meaning from the rest of our proceedings."'9Therefore,we should
not read Nuer Religionin isolation from the broadercorpus of
work available on the Nuer, a contextualization of which
Evans-Pritchard himself was aware.20Yet nowhere is this
largebody of writingbroughtto bearin any integratedmanner
in order to point out deeper aspects of the structure of Nuer
society. Evans-Pritchardseems content to let his total ethnography speak implicitlyfor itself; I try to spell out these deeper
relations.
In summary, we are faced with the question of assigning
different weights to those explanationsfurnished by participants and those made by outside observers. The concept of
deep structure also involves complex assumptions about the
significanceof contexts, since it assumes that a wide range of
situations and things can still reflect common meanings and
forms at a broader relational level.21All of these issues are
broughttogetherin an examinationof Evans-Pritchard'sinterpretation of two interrelated Nuer terms, thek and nueer.
These terms cover a particularly wide range of phenomena,
yet Evans-Pritchardbacks off from providingany deep explanations embracingand unifying these disparatematters. Furthermore,the English terms by which Evans-Pritchardtranslates thek and nueer, "respect" and "sin" are particularly
misleading,since these terms, as well as their associated concepts of "guilt," "atonement,"and "pollution,"sharplyreveal
Cf. Beidelman, "Moral Imagination."
Ibid., p. 37.
Ludwig Wittgenstein, On Certainty, ed. G. E. N. Anscombe and G. H. von
Wright (New York: J. & J. Harper, 1969), p. 233.
20 Evans-Pritchard,
Religion, pp. vi-viii.
21
Malinowski was so hostile to explanation in terms of deep structure that he
insisted that since the word tabu appeared in radically different situations among
the Trobrianders, it must not be one complex word but a mere congeries of
homophones. Leach has nicely criticized this unfortunate approach; see Edmund
Leach, "Concerning Trobriand Clans and the Kinship Category Tabu," in The
Developmental Cycle of Domestic Groups, ed. Jack Goody, Cambridge Papers in
Social Anthropology, no. 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1958),
pp. 120-45.
17
18
19
131
the perils of translation and the difficulties of a Western
anthropologist's own knowledge about meanings in his own
culture.
THE CONCEPT OF Thek
Evans-Pritchard calls thek the Nuer "interdictory concept"
and translates it by the English verb "to respect" (thek;
nominal form, theak).22Transgression of thek may cause illness,
which in its more serious forms is termed nueer, a condition
which Evans-Pritchard equates with sin. Evans-Pritchard
states that a transgression of thek is viewed far more seriously
than is a mere fault (duer).23
As with our word "respect," the meaning of the Nuer term
is manifold and complex: "Thek has, therefore, in all its contexts of usage a sense of deference, constraint, modesty or
shyness, or a mixture of these attitudes. It seems often to
carry as part of its load of meaning a feeling of embarrassment
which is entirely lacking in the ordinary behaviour of Nuer
toward persons and nature. The behaviour associated with it
is formalistic and includes always avoidance and abstention,
though it will have been observed that these need not be
absolute."24Howell glosses Evans-Pritchard's definition by adding: "My own view is that thek implies not only negative
action in the form of prohibition or avoidance but also positive
action in carrying out some observance or duty."25 Certainly
22
Evans-Pritchard, Religion, p. 79.
Ibid., p. 192. For an extensive discussion, see Evans-Pritchard, Religion,
chap. 7, entitled "Sin"; see also E. E. Evans-Pritchard, "Two Nuer Ritual
Concepts," Man 49 (1949): 74-76 (hereafter cited as "Two Nuer").
24
Evans-Pritchard, Religion, p. 180. Cf. Crazzolara: "to regard as dangerous,
to hold in honor, to revere, to treat with special consideration" (my translation),
J. P. Crazzolara, Zur Gesellschaft und Religion der Nueer (M6dling bei Wien:
Studie Instituti Anthropos, 1953), p. 194 (hereafter cited as Gesellschaft); Huffman: "worship, holiness, hallowed, menstruate," Ray Huffman, Nuer-English
Dictionary (Berlin: D. Reimer, 1929), p. 47 (hereafter cited as Nuer-English).
Since many Nuer concepts are said to derive from Dinka, insight may be gained
from R. G. Lienhardt, Divinity and Experience (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1961),
pp. 36-37, 124-67 (hereafter cited as Divinity). Burton briefly discusses thek and
its relation in Atuot. Unfortunately, he adds nothing to Lienhardt's interpretation and provides no systematic or detailed record of Atuot practices. If Nuer and
Atuot resemble one another as much as Burton implies, then he appears to confuse thek with thak (ox); see John Burton, "Atuot Totemism," Journal of Religion
in Africa 10, no. 2 (1979): 95-107, esp. 105; cf. Evans-Pritchard, Religion, pp.
57, 153, 250, 252, 257.
25 P. P. Howell, A Manual
of Nuer Law (London: Oxford University Press,
1954), p. 205 (hereafter cited as Manual); Howell refers to Evans-Pritchard,
"Two Nuer," not the later version just cited above.
23
132
thek involves not just avoidance, but performing certain rituals
or donning certain clothing. Evans-Pritchard goes on to state
that "failure to show respect when there is a thek relationship
is more than a breach of decorum. It entails to greater or lesser
extent religious sanctions."26 In some cases a breach of thek
may be regarded as poor manners; in serious cases this results
in fatal illness or sterility of the offender or those attached to
him or to his livestock. Varying dangers result from situations
of differing importance ranging between these two extremes.
In all cases, there is some danger of supernatural sanctions and
some tinge of moral wrong, however faint. "The attitude Nuer
call thek is thus different from mere avoidance of doing things
considered to be unbecoming.... The breach of a thek rule
may be shameful and despicable, but when it is spoken of as
nueer it is also sinful."27
It is obvious that there is some vagary and contradiction in
the above quotations. Evans-Pritchard himself backs off from
confronting questions of broader meaning:
The purpose and function of these respect relationships are evident. They
are intended to keep people apart from other people or from creatures or
things, either altogether or in certain circumstances or with regard to certain
matters, and this is what they achieve. Some of them have important secondary functions in the regulation of the social order-for example, those
which determine behaviour between affines and between parties to feuds;
but we need not now inquire why they concern certain persons, things, and
situations and not others, nor what these persons, things, and situations have
in common. We are concerned only with the fact that a violation of the
prohibition is to a greater or lesser degree a fault which in many cases brings
disaster to the transgressor.28
Evans-Pritchard is aware that a definitive explanation of thek
must eventually consider a broader view of Nuer society and
culture: ". . . if we are to take into consideration all the different contexts in which the word thek, to respect, may be used
we shall involve ourselves in a general discussion of Nuer
religion, and indeed of Nuer kinship, for a man respects (thek)
persons who stand to him in certain affinal relationships."29
Yet he nowhere attempts that kind of explanation.
The bulk of this essay considers the difficulties in EvansPritchard's translation through examining statements which
26 Evans-Pritchard, Religion, p.
27
28
Ibid., p. 182.
Ibid., pp. 180-81.
181.
29 E. E.
Evans-Pritchard, "Nuer Totemism," Annali Lateranensi 13 (1949):
225-48, esp. 239 (hereaftercited as "Nuer Totemism").
133
the Nuer make about thekand related terms.30Going beyond
these statements, I also considermeaningsnot explicitly stated
by the Nuer but manifest in the overall pattern of these
terms' applicationand modes of expression.To do so, I synthesize a considerablebody of ethnographyand, I hope, improve
upon points I tried to make in an earlier paper.31
TOTEMS
Evans-Pritchard begins Nuer Religion by observing that "Nuer
religious thought cannot be understood unless God's closeness
to man is taken together with his separation from man, for its
meaning lies precisely in this paradox."32Spirit (kwoth) is the
term Evans-Pritchard uses for God. While God is, in a sense,
apart from the world he created and which mankind inhabits,
he manifests himself through this world (cak). We know God
through the vehicles of persons and things; Spirit may be
manifest through things as diverse as animals, birds, rivers,
lightning, monochids, illness, reptiles, and twins. These are
not in themselves supernatural but instead represent means by
which Spirit is revealed and dealt with.
They say that it is the spirits of their totems and not their material bodies
that they call on when they ask for aid from the spirit of their fathers, the
guardian-spirits of their lineages.... Nuer have explained this distinction to
me by comparing the relationship of a man to his totem with the relationship
of their leopard-skin chiefs to leopards. The leopard-skin chiefs respect
leopards, they say, but only in the material sense that they will not kill them.
They have no mystical relationship with leopards, for leopards are not, like
the totems, symbols or manifestations of a spirit which can be in communion
with the men and beasts. There is no spirit (kwoth), they respect (thek)
only its body (pwonyde).33
In discussing comparable Dinka notions, Lienhardt describes
30
Similarly, Boehm's recent article, while useful, is ultimately limited by its
commitment to lexicographicalexplanation and neglect of deeper configurations
of meanings;see C. Boehm, "Exposingthe Moral Self in Montenegro,"American
Ethnologist7 (1980): 1-26. As Empson notes, "No doubt it is we who try to push
the primitive modes of thought into the interior of single words"; see Empson,
Structure,p. 386 (n. 10 above).
31 I had thought that
despite my playful use of the term "Freudian,"two earlier
papers on Nuer thought were essentially structuralist;see T. O. Beidelman, "The
Ox and Nuer Sacrifice," Man, n.s. 1 (1966): 453-67 (hereafter cited as "Ox");
and idem, "Some Nuer Notions of Nakedness, Nudity and Sexuality," Africa
38 (1968): 113-132 (hereaftercited as "Some Nuer"). I find that one critic views
these as failing to considerstructuralist principles;see John Burton, "Some Nuer
Notions of Purity and Danger," Anthropos69 (1974): 517-36 (hereafter cited as
"Some Nuer").
32 Evans-Pritchard, Religion,
p. 4.
33 Evans-Pritchard, "Nuer Totemism," p. 247.
134
clan totems as exhibiting unity through difference,34conjunction through disjunction: This interpretation bears some resemblance to Evans-Pritchard's Durkheimian observation that
conceptions of Spirit are refracted through altering levels and
groupings of Nuer society.35 I return to this matter of conjunction and disjunction later, for these relationships are not simply
reflections of the varying structures of society but of language
and thought, suggesting that Nuer grasp relations in their way,
just as we social scientists grasp them in ours.36If we take the
preceding explanation seriously, we must question EvansPritchard's assertion that thek's purpose is actual separation
per se, and we must look for it in establishing connections as
well.
Particular manifestations of Spirit merit respect (thek), and
this fact is introduced by Evans-Pritchard in his discussion of
spirits below, chiefly as this relates to totems and fetishes.37
In a way as yet unexplained, respect also involves venerating
ancestors.38Nuer clans and some lineages and villages recognize
certain animals, plants, things, or activities as vehicles by
which clan spirits are known. Some even respect spirits recognized by their spouses and mothers as well.39
Members of a Nuer clan who respect (thek) crocodile believe
they descend from a twin birth of an ancestor and a crocodile.
They should refrain from harming crocodiles, and then crocodiles should refrain from harming them. They may provide
food for crocodiles and request crocodiles to reciprocate by not
harming them or even not harming their kin and neighbors.40
Failure to observe such respect by humans may cause the
birth of deformed children (cak kwoth)41resembling the totem.
34 Lienhardt, Divinity, p. 167.
35Evans-Pritchard, Religion, p. 143. Christian and Durkheimian beliefs resemble one another in that both recognize that the ineffable is made comprehensible
through the limited vehicles of persons and things; cf. T. O. Beidelman, W.
Robertson Smith and the Sociological Study of Religion (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1974), pp. 58-68.
36 This point is made differently by H.
Jackson, "The Nuer of the Upper Nile
Province, Khartoum," Sudan Notes and Records 6, no. 1 (1923): 59-107, esp. 95
(hereafter cited as "Nuer, 1").
37Evans-Pritchard, Religion, pp. 64-65; cf. H. Jackson, "The Nuer of the
Upper Nile Province, Khartoum," Sudan Notes and Records 6, no. 2 (1923):
164-76 (hereafter cited as "Nuer, 2").
38 Howell,
Manual, p. 205.
39Evans-Pritchard, "Nuer Totemism," pp. 244-45.
40Cf. J. S. R. Duncan, "A Dry Season Trek," Blackwood's Magazine 264
(1948): 352-56, esp. 355-56.
41
Huffman, Nuer-English, p. 27.
135
In such misfortunes, the equivalency of humans and totems
becomes manifest. If Nuer unknowingly injure or eat the
totem, they may die; and if they witness harm to the totem
by a stranger, respect requires a gesture of atonement.42 Respect (thek) is, therefore, mutual between totem and clan
members, and this mystical connection allows clansmen to
perform protective services for others. What is respected here
is not the totemic animal but the spirit behind it and, thus,
behind the clan as well; the Nuer would not say that they
respect crocodiles but that they respect crocodile, meaning the
principle or essence of crocodile.43This is clear from the fact
that the totemic spirit is given a different name from the
natural species or things.44
The Nuer respect other creatures or things besides totems.
An individual Nuer may respect nearly anything because
nearly any facet of creation may represent an aspect of God
that lies behind all creation,45 though Evans-Pritchard adds:
"The animals and birds and fish and plants and artifacts that
are of most use to Nuer are absent from the list of their totems."46Much used items are integral with the Nuer in creation
and in everyday life as utilitarian items, but they are not
integral in terms of providing a basis for differentiating social
identity, something inconsistent with these items' universal
instrumentality. In this sense, it is important to remember that
the particular concatenation of things which an individual
Nuer respects are the products of the particularities of his or
her life history. Respect, therefore, becomes an important
mode of isolating and defining each unique person in Nuer
society.
There are certain categories which are prominent and are
respected by all Nuer, regardless of their clan affiliation. These
exemplify problematical aspects of creation in general. For
example, the Nuer respect twins who are considered birds and
42Evans-Pritchard,
Religion, pp. 66, 79; "Nuer Totemism," pp. 227-43;
Crazzolara, Gesellschaft, p. 19.
43 Evans-Pritchard, Religion,
p. 135.
44
Evans-Pritchard, "Nuer Totemism," p. 247.
46Ibid., p. 238.
46
Evans-Pritchard, Religion, p. 80. This may be implicit criticism of RadcliffeBrown's contrary assertion about totems; see A. R. Radcliffe-Brown, "The
Sociological Theory of Totemism" (originally published 1929), in Structure and
Function in Primitive Society (Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press, 1952), pp. 128-29.
136
who in turn respect birds.47Twins also generate respect similar
to that between affines involved with homicide. The Nuer also
respect those killed by lightning (col wic) and compare them
to twins.48 To some extent all Nuer respect birds and reptiles,
perhaps in association with air and earth,49 but possibly also
because birds and most reptiles may be categorized together
as coming from eggs. Large birds should respect Nuer dwellings,
and were one to perch on a roof, sacrifices would be required
to reestablish respect.50 The pied crow is respected and at
times treated similarly to a ritual leader,5' while weaverbirds
and finches (kec) are respected as sources of destruction.52
Creatures such as multicolored cattle, pythons, and bumblebees are respected, presumably because of their markings.53
47No other aspect of Nuer belief has generated so much speculation and
alternate interpretationsas the Nuer assertion that twins are birds: e.g., Burton,
"Some Nuer," pp. 523-26; Runciman, "Sociological Explanation," pp. 155-56;
D. Cooper, "Alternate Logic in 'Primitive Thought,' " Man, n.s. 10 (1975):
238-56, esp. 240-43; Martin Southwold, "Religious Belief," Man, n.s. 11 (1979),
pp. 628-44, esp. 636; Claude L6vi-Strauss, Totemism (Totemismeaujourd'hui,
1962) (Boston: Beacon Press, 1963), pp. 78-83; James Littlejohn, "Twins, Birds,
etc.," Bijdragentot den taal-, land- en Volkenkunde126 (1966): 91-109; Raymond
Firth, "Twins, Birds and Vegetables," Man, n.s. 1 (1966): 1-17; ibid., (Letter),
399; ibid., 2 (1967): 129-30; Edmund Leach, "Twins, Birds and Vegetables"
(Letter), Man, n.s. 1 (1966): pp. 537-38; ibid., 2 (1967): 130; Rodney Needham,
"Twins, Birds and Vegetables" (Letter), Man, n.s. 1 (1966): 398; E. E. EvansPritchard,"Commenton Littlejohn,"Bijdragentot den taal-,land- en Volkenkunde
126 (1966): 109-13; idem, "Twins, Birds and Vegetables" (Letter), Man, n.s.
1 (1966): 398; G. B. Milner, "Siamese Twins, Birds and the Double Helix,"
Man, n.s. 4 (1969): 5-23; John Beattie, OtherCultures (London:Cohen & West,
1964), pp. 68-69. Butterflies may also be associated with Spirit since they are
called del kwoth;see Huffman, Nuer-English,p. 11. In regard to col wic (victims
of lightning), ancient Greeks also appear to have had a similar belief about
lightning translating mortals into divinity; cf. E. Rohde, Psyche (New York:
Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1925), pp. 581-82.
48Evans-Pritchard, "Customs and Beliefs Relating to Twins
among the
Nilotic Nuer," Uganda Journal 3 (1936): 230-38 (hereafter cited as "Twins");
idem, "Nuer Totemism," pp. 237-38; idem, "The Nuer Col Wic," Man 49 (1949):
idem, Religion, pp. 53-54; Howell, Manual, p. 86.
7-9;
49Evans-Pritchard,
"Nuer Totemism," pp. 239-40.
60Ibid., p. 249.
61
Evans-Pritchard,Religion, p. 81; idem, "The Nuer: Tribe and Clan V-VII,"
Sudan Notes and Records17 (1934): 1-57, esp. 48.
62 Evans-Pritchard, "Nuer Totemism," pp. 231-32. Nuer
myths recount that
God's earth and God's heaven were earlier joined by a rope, but this was severed
producing death, misery, and alienation from God. Depending upon the myth,
this was done by hyena, durra-bird,a barren or divorced woman, or a girl who
abandoned her kin to marry; see Evans-Pritchard, Religion, pp. 10, 20-21; V.
Fergusson, "The Nuong Nuer," Sudan Notes and Records4 (1921): 146-55, esp.
149; Crazzolara,Gesellschaft,pp. 67-68. Hyena and durra-birdoccupy significant
positions in Nuer cosmology, the former considereda hermaphroditicconsort of
witches and ghouls, the latter a dangerous scourge of crops and a creature of
unpredictable,migratory habits; see Evans-Pritchard, Religion, p. 3. Women are
considered along with cattle as sources of conflict between men and, thus, as
causes of lineage fission and death.
63Evans-Pritchard,Religion, p. 81.
137
Nuer respect rivers and transitionalmonths dividing their dry
and wet seasons.54
Nuer ritual leaderssuch as leopard-skinpriests, cattle priests
and the like are respected and in turn respect aspects of the
worldassociatedwith them, especiallymanifestationsof earth,
sky, and rivers,which, like priests themselves,unite or mediate
Nuer, who otherwiseare divided into tribes, clans and settlements. Such men rectify serious infractionsof respect among
groups,those involving incest and complexprohibitionsresulting from homicide,55and those infractions in turn jeopardize
the social means (endogamyand alliance) by which the Nuer
unite or mediate their differences.56
Twins and col wic, on the
one hand, and priests and other ritual leaders, on the other,
all manifestcomparablemediationalprinciplestied to common
expressive themes.57
The merging of categorical orders is not a confoundingof
domains,but ratherthe recognitionthat a meaningfuluniverse
somehowsubsumesdisparatebut complementaryrealmswithin
54 Ibid.; Evans-Pritchard, "Nuer Time-Reckoning,"Africa 12 (1939):
189-216,
esp. 199-200.
66Evans-Pritchard, Religion, pp. 28, 289-98; Howell, Manual, pp. 45, 94;
T. O. Beidelman, "Nuer Priests and Prophets," in The Translationof Culture,
ed. T. O. Beidelman (London: Tavistock Publications, 1971): pp. 374-415
(hereafter cited as "Nuer Priests").
66 Huffman reports riverbanks are associated with
males; see Nuer-English,
p. 55.
57 Can we conclude that the Nuer perceive a
problematicalinterplay between a
cultural system of concepts by which reality is constructed and a more inchoate,
inconsistent apprehension?While language provides our only means for framing
reality, experiences fluctuate so with time, situation, and the tides of bodily
experience that this cultural formality becomes something we ponder, not in
terms of the basic assumptions underlying such a system, but in terms of reflections about the complexity or ambiguity we feel when we contemplate the
interplay between these formsand the density of seemingly intractableexperience.
I contend that the Nuer do not question their ideology, but that they do measure
this and reflect upon it by way of the enormity and density of social experience.
This complexity is manifest through the processes of joining yet separating
elements of classified experience; this is experienced through associating
these
processes with the least questionable of experiences, our feelings and appetites.
Self-awareness of the inevitable pathos of structure is sustained yet stirred to
musings. This complexity is reflectedin the interplay between abstract attributes
of categories and categorization and the actual things subsumed within these.
Thus, Nuer wryly differentiatebetween the mere creature (pwony)of a totem and
the spirit (kwoth)for which it stands. They respect the Spirit,
whereas they may
disparage the actual creature or thing. Thus, Evans-Pritchard reports that if a
totemic creatureharmsa Nuer and he retaliates by harmingit, the Nuer maintains
he is hurting the creatureand not the spirit. In contrast,
when sickness is thought
to have entered a person through a totemic being, this is said to be its spirit
and
not its corporealbeing; see Evans-Pritchard, Religion, pp. 78-79. Many decades
ago, Durkheim pondered this issue also in terms of totemic metaphor; see Emile
Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life (Les Formes 6elmentaires
de la vie religieuse, 1912) (London: Allen & Unwin, 1934), p. 235.
138
one system of principles. Levy-Bruhl struggled to explicate
this through a concept of "participation." The problem lies at
the heart of all systems of thought and generates tension between unity and distinction. For Nuer, appreciation of such
relationships is manifest both by respect and restraint and by
imaginative play with the transitions between integrity and
distinction as exhibited in the attributes of prophecy; in magical and ritual expression; in complex rules about sexual and
alimentary etiquette; and in the interpretation of illness, pain,
and health, all modes through which Nuer drive awareness of
their categorizations to a physically heightened sensitivity.
THE DEFINITION
OF SIN
Evans-Pritchard limits his initial account of thek and totems to
less than a page and reserves most of his attention to respect
(thek) for a discussion of what he terms sin. Yet he does not
discuss the meanings of sin for Western thought, so one wonders
how he justifies his translation of Nuer concepts by this term,
although he does note that we should be cautious in such
translations.58 Evans-Pritchard is careful to indicate how he
defines the term sin for the Nuer, yet there is a danger that a
reader may not pay sufficient attention to this important
departure from Western meaning, especially since the book
contains repeated references to New and Old Testament studies.59Evans-Pritchard equates breaches of an interdiction with
sin if this is supposed to lead to almost immediate spiritual
sanctions as manifested bodily through illness; he notes that
this is not necessarily related to morally condemned behavior,60
and briefly observes the seeming oddity of this from a Western
point of view.61 He notes that such bodily suffering is contagious (dop), much like a disease so that it can spread, en58
Evans-Pritchard compares Nuer to Hebrews (ibid., p. vii), as does Ray
Huffman in Nuer Customs and Folk-lore (London: Oxford University Press,
1931), pp. 56-71 (hereafter cited as Nuer Customs); cf. R. Thompson, Penitence
and Sacrifice in Early Israel, outside the Levitical Law (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1963),
pp. 37-38. An American missionary has published a comparison between Nuer
and ancient Jews as an aid to missionizing Africans; see E. McFall, Approaching
the Nuer of Africa through the Old Testament (Pasadena, Calif.: William Carey
1970).
Library,
60
Evans-Pritchard, Religion, pp. 177, 195.
61 E. E.
Evans-Pritchard, "Nuer," Man, Myth and Magic 72 (1971): 2020-23,
esp. 2022.
69
139
gulfing those nearby regardless of their innocence or guilt.62 In
this sense, all Nuer sin is due to failure to observe respect (thek),
but not all disrespect results in sin-a confusing situation for
a Westerner.
Those Nuer sins that are most dangerous, such as incest with
close kin, usually are not intentional and, therefore, presumably
involve little psychic guilt as we understand the notion. The
danger, the Nuer say, leads few if any to commit such transgressions knowingly.63 The Nuer say that the effects of dangerous, sinful pollution (nueer) are most likely mitigated by
sacrifice where wrongs were unintended.64 Equally important,
such offences convey little or no advantages that would lead
anyone to risk committing them. Incestuous marriage would
hopelessly muddle distribution of payments connected with
such unions and would waste an alliance by making kinship
with people already related.65Yet "slight incest" (rual ma tot)
with distant kin is described as frequent, apparently intended,
and causing little concern. It can be readily cured by admission
and a small sacrifice, the weight of danger being directly
related to the value of the propitiatory sacrifice.66
In contrast to incest, homicide, theft, and adultery may
involve no sin in themselves but are volitional acts that harm
or offend others. These are, in this sense, something like
Western sinful acts. While not sins in themselves, these acts
are associated with rules of respect regarding their treatment
and settlement, and failure to observe these does lead to sin
and the pollution of nueer. While these rules are sometimes
inconvenient, little would be gained by breaking them. So long
as these prohibitions are observed, those involved in homicide
and adultery avoid sinful pollution, but for this, the homicide
and adulterer must confess. Hence, the acts of homicide
and adultery may not stir violent indignation among an offender's kin, but that person's failure to confess would endanger
62
Ibid.; Evans-Pritchard, Religion, pp. 187-88, 190.
Ibid., pp. 188-89.
Ibid., p. 182.
65
Irefer to incestuous marriage, since fornication between immediate kin
appears almost unknown and sexual relations between more distant kin only
mildly disapproved of or covertly enjoyed, except when jeopardizing critical
positions of maternal or sororal kin which concerns ties of strategic importance
regarding rights and obligations in property and persons; cf. E. E. EvansPritchard, Kinship and Marriage among the Nuer (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1951), pp. 33-40 (hereafter cited as Kinship).
66 E. E.
Evans-Pritchard, "Burial and Mortuary Rites of the Nuer," African
Affairs 48 (1949): 91-97 (hereafter cited as "Burial").
63
64
140
his kin through contagion (dop), and this would presumably
anger them. The Nuer explain this concern about confession,
not in terms of psychic guilt and purging, but in terms of
informing kin so that they can perform rituals to remove (woc)
pollution (nueer) before it spreads (dop).67
Nuer beliefs seem unlikely to promote religious guilt as we
understand it. It is remarkable that Evans-Pritchard speculates little about this, since such a difference seems more
striking than some other Nuer differences that he singles out
for remark. Only one type of Nuer act even approximates our
notion of sin as a common, purposeful, immoral act leading to
serious spiritual estrangement from Spirit and consequently to
grave personal danger. That act is sexual intercourse with a
woman nursing a child. This leads to nueer and jeopardizes the
husband, child, and perhaps wife. The Nuer sympathize with
a man impelled by sexual desires, even while regarding the
act as dangerous to all near. Even here, since this jeopardizes
the child as well, the Christian notion of sin as related to the
sufferer's voluntary act does not hold up well, since even
innocent parties are made to suffer for the acts of others.
Failure to observe respect (thek) toward affines elicits vigorous and indignant criticism but involves no sin, even though it
may create more hard feelings and uproar than the sinful acts
already reported above. Such disregard of respect in observing
modifications of food, drink, attire, and speech is shameful
because it is volitional, either because it is intended as insult
or as a sign of thoughtlessness.68 It is paramountly an offence
against kin and neighbors, not Spirit.
In view of the preceding descriptions, the Nuer notions
which Evans-Pritchard terms sin seem far from that of Christians:69 "The sin lies not so much in the act itself as in the
breach of the interdiction. Consequently Nuer can give no
reason for the acts being bad other than God punishes them.
Consequently also, sins do not arouse indignation, as some
quite minor faults may do."70
67 Huffman
glosses woc as "to put out, to empty" (see Nuer-English, p. 50) and
dop as "to start fire" (ibid., p. 13).
68Evans-Pritchard, Religion,
p. 173.
69 Cf. E. A.
Livingstone, ed., The Concise Oxford Dictionary of the Christian
Church (London: Oxford University Press, 1977), pp. 476-77; K. Grayston,
"Sin," in A Theological Word Book of the Bible, ed. A. Richardson (New York:
Macmillan Publishing Co., 1950), pp. 226-29; cf. the Jewish view of sin, ritualism,
and pollution, in Rudolf Bultmann, Primitive Christianity (New York: Meridian,
1956), pp. 51-56, 65-68 (hereafter cited as Primitive).
70
141
Indeed, it seems that often the Nuer recognize sin only
because of illness rather than on account of any particular
misdeed. Sin, then, is not concerned so much with morals as
with the intrusion of Spirit into the domain of worldly events
and things.71 Given the unhealthy and difficult conditions of
Nuerland, it consequently seems likely that most Nuer are
sick often enough to be convinced that everyone is in some
sense sinful regardless of his conscious intentions. This situation resembles that in Homeric Greece where it was misfortune
that drew attention to one's guilt of some error, rather than
error that would lead one to expect misfortune.72 I conclude
that some Nuer would commit "minor" incest but not worry
about the theoretical consequences until they got sick.
The Nuer beliefs about sin and volition would, therefore,
lead to a situation oddly the mirror image of what we expect in
Christian society. Serious faults seem rarely to involve social
condemnation over motivation, whereas minor ones do.
Evans-Pritchard's account of Nuer sin implicitly assumes
that his Western readers will have little difficulty in knowing
what the word sin means. Yet a survey of the changing ideas
related to Western concepts of sin73indicates how our presetn
notions developed very complexly from disparate Judaci,
Greek, and New Testament cultures where these notions
altered radically over time. Difficulties in the meaning of the
English term center around these contrasting principles which
all remain embedded in different aspects of theological literature. Most prominent is a Judeo-Christian belief in the guilt
or bad motives of human beings who fail to conform to rules
set forth in a supernaturally ordained code of conduct. Christian
sin lies in the wills of men, or as Pauline doctrine observes, in
their base desires.74 In contrast, according to Socratic or
Platonic belief in the limitations of mankind, men sin unintentionally out of ignorance or weakness which reflect humanity's underdevelopment.75 Humanity's limited nature prevents evasion of error. In even earlier Greek thought, as
exhibited in Homer and later Aeschylus and Sophocles, onus
stemmed from certain actions regardless of intent or under71Ibid., p. 195.
G. Quell, B. Bertram, G. Stahlin, and W. Grundman,Sin (London:A. & C.
Black), p. 54 (hereaftercited as Quell et al., Sin).
78Ibid.
74Ibid., p. 79.
76Cf. Soren Kierkegaard, Fear and Tremblingand the Sickness unto Death
(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1954), pp. 114-27.
72
142
standing and automatically led to pollution.76 The first view
presumes a moral gap between man as an egoistic individual
and the personal roles and obligations he must measure up to
as part of a divinely prescribed code. The latter views-those
of the Greeks-presume a gap between man, as a being limited
in knowledge and power, and a world beyond man's capacities.77
The view of the Greek tragedians further sees man as doomed,
but not morally at fault for his inability to fathom the will of
the gods which, in any case, could be capricious and beyond
fathoming.
While all Western religious traditions embody various aspects
of these moral principles, each is clearly isolatable. The Judaic
tradition emphasizes the virtue of observing boundaries and
thereby avoiding pollution. Observation of the law and other
rules receives far more prominence than motivation and internal
mental states. The Sophoclean view found sublimity in the
recognition of the human will as incapable of preventing
divinely ordained calamity, but sometimes enabling one to
accept such catastrophes. For early Greeks, "human guilt is
disturbance of the established order, interference with an
affective state of affairs, for which man has to pay with the
consequent suffering and misery, and sometimes with death.
It has no moral quality of a free choice between good and evil,
but is an infatuation concurrent with life itself."78 Prevailing
Christian tradition, in contrast, emphasizes virtue in proper
motivation (limiting desire) to avoid guilt and suffering, as
well as virtue in contrition which opens the way to the grace
of forgiveness. The Christian view exalts the individual, even
while abasing him, in that his guilt is an aspect of his freedom
of choice. The Judaic view exalts God while mitigating the
individual's responsibility in that the internal state of mind
from which choice stems is not the central issue, even though
knowledge is important in knowing what is right. Judaic man
can never remotely approach God in freedom of will and
righteousness of heart, but man should and can at least observe
the law. All of the traditions see a painful gap between hu76 See A. W. H.
Adkins, Moral Values and Political Behaviour in Ancient Greece
(New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1972), p. 17; and Hugh Lloyd-Jones, The
Justice of Zeus (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971), chap. 3 (hereafter
cited as Zeus).
77Cf. J. L. McKenzie, The
Two-edged Sword (Garden City, N.Y.: Image Books,
1966), p. 258 (hereafter cited as Sword).
78
Quell et al., Sin, p. 55.
143
manity and some creator. In the above simplified terms, the
Nuer concepts which Evans-Pritchard translates as sin, respect, and pollution more nearly relate to Judaic or Greek
tradition than to Christianity.
Greek thought, especially, parallels some aspects of Nuer.
Like the Nuer, the Greeks sin unintentionally because they
are human and thus fated to be beneath the supernatural
which alone is beyond suffering and death; in both cases, too,
Spirit or gods try to even out those below, and, consequently,
mortals' good fortune is dangerous to them.79 Unlike the Nuer,
the Greeks believe it is mortality that gives them a claim to
heroism, though both people take a very dim view of death
when compared to Christians. The Greek term hamartia (error)
is the word most frequently utilized for sin in the New Testament, but its use there belies its original meaning.80 Its earlier
usage often suggests that it is in man's nature to err, but not
as a moral fault. Later, however, Greek thought began to add
an ever-growing moral tone to such terms.81 Greeks also saw
transgressions as contagious: witness the plague which beset
Thebes as a result of the pollution of Oedipus. In that case,
Oedipus is both the source of infection and the potential
means to remove it through his own acts.82 With Nuer, the
polluted may remove (woc) contamination by confession and
sacrifice in which others participate.83 Knox characterizes
Oedipus' character as more good than bad, and yet still a cause
for tragedy. Similar to a Nuer, Oedipus sins despite good
intentions. Indeed, Oedipus is admired and considered heroic,
so if he sins there seems little hope for ordinary men. Significantly, Evans-Pritchard's only reference to classical Greek
thought in Nuer ethnography makes comparison with Oedipus.84
79Evans-Pritchard, Religion, pp. 14-15; Lloyd-Jones, Zeus, pp. 43-48.
80 Quell et al. describe hamartiaas "the
vaguest and most generalprofane word
for wrong"and remarkthat Aristotle's employment of the term excludes the idea
of moral guilt in the modern sense (Sin, pp. 48-49).
81
L. J. Potts, Aristotle on the Art of Fiction (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1968), pp. 80-81; Quell et al., Sin, pp. 46-63; Bultmann, Primitive, pp.
135-45; cf. McKenzie, Sword, pp. 182-83; in this sense, the Nuer term dwir is
comparedto error or fault; see Evans-Pritchard, Religion, p. 17.
82 Bernard
Knox, Oedipusat Thebes(New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1971).,
pp. 140-42 (hereaftercited as Oedipus);R. P. Winnington-Ingram,"The Oedipus
Tyrannus and Greek Archaic Thought," in Twentieth Century Interpretations of
Oedipus Rex, ed. M. J. O'Brien (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc.,
1968), pp. 81-89.
83
Evans-Pritchard, Religion, p. 180; Knox, Oedipus, pp. 29-31.
84
144
Unlike Greek and Nuer thought, Christian ideas of pollution
and contagion are not prominent; but they can be seen in the
concept of original sin where the initial, voluntary sin of the
primary couple is passed down to their descendants and,
inversely, may be seen in the idea of the immaculate conception
where the virgin is free from all sin and pollution by having
no sexual knowledge.
ASPECTS OF Thek
The gravity of other forms of respect is not always clear from
published material; while failure to observe major respect
invariably results in sin, it is not clear how serious the results
may be in other cases. The Nuer contrast minor respect
(theakma tot), such as observing restraints on nudity, food, and
drink in front of affines, with major respect (theak ma dit), such
as observing prohibitions against incest and commensality with
those involved in the feud and refraining from sexual relations
with pregnant or nursing wives.85 While serious transgressions
of respect are sure to lead to fatal illness in humans and/or
cattle called nueer, all infractions of respect, however minor,
may lead to some illness, the severity of which relates to
seriousness of the infraction or to intent.86 Thus, while EvansPritchard and the Nuer contrast minor and serious respect and
relate them to minor and serious punishments, the contrast
ends in a very unclear state, and the issue of motivation
becomes quite muddled. The difference between fault and sin
seems one of degree rather than quality. If this is so for the
Nuer, then their notions are indeed very different from formal
Christian ones.87
Respect involving prohibitions against incest is observed
with varying degrees of care but most strictly regarding ties
through women, as related directly or indirectly to one's
mother, sister, or wife. Such relations are ambiguous as they
85
Ibid., p. 182.
Ibid., pp. 188-89.
87 Crazzolara notes that Nuer
ghouls are believed to gain their evil powers
through deliberately breaking respect (Gesellschaft, pp. 218-19), and in one case
it is reported that ghouls inverted respect by uncovering male and female genitals;
see P. P. Howell and E. Lewis, "Nuer Ghouls," Sudan Notes and Records 28
(1947): 158-68, esp. 160; cf. Beidelman, "Some Nuer," p. 122. I have also shown
how Nuer prophets gain prowess from breaking respect, while showing that they
are not subject to the expected retributions and sanctions; see Beidelman,
"Nuer Priests."
86
145
both enhance individual power and jeopardize solidarity within
the lineage and extended family. The other area of serious
respect involves feud.
DEATH AND MARRIAGE: FEUD AND AFFINITY
The most socially prominent forms of respect center around
death and marriage. I term these "prominent" in that they
involve extensive groups and relate to important payments of
livestock and jural rights over persons, even though affinal
respect is described as minor. Death and birth, feud and
marriage represent complex variations on common modes of
conception and organization. As Evans-Pritchard's analysis
indicates, marriage and feud are two interlinked means by
which disparate Nuer are conjoined and yet separated.
Observing rules of exogamy, the Nuer marry out of their kin
groups, thereby forming complex networks of affiliation. Marriage begins in a slow process of turning strangers into kin, a
process confined and enhanced with each birth uniting paternal
and maternal sets of groups. At each marriage, bridewealth is
paid and generates further unions. The Nuer themselves appreciate the relatedness of such exchanges, the term kwen
(marry) being preferred to luil (exchange at equal value),
though they grasp the resemblance since luil may be used in
abuse.88
Conversely, homicides link Nuer by obligations of vengeance
into opposing, feuding sections observing complex prohibitions
regarding commensality.89 Feuds are settled by bloodwealth
payments mirroring bridewealth, since such livestock secures
a woman for marriage to the ghost of the deceased.90 In the
final turn of events, homicides are ultimately transformed into
marriage, negative connections lead to positive, more enduring
ones; and it is in this sense that Evans-Pritchard observes that
bloodwealth and bridewealth "may be fruitfully compared."91
88
Evans-Pritchard, "Bridewealth among the Nuer," African Studies 6 (1947):
181-88, esp. 182; Huffman, Nuer-English, p. 30.
89 Prohibitions and rites similar to those necessitated
by homicides are generated by killing elephants (P. P. Howell, "A Note on Elephants and Elephant
Hunting among the Nuer," Sudan Notes and Records 26 [1945]: 95-104, esp. 98)
or by birth of twins (Evans-Pritchard, "Twins," p. 230 [n. 48 above]; Religion,
p. 178). To some extent contact with death in general causes pollution requiring
recognition of respect (Evans-Pritchard, "Burial" [n. 66 above]; Religion, p. 179).
90Cf. P. P.
Howell, "Some Observations on the Distribution of Bloodwealth
among the Nuer," Man 53 (1952): 19-21.
91Evans-Pritchard, Kinship, p. 98.
146
Furthermore, the dominant mode of expressing feud and affinity
is the same: prohibitions about commensality. Also, ritual
leaders, leopard-skin priests, who neutralize incest (an antithesis of marriage) perform comparable rites to neutralize feuds.
The principle of kinship (commensality and prohibition of
sexuality) gains force because of its medial component, affinity
(problematical commensality and licit sexuality), that principle allowing kin to generate more kin by going beyond
themselves to incorporate strangers. Here is a counterpoint
between natal kin, affines, and strangers played out negatively
through feud, positively through marriage, and expressed commensally. If we draw up a continuum of Nuer relations with
agnatic and maternal kin at the closest extreme, affines next,
and then those in feud, the most distant and hostile relation
could be toward Dinka and other ethnic outsiders whom one
can marry by capture and with whom one can legitimately
wage warfare. The Nuer justify this negative relation, expressed through raiding and warfare, in terms of the principle
of thek. The Dinka are said in the past to have failed to respect
(thek) God's interdictions and, therefore, they deserve to be
harassed and exploited on account of their denigrated state.92
Even outside the feud, death creates a complex polluting
condition that must be corrected. Death is said to establish
a debt or obligation toward Spirit that must be wiped out (woc)
through blood sacrifice, which not only cools the situation
(heat apparently being associated with pollution), but which
obliterates (woc) kinship between the living and the dead.93
The prohibitions signifying respect between affines are termed
minor by Nuer yet take prominent place in everyday conduct.
They involve those violations of respect most likely to produce
personal abuse and criticism, since they are intentional and
the two groups involved are ambivalently related. As Pocock
notes (and I earlier suggested) tension and contradiction between male and female, descent and affinity, purity and alliance, characterize Nuer social life. 94 These opposing yet complementary features, facets of one patrilineal organizational
principle, provide the pattern of Nuer structure which is
92
Evans-Pritchard, Religion, p. 11; cf. similar justifications by Greeks toward
their enemies (see Lloyd-Jones, Zeus, pp. 58-70).
93 Evans-Pritchard,
"Burial," pp. 58-62.
94David
Pocock, "Nuer Religion-a
Supplementary View," Journal of the
Anthropological Society of Oxford 5, no. 2 (1974): 69-79; Beidelman, "The Ox,"
"Some Nuer"; cf. Evans-Pritchard, Kinship, pp. 139-40.
147
manifest at every social level. At the simplest level, after
initiation a youth becomes a man and thereafter respects
(thek) milking.95 Women and boys milk, not men, and this
rule exhibits the complementary dependence between the
sexes. Men are virtually helpless without mothers, sisters, or
wives; milking represents female involvement and subordination to male property (cattle).96 Conversely, mothers and
menstruating women respect (thek) cattle, the term thek itself
being a euphemism for menstruation. At such times women
drink goat milk; goats contrast with cattle much as women
with men.97 Women's fertility, as I have noted elsewhere, is
the means by which men secure followings and success; yet
growth of a family sets a man apart from his father and
brothers, and growth of a wife's household sets it off from those
of co-wives.98Lineages are divided by women and often named
after those from whom they stem.99 Men consequently respect
wives' sexuality. For example, a man respects a pregnant
wife'??and abstains from sexual relations with a menstruating
woman out of consideration for his unborn children,101as well
as avoiding a nursing wife for the same reason. A pregnant wife
is likely to cause cuts and festering sores on her husband.102
Men avoid newborn offspring for about a month. The eldest
child, whose birth begins transforming an unstable affinal
relation into a more enduring union, respects both parents'
eating utensils and sleeping hides, their commensal and
sexual domains, and during earlier life resides with maternal
rather than paternal kin.103Birth itself is related to respectful
95Evans-Pritchard, Religion, p. 180.
96
Evans-Pritchard, Kinship, p. 150.
97Evans-Pritchard, Religion, p. 180; Huffman, Nuer-English, p. 57; Jackson,
"Nuer 1," p. 95; idem, "Nuer 2," p. 141.
98Evans-Pritchard, Kinship, pp. 142-45; cf. Beidelman, "The Ox," "Some
Nuer."
99Evans-Pritchard, Kinship, p. 140.
100
210.
Howell, Manual,
101Evans-Pritchard, p.
Religion, p. 55. Some Nuer notions about menstruation
seem associated with flux, wounds, and pollution (e.g., changing moon, sores,
defecation); cf. Huffman, Nuer-English, pp. 17, 27, 38, 55; idem, Nuer Customs,
p. 73. For a review of what little we know of Nuer ideas about blood, see Burton,
"Some Nuer," pp. 529-32. That Nuer equate bleeding novice initiates with
menstruating women has been remarked by Burton, myself, and Huffman (NuerEnglish, p. 31); Burton fails, however, to note that women's goatskins worn on
the bleeding heads of initiates are donned to stanch bleeding and that these skirts
are termed gang, a term involving the ideas of protection and aversion (see
Huffman, Nuer-English, p. 19).
102 Huffman Nuer-English,
p. 27; idem, Nuer Customs, p. 58.
103 Evans-Pritchard, Kinship, p. 139; idem, Religion, p.
55; C. G. Seligman,
Tribes
the
Nilotic Sudan (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1932),
Pagan
of
222.
p.
148
The fertility of women is a greaterproblemthan
avoidance.104
that of men, and this is reflected in the rule that married
women cover their nakedness,whereas men observe such respect only with affines.While unmarriedwomen customarily
weara grassapron,fromtime to time they omit it and occasion
no outcry; however, once a woman bears children, a leather
apron is obligatory, surely because her children form and
separate various kin and affines and therefore her sexuality
should be more restricted.105
Evans-Pritchardnotes that ".. .it is not the sight of the
genitals in itself which is thought to cause injury so much as
the disrespect in not observing the convention."'06 The penis
is comparedto the spear,both servingas agentsfor transformation. The penis transforms alien women into kin through
helping produce children, and the spear transformslivestock
and personsat rituals.107
The alimentary mode is equally important in expressing
thek. Affines abstain from eating together until they become
"proper"kin. Unmarriedyouths and girls who are not kin
observe thek regarding food, since they may marry.108"A
man may mention food but not sexual matters before kinswomen, and he may mention sexual matters but not food
before unrelatedgirls."'09Youths avoid eating with older men
who are not kin since these may become fathers-in-law.10A
104Crazzolara, Gesellschaft,
p. 204.
105Beidelman, "Some Nuer," pp. 118-22; E. E. Evans-Pritchard, Some Aspects
of Marriage and Family among the Nuer, Rhodes-Livingstone Papers, no. 11
(Livingstone [Lusaka]: The Rhodes-Livingstone Institute, 1945), pp. 25, 156,
181. Cf. my analysis of the inversion of thek behavior between affines and kin in a
Nuer tale (Beidelman, "Some Nuer," p. 117; Crazzolara, Gesellschaft, pp. 212-18).
106Evans-Pritchard, Religion, p. 181. The Nuer may have some idea about
male genitals as always sheathed, in that the glans should be covered by the
foreskin (see Beidelman, "Some Nuer," p. 122; E. E. Evans-Pritchard, "A Note
on Courtship among the Nuer," Sudan Notes and Records 28 [1947]: 115-26,
esp. [hereafter cited as "Courtship"]). Greeks in classical times appear to have
had similar views about the foreskin and glans (see K. Dover, Greek Homosexuality [London: Gerald Duckworth & Co., 1978], pp. 125-28).
107Cf. my discussion; Beidelman, "Some Nuer," p. 122, n. 2. For example, the
spear is used to shave the bride to transform her status. See Evans-Pritchard,
Kinship, pp. 32, 68-71; Beidelman, "Some Nuer," p. 129; Huffman, Nuer-English,
p. 33; J. Kiggen, Nuer-English Dictionary (Mill Hill [London]: St. Joseph's
Society for Foreign Missions, 1949), pp. 67, 222, 280.
108
"Courtship," pp. 117-18; idem, Kinship, p. 55.
109Evans-Pritchard,
Ibid. The association of alimentation with kinship may explain why a sure
of
nueer
often
a result of incest) is the inversion of eating, vomiting;
(so
sign
G. B. Soule, Some Nuer Diseases and Their Remedies (Nasir: American Mission,
1932), pp. 25-26 (hereafter cited as Nuer Diseases).
10O
Evans-Pritchard, Kinship, p. 99.
149
newly married woman respects her parents-in-law by not eating
at their home until her first child. Newlyweds must neither
see the other eat and drink nor use one another's names. A new
wife drinks no milk from her husband's cattle, nor may a
husband drink from cows which his group gave for his wife.
Such respect extends, though less rigorously, to co-fathers-inlaw. After several children have been born, rituals are held to
relax these commensal prohibitions. A wife is presented with a
spoon as a ceremonial sign of her incorporation into her
husband's group, and a wife's father and mother's brother
sacrifice to remove prohibitions of respect. Until a second child
is born, a marriage is scarcely acknowledged."' These prohibitions toward affines contrast with conduct toward natal kin
with whom one has shared food since birth. With marriage and
successive children, former strangers are generally transformed
into kindred beings, and commensal respect declines.
Unlike expression in the alimentary or nurturing mode, no
transformation through time occurs with respect to nakedness.112A son-in-law never appears naked before his parentsin-law. (However, a suitor's best man must observe such
respect only at the onset of the marriage.) Those engaged in
arranging marriage between groups also must cover themselves
when addressing assembled sets of negotiating kin. Male genitals are covered by a leopard or genet skin, such as is used by
priests who mediate homicides, feuds, and incest. Like a
leopard-skin priest, a son-in-law respects earth in some situations by wearing sandals in the presence of his mother-in-law,
lest he make her sterile."3 A man also respects his parents-inlaw by avoiding them when sick and vice versa."4 Conversely,
a man feigns obscene slips of the tongue with his mother-in-law
and acts obscenely with his wife's sisters.115 One behaves
sexually toward affines but avoids nakedness and alimentation
in their company; conversely, men eat freely among kin and
appear nude before them but never mention sex.
"1 E. E. Evans-Pritchard, "Bridewealth among the Nuer," pp. 184-86 (n. 88
above); idem, "A Note on Affinity Relations among the Nuer," Man 48 (1948):
3-5 (hereafter cited as "Affinity"); idem, "Two Nuer"; idem, Kinship, pp. 33,
55, 99-102; idem, Religion, pp. 178-79.
112 For the relation between
nakedness and sexuality, see Beidelman, "Some
Nuer."
113
Evans-Pritchard, "Affinity;" idem, Kinship, pp. 99-100; idem, Religion,
p. 178; Huffman, Nuer Customs, p. 37.
114 Evans-Pritchard,
Kinship, p. 100.
15
Ibid., pp. 101-2.
150
ILLNESS
Evans-Pritchard observes that ".. any sickness tends to be
regarded as the operation of Spirit on account of some fault on
the part of the sick person or of someone closely related to
him .. ." and consequently any therapeutic measures are associated with some form of sacrifice.16 Faults accumulate on
account of minor failures to observe respect, so illness may not
be due to any single or recent act but may be a series which
finally prompts Spirit's activity.'7 One knows one is at fault
because one is sick: "There is no soundness in my flesh because
of Thy indignation; there is no health in my bones because of
my sin."'18God's right (cuong) is violated."9
Nuer respect (thek) diseases or organs associated with them,
assuming obligations for respect as the price for recovery from
their own or kin's illness.'20Any illness may establish respect,
as well as "normal" conditions such as menstruation or childbirth. A recovered person not only respects that illness, but
treats it in others due to supernatural connections with the
ailment.'21 Transitory, individual illness is converted into permanent social identity connecting one with others.
While Spirit conveys fertility and health, its immanence is
known through illness, infertility, and death; and it is removed
through sacrificial shedding of blood, just as shedding blood
through cupping and leeching lessens illness.'22 The order of
the world is disturbed by all manifestations of Spirit.'23 Respect is part of their treatment and provides means by which
illness is humanized and controlled; yet it is also proof of a
116
Evans-Pritchard, Religion, pp. 191-92.
Ibid., p. 193.
118 Cf. J.
Pederson, Israel, 4 vols. in 2 (London: Cumberledge, Oxford University
Press, 1926), pp. 443-46; W. D. Reyburn, "Sickness, Sin and the Curse: the
Old Testament and the African Church," Practical Anthropology 7 (1960): 215-22.
As a further illustration of the relation between illness and sin, we may contrast
Nuer thought with that of medieval Christians who saw leprosy as related to both
sin and moral pollution; S. N. Brody, The Disease of the Soul (Ithaca, N.Y.:
Cornell University Press, 1974).
119Evans-Pritchard, Religion, p. 190; cf. with the Greek, Lloyd-Jones, Zeus,
p. 49; with the Jews, McKenzie, Two-Edged Sword, pp. 182-85.
120
Evans-Pritchard, "Nuer Totemism," pp. 238-39.
121 Cf. G. B.
Soule, Some Nuer Terms in Relation to the Human Body (Nasir:
American Mission, 1931); idem, Nuer Diseases; Evans-Pritchard, Religion, p. 186.
122
Ibid., pp. 212-14; Huffman, Nuer-English, pp. 19, 23; idem, Nuer Customs,
p. 34 (n. 59 above).
123
They may also be confirmed by the fact that Nuer prophets exhibit peculiar
sexuality verging on the transsexual or sterile (see Beidelman, "Nuer Priests")
and that the ideal sacrifice to Spirit is a neutered animal (Beidelman, "The Ox").
117
151
complex connection between the unknowable abstraction called
Spirit and the discernible world. This personalized quality is
especially clear in what Evans-Pritchard calls fetishes-individually owned objects associated with disease, curing, and
divination which embody the lowest level of social refraction
of Spirit, the individual.124
CONCLUSION
Evans-Pritchard's presentation of the preceding ethnography
poses several interrelated questions. (1) Is his translation of
thek and theak appropriate, and, even if so, are the difficulties
in these terms well explored? Evans-Pritchard repeatedly
associates interdiction of thek and its punishment, nueer, with
the English word sin; does this mislead as much as it explains?
(2) Is his translation too narrow and situationally bound? Can
we not discern more general principles behind Nuer terms,
principles yielding a clearer meaning of the ideas and a broader
perspective on the patterns of the Nuer? This involves contrasting approaches to translation: a concern for details of
particular usages and practices, and an attempt to abstract a
general spirit animating Nuer values and way of life.
Behavior termed thek involves four basic and interrelated
spheres: (1) the problematical interrelations between Nuer kin
and nonkin, as these are positively and negatively linked
through marriage and resultant kinship, as well as through
homicides and resultant feuds and settlements; (2) unity
through diversity, as manifest by competing formative principles behind Nuer clans and settlements and expressed by
exogamy, by totems, and by occasional needs for specialized
supernatural benefits from respective spirits; (3) peculiar persons respected as manifestations of Spirit, sometimes serving
as medial figures between groups or between Spirit and men,
and sometimes signaling Spirit's activity, as with twins, monorchids, and victims of lightning; (4) experiences of individuals,
their illnesses, accidents, good fortune, and personal quirks
and features are repeatedly defined and associated with immanence of Spirit, but also conjoin the psycho-physiological
individual to his social person, as reflected through conduct.
A pervading theme, which can be seen as a ground to Nuer
124
95.
Evans-Pritchard, Religion, pp. 80, 103; cf. Crazzolara, Gesellschaft, pp. 194-
152
thought or as an implicit theme in it, is preoccupation with the
intractability of experience in so far as there seems no solution
to the dialectics of social life and the moral perception of the
world. Nuer society is based on contradictory yet complementary principles such as patrilineality and maternal loyalties,
lineage and households, clans and settlements, obedience to
parents and self-interest as householders, and on exclusivity
and alliance. In each such pair, neither makes sense without
the other to complement and define it. This world, creation,
exhibits comparable differences and similarities which are reflected metonymically and metaphorically through categories
imposed by language, by social environment, by activities, and
through perceptions associated with these. It is mainly by
metaphor and metonymy, modes of disparity and conjunction,
that we build systems of thought in the first place.125 In the
social world, the respect observed toward kin, affines, and
potential enemies derives not from lack of contact but from
the reverse, the fact that they interact in ways disturbingly
similar to groups from which they should be partially separated
or distinguished. It is because affines are both kin and strangers
that they merit respect. It is because kin are both allies and
competitors that they, too, merit respect. It is because one
cannot marry kin that they provide support in generating
alliances. The processes propelling these contradictory, complementary principles by which society is configured are birth,
parenthood, and death-as may be seen in the idiom of attitudes and prohibitions associated with marriage, affinity, and
feud. The Nuer recognize that there are dilemmas in social life,
in process. In whatever cultural form we conceive society,
these processual complexities prevail, and our own ability to
comprehend Nuer problems is partial proof of this universality.
Yet for all this implicit universality, Nuer society and
thought represent a problem of translation not clearly solved
by Evans-Pritchard. We cannot safely translate Nuer notions
of fault or wrong as sin, even with a carefully explicated gloss.
Nuer ideas of thek relate to respect for the boundaries or order
of the world, both natural and social, yet this merely touches
the surface of the issues in question. Evans-Pritchard concerns
himself with the initial and less challenging aspect of translation, although even elementary translation is far from easy and
must be mastered before we may consider deeper aspects
126 Cf.
Jakobson, "Two Aspects," pp. 90-95.
153
common to other or all societies. Respect of boundaries is
necessary because boundaries are as important in dissolution
as in maintenance. Evans-Pritchard errs in asserting that the
purpose or function of respect is to keep people and things
apart. Respect can only be observed where opposed groups are
joined, even as they are recognized as different. Difference
cannot be grasped outside such coexistence. In the case of
totems, twins, or illness, respect points to a complex unity in
difference inherent in all conceptual and experiential systems.
Some notion of unity having been accepted, people require
internal distinctions for working order in social life, much as
Durkheim maintained long ago.
The meaning of the ritual or etiquette associated with thek
lies as much or more in the modes through which it is expressed
and through which its lapses are punished, as in the situations
where it occurs. Taking their lead from Alfred Schutz and
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Berger and Luckman observe that it is
"the reality of everyday life" that occupies a "privileged
position" of "paramount reality." They go on to note that
reality is organized around the immediacies of the body.'26 (To
some this is hardly news, but it requires repeated statement.)
Because of this immediacy, major forms of respect utilize
basic bodily modes of expression and connection. Through
nurturance, sexuality, and, less directly, speech, Nuer relate
to other Nuer and the idioms of communication and expression
provide the complex counterpoint by which unresolvable contradictions and the coalescing of relationships are played out.
By their nature, the social processes of marriage, birth, and
death establish and dissolve boundaries, and this blurring is
synonymous with their complex reality. Conversely, all failure
to observe thek, even its minor forms, risks physical illness
(most frequently disturbance of one's alimentary and reproductive capacities). Sickness and health for the Nuer have
many connotations held elsewhere. Health, wholeness, and
holy are interrelated. Spirit itself, the ultimate source of life
and order, also brings disorder, sterility, and death, and the
immanence of Spirit in persons and things relates to negation
of vitality. The Nuer view Spirit as both foe and friend;127it
also epitomizes ambiguity or contradiction. Crazzolara, how126 P. L.
Berger and T. Luckman, The Social Construction of Reality (Garden
City, N.Y.: Anchor Books, 1967), pp. 21, 22.
127
154
ever, provides a more negative picture of Spirit than does
Evans-Pritchard, describing Spirit or God as "envious" and
"jealous" of any Nuer enjoying wealth or good fortune.l28The
categories of society and the beliefs in which these people's
feelings and things are embedded are necessary for orderly and
sustained management of their world; indeed, they form the
components of that world. Yet life involves process, change; it
transcends and defies such categories even as it is apprehended
through them. Categories and groupings must contradict one
another in some ways if they are to contain a myriad world.
It is through our bodies that these existential dilemmas have
both meaning and poignancy; and through our bodily processes
these ambiguities and contradictions confront us even as they
somehow are temporarily resolved. The sheer force of our
orectic acts temporarily subsumes and defines that which defies
containment, but such acts and feelings also constantly jeopardize formal reality. With ritual, the gap between a stated
idea and a bodily experienced act is sometimes momentarily
given a sense of more orderly continuity, whereas with illness
and a sense of sin the gap seems more open. Durkheim may
have been right to suggest that the deepest levels of social and
cultural configuration assume universalizing aspects which blur
lines between sociology and metaphysics.129Discussing similar
supposed confusions of categorization among the Bororo, Empson observes that "they know with the clarity of a theologian
that what they wanted to assert was precisely the identity of
two ideas already distinct. If these people are 'primitive' they
are evidence that the human mind is inherently metaphysical."'30The art of ethnographical translation remains a central
feature to this process which defines what Durkheim aptly
termed conscience, a sense of both conscience (moral feeling)
and consciousness (instrumental and reflective thought), an
amalgamation of the orectic and intellectual. Merleau-Ponty
writes: "Man and society are not exactly outside of nature and
the biological; they distinguish themselves from them by bringing nature's 'stakes' together and risking them all together."'l3
In this sense, the effort of translation becomes both a means
of knowledge about others and also of oneself. Collingwood,
Crazzolara, Gesellschaft, p. 95.
Elementary Forms, pp. 429, 444-47 (n. 57 above).
"30Empson, Structure, p. 387 (n. 10 above); cf. L. S. Vygotsky, Thought and
Language (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1962), p. 72.
131
Merleau-Ponty, Signs, p. 125 (n. 11 above).
128
129 Durkheim,
155
describingthe knowledgeof the historian,describesthe knowledge of the successfulanthropologist:
If what the historian knows is past thoughts, and if he knows them by
re-thinking them himself, it follows that the knowledge he achieves by historical inquiry is not knowledge of his situation as opposed to knowledge of
himself, it is knowledge of his situation which is at the same time knowledge
of himself. In re-thinking what somebody else thought, he thinks it himself. In knowing that somebody else thought it, he knows that he himself
is able to think it. And finding out what he is able to do is finding out what
kind of a man he is. If he is able to understand by re-thinking them, the
thoughts of a great many different kinds of people, it follows that he must
be a great many kinds of man. He must be, in fact, a microcosm of all the
history he can know. Thus his own self-knowledge is at the same time his
knowledge of the world of human affairs.132
New YorkUniversity
132 R.
G. Collingwood, An Autobiography(1939; reprint ed., London: Oxford
University Press, 1978), pp. 114-15.

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