StapleSouth Sudan
Kisra
Thin fermented sorghum flatbread spread on a hot plate and peeled off in sheets, the base of every meal in the north of the country.
Serves Makes 12 · 30 minutes, plus 2 days fermenting
Balanda Bviri
Farmers and carvers of the woodlands south-west of Wau, one of the Fertit communities that the nineteenth-century slave raids assembled out of survivors, with a Ubangian language, a Zande-influenced court tradition and a history written largely by the people who preyed on them.
Identity
Population: Estimated 50,000 to 90,000
Location: Wau, Raga and Bagari areas of Western Bahr el Ghazal, South Sudan, toward the Central African Republic border
Language: Bviri (Belanda Viri), a Ubangian language; Belanda Bor is a distinct Luo language of a related community
Language family: Niger-Congo → Adamawa-Ubangi → Ubangian
Traditional governance: Chiefs and lineage elders, with a court tradition influenced by Zande models; South Sudanese state and county administration.
Clans, Sections & Sub-groups (3)
Most African peoples are federations of named sub-groups (clans, sections, chiefdoms or sub-tribes), each with its own dialect, territory and traditions.
Balanda Bviri
The Ubangian-speaking community proper.
Balanda Bor
A Luo-speaking community sharing the Balanda label and much of the history.
Fertit communities
The wider grouping of Western Bahr el Ghazal peoples formed under the pressure of the slave raids.
Culture
Clothing: Contemporary dress; ceremonial beadwork and bark cloth in the older record; chiefly regalia influenced by Zande court styles.
Food: Cassava and sorghum bread, sim sim, groundnuts, honey, bushmeat historically, greens, and the sorghum and cassava brews of the region.
Ceremonies: Chiefly installations; ancestral offerings; funeral rites with dance and drumming; harvest observances; the mask and figure traditions of the Ubangian carving world.
Marriage customs: Patrilineal and clan-exogamous; bridewealth in goods, iron and cash; intermarriage across the Fertit communities is routine.
Initiation rites: Boys' circumcision and instruction in seclusion, in a tradition shared across the Ubangian-speaking peoples of the Congo-Nile watershed.
Food & Recipes
Every dish the Atlas publishes for South Sudan, at national rather than community level — 9 in all: the staple a household eats daily, the dish the country names as its own, street food, what is cooked for a wedding or Eid, regional specialities and a drink. Quantities and method are given for every one, so these are recipes rather than descriptions, and each has a photograph from Wikimedia Commons. The Food page carries the whole continent, searchable by country and by ingredient.
StapleSouth Sudan
Mulukhiyah
also Jute leaf stew, Khudra
Jute mallow leaves cooked to a thick green sauce with garlic and dried fish, poured over asida. Simple, cheap and eaten across the whole of South Sudan.
Serves 6 · 45 minutes
National dishSouth Sudan
Asida with Kudra
Sorghum porridge with a green sauce of okra or greens, the everyday meal across South Sudan. Turned out as a dome and eaten from the shared dish.
Serves 6 · 1 hour
National dishSouth Sudan
Combo
also Okra and greens stew
Fresh okra and wild greens cooked down with sesame paste into a thick, deliberately slippery stew, eaten with asida. The South Sudanese household dish.
Serves 6 · 50 minutes
Street foodSouth Sudan
Kajaik
Dried Nile fish stewed with onion and groundnut into a thick sauce, eaten with asida. The Nile's fish is dried in quantity and traded far inland.
Serves 6 · 1 hour
Festival & feastSouth Sudan
Roast Goat for a Feast
A goat or bull killed and roasted whole for a wedding, a homecoming or the settlement of a dispute. In cattle-keeping societies the animal is the message.
Serves 12 or more · 4 hours
Festival & feastSouth Sudan
Fatta
also Bread and meat platter
Torn flatbread layered with meat broth, yoghurt and fried onion, assembled in a great tray at Eid and at weddings and eaten communally.
Serves 8 · 2 hours
Regional specialitySouth Sudan
Wala Wala
Sorghum or maize porridge with a simple bean or greens relish, eaten in the Equatorias. Plain food, and what most of the country eats most days.
Serves 6 · 50 minutes
Drink & sweetSouth Sudan
Merissa
Sorghum beer brewed and sold by women, drunk from calabashes at markets and gatherings. It is thick, sour and cloudy, and doubles as food.
Serves Makes about 5 litres · 4 days
Stories & Oral Literature
FertitHistory of enslavement
Fertit is a term applied by northern Sudanese and by Dinka neighbours to the non-Arab, non-Dinka peoples of Western Bahr el Ghazal, and it carries the history of the slave raids: the zariba trading forts established from the 1850s by Khartoum-based merchants took captives from these communities on an industrial scale. Communities were broken and reassembled from survivors of different origins, which is why the Fertit peoples are linguistically diverse and share a common history rather than a common descent. The Balanda Bviri are one such community.
The Zande FrontierPolitical history
The Balanda sat on the northern edge of the Zande expansion, and Avungara princes extended authority over some Balanda communities in the nineteenth century. Zande court forms — the ruler's compound, the court's judicial procedure, the styles of regalia — were adopted or imposed. The Balanda position between the Zande kingdoms to the south, the Dinka to the east and the raiders from the north is the whole of their nineteenth-century history in one sentence.
Wau's Other HalfContemporary history
Fertit communities including the Balanda make up much of the population of Wau and its surroundings, and the town's politics has turned for decades on the relationship between Fertit and Dinka populations. Militias formed on both sides during the second civil war; the fighting in Wau in 2016 and 2017 followed the same lines. Balanda leaders have argued consistently that Western Bahr el Ghazal's smaller communities are treated as a residual category in a country organised around its large ones.
Proverbs
“A house rebuilt from three ruins is still a house.”
On communities assembled from the survivors of raids.
“The one who names you does not know you.”
On the term Fertit.
“The carver works with what the tree allows.”
On making something of the material at hand.
Mythology & Spiritual Beliefs
Creation: A high god of the Ubangian pattern, remote; ancestral spirits at lineage shrines; witchcraft belief and its detection through oracle, in forms shared with the Zande.
Beliefs: Ancestral offerings; oracle consultation of Zande-influenced type; closed-association medicines; Catholic Christianity established through the Wau diocese, now dominant.
Ancestors: The dead are buried near the homestead and addressed there; genealogies are complicated by the disruptions of the raiding period and are recited carefully where they survive.
Gods, Goddesses & Spirits
The high god
The remote creator of the Ubangian tradition
Ancestral spirits
Addressed at lineage shrines for health and harvest
Oracle powers
The agencies consulted in the detection of witchcraft, in Zande-influenced form
Architecture
Traditional settlements: Villages of round thatched houses with granaries in the woodland, dispersed along tracks; the chief's compound larger, with a court space and drum house.
Building techniques: Wattle and daub with conical grass thatch; woven granaries; wood carving in figures, masks and household objects; drum making.
Village layout: Houses around a swept yard with granaries behind; the chief's compound with its court space and drums at the centre of a group of villages.
Artifacts
Carved figures and masks
Sculpture
Woodwork of the Ubangian tradition, held in Sudanese and European collections.
Slit drums
Instrument
Signal and dance drums of the Congo-Nile watershed peoples.
Zariba fort sites
Historical site
Remains of the nineteenth-century trading and slave-raiding forts of Bahr el Ghazal.
Chiefly regalia
Regalia
Insignia of Balanda chiefship, showing Zande court influence.
Historical Timeline
Pre-1800
Ubangian-speaking communities occupy the woodlands of the Congo-Nile watershed in what is now Western Bahr el Ghazal.
1850s–1880s
Khartoum-based zariba forts raid the region for slaves and ivory; communities are broken and reassembled.
1800s
Zande Avungara princes extend authority over parts of Balanda country; court forms are adopted.
1899–1956
Anglo-Egyptian administration; Catholic missions establish at Wau and in the surrounding country.
1983–present
The second civil war militarises the Fertit-Dinka relationship; fighting in Wau in 2016 and 2017 follows the same lines.
Sources & Further Reading
Open sources
- Santandrea, A Tribal History of the Western Bahr el GhazalWorldCat
- Rift Valley Institute — Western Bahr el Ghazal researchRift Valley Institute
Premium & scholarly sources
- Ethnologue: Belanda ViriSIL International