Every culture around the world has important values that they are unique to other cultures. These values and morals are taught to every generation as traditions may not be the same as other cultures all over the world.
The Dinka people are a Nilotic ethnic group native to South Sudan with a sizable diaspora population abroad. The Dinka mostly live along the Nile, from Jonglei to Renk, in the region of Bahr el Ghazal, Upper Nile (two out of three Provinces which were formerly located in southern Sudan) and the Abyei Area of the Ngok Dinka in South Sudan.
The important values of Dinka culture in the southern Sudan are unbelievable because the way Dinka done their own cultures is way different with other tribes in the southern Sudan and whole Sudan.
Also the moral values of the women and men are way different with other people around the world. Dinkas are the people of the southern Sudan, and inhabiting the swamplands of the Dinka largest ethnic groups region of the Nile basin. They are chiefly a pastoral people, relying on cattle herding at riverside home in the dry season to growing millet in fixed settlement during the rainy season.
The population of Dinkas around 4-5 million people, constituting about 48% of the population of the entirely country, and that made them as largest ethnic tribe in Sudan.
They are a black Africa people in origin, differing markedly from the Arab tribes inhabiting northern Sudan they are noted for their height often reaching as much as seven feet. Besides, their women are famously beautiful than other tribes in the whole Sudan, and the usually marriage within their community.
Marriage in Dinka is exogamic up to several generations. Traditionally, marriage is everyone’s goal and having a family is regarded as the ultimate fulfillment in life. Men seek women through courtship. A man may create songs in which he praises his intended bride and her relatives and urges his own relatives to support him.
Most marriages are through consent of the couple. When a man is regarded as eligible for marriage by his family, they sit with him to decide which, among the girls he has courted, he loves the most. He could also make suggestions and the family chooses from his list.
Once an agreement is reached on the bride, his family makes a visit to her home to announce their intention and to discuss the number of cattle to paid in bride-wealth. Sometimes disagreements may arise and the man and woman may decide to elope.
Once married, the couple may reside with the man’s family for some time before they move out and establish their own home. They are free to live anywhere they desire, but newly-married couples generally reside with the man’s family.
Dinka marriages are quite stable; divorce only occurs when the woman is unable to conceive. The bride’s family usually makes sure the chances of saving the marriage are exhausted before agreeing to divorce, as termination of the union would mean return of the bride-wealth. If the union has produced children, part of the bride-wealth is kept by the bride’s family as payment for the children who remain with the man.
In Dinka/Jieng system of marriage, despite the expensive payment of dowries that range from 100-500cows.
Women are treated godly, once a man gets married, his wife will not cook or sweep for 4yrs, this period is called Anyuuc( Generous welcoming), it is meant for a new wife to rest, relax and study her husband homestead values.
Her husband’s sisters will cook, wash, utensils, collect firewood fetch water and other domestic works till later after 4yrs, her husband decides to arrange a very big party called Thäät(cooking festival), 3cows and 5goats can be slaughtered to initiate a wife into cooking for family.
This is how love is expressed in Dinka society of South Sudan.
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