Nuer

Nuer
/nooh"euhr/, n., pl. Nuers, (esp. collectively) Nuer for 1.
1. a member of a tribal people who live along the Nile in southern Sudan and subsist chiefly by raising cattle.
2. the Nilotic language of the Nuer people.

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People of the marsh and savanna living on both banks of the Nile River in southern Sudan.

They speak an Eastern Sudanic language of the Nilo-Saharan family. The Nuer are cattle-raising people who also cultivate millet and spear fish. They spend the rainy season in permanent villages on the higher ground and the dry season in riverside camps. Feuding between clans is common, as is warfare with the Dinka. They number 1.5 million. See also Nilot.

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people
      people who live in the marshy and savanna country on both banks of the Nile River in the southern Sudan. They speak an Eastern Sudanic language (Eastern Sudanic languages) of the Nilo-Saharan language family.

      The Nuer are a cattle-raising people, devoted to their herds, although milk and meat must be supplemented by the cultivation of millet and the spearing of fish. Because the land is flooded for part of the year and parched for the rest of it, they spend the rainy season in permanent villages built on the higher ground and the dry season in riverside camps.

      Politically, the Nuer form a cluster of autonomous communities, within which there is little unity and much feuding; homicides are settled by payments of cattle effected through the mediation of a priest. The basic social group is the patrilineal lineage. Groups of lineages are organized into clans. The members of a clan have in their territory a slightly privileged status, although they form a minority of its population. The majority belong to other clans or are descendants of the neighbouring Dinka, large numbers of whom have been subdued by the Nuer and incorporated into their society. In each community the men are divided into six age sets.

      Marriage, which is polygynous, is marked by the giving of cattle by the bridegroom's people to the bride's kin. Because it is held that every man must have at least one male heir, it is the custom for a man's kin, should he die unmarried, to marry a wife to his name and beget children by her, a custom known as “ghost marriage.”

      The Nuer pray and sacrifice to a spirit associated with the sky but also thought to be ubiquitous, like the air. This spirit is conceived of as a single creative spirit in relation to mankind as a whole; but it is also figured in different representations in relation to different social groups, such as clans, lineages, and age sets, and it may then be symbolized by material forms, often animals or plants.

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Universalium. 2010.

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  • Nuer — may refer to: the Nuer people the Nuer language This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended …   Wikipedia

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  • Nuer — [no͞o′ər] n. pl. Nuers or Nuer 1. a pastoral people living along the Nile in S Sudan 2. the language of this people …   English World dictionary

  • Nuër — Nuër, Neger am obern Nil, zwischen Bahr el Gazal und Sobat (ohne diesen zu erreichen), mit langen Beinen und platten Füßen, die ihnen bei Überschwemmungen sehr zustatten kommen. Die Lippendurchbohrung beginnt bei ihnen. Die Männer gehen… …   Meyers Großes Konversations-Lexikon

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  • Nuer — Los nuer, o nath como se llaman a sí mismos, son una sociedad africana, que fue estudiada a profundidad por Sir Edward Evan Evans Pritchard durante 1930 y 1956 y más tarde por Sharon Hutchinson durante la década de 1990. Nuerlandia se localiza… …   Wikipedia Español

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  • nuer — (nu é) v. a. Assortir des nuances. Cela est très bien nué.    Nuer un dessin, marquer sur les fleurs les couleurs que l ouvrier doit employer.    Absolument. Cet ouvrier sait bien nuer. SYNONYME    NUER, NUANCER. La seule différence qu on puisse… …   Dictionnaire de la Langue Française d'Émile Littré

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