A GÂMk Anti-'Dingi' Ritual

During the 1990 rainy season, the Ingessana Hills were attacked and plundered severely by several thousand guerrillas. The people of the Hills, who call themselves Gamk, were extremely shocked at the event. Later on, the villagers carried out a big ritual, called 'the word/problem of the Dinka' (kor e Dingi), in which they acted out a 'glorious' fight against the 'power' of the invaders, Dingi. This short essay is intended to portray how Gamk villagers are trying today to re-define and re-create the situation through their experience of power.2 Forced independence. Gamk ambiguity in the making The Gamk, classified culturally as pre-Nilotic3 and linguistically as an Eastern Jebel branch of the Eastern Sudanic family4 and numbering about 50,000, inhabit the area south of the Gezira (the southern Funj region) on the slopes or at the foot of the Ingessana Hills, which have provided both natural barriers against invaders and better rainfall than in the plains. Their oral traditions indicate diverse origins, and it is quite likely that the Hills have been absorbing various migrants and refugees from the rest of the region for a long period. The Gamk consist of several named groups or districts (gaamk, 'hills') which have never been.organized into a political unity, while each 'hill' is divided into several named subgroups or villages (also called gaamk, or daark) which maintain the village shrine as the centre of community welfare. Like most of the sedentary population in the region, the Gamk are sorgham cultivators, animal keepers and handicraftmen. Today they are

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