The Divination of Atuot Philosophy

In their image of a mythical world, the pastoral Nilotic-speaking Atuot' of the southern Sudan convey the impression that there were at one time none of the radical dichotomies which now figure as common features of experience. The sky and earth were conjoined; life in its present sense did not exist because there was no death. The general order of existence was an order of unity and completeness. This primordial world was violently transformed when human beings first acted with self-conscious intention, when, in a sense, the individual emerged from the collectivity. A woman was pounding grain to prepare a meal but, self-indulgently sought, in a sudden burst of avarice, to make more than was needed. Common instances of personal misfortune are often defined by the same circumstances. An interpretation of what they see as an essential human proclivity, to seek gain at another's expense or to suffer the misfortune by implication of some other's anti-social behaviour, is fundamental to an understanding of Atuot divination. A myth recounts how, at the moment human greed was first manifested, people became blind to its source. In this story, a man was speared in the side of his body, and even as his blood gushed from his mouth, he was unable to see the cause of his demise. The mythical image in some instances closely corresponds to daily experience, and offers a reason for performing and participating in rituals of divination

Action (physics) · Aesthetics · Art · Demise · Dichotomy · Divination · Epistemology · Interpretation (philosophy) · Literature · Misfortune · Mythology · Order (exchange) · Sociology · Theology · African history and culture analysis · Ancient Egypt and Archaeology · Biblical Studies and Interpretation · Classical Philosophy and Thought · History · Law · Philosophy

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  Open Access•John W Burton•Ethnology•1985

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