Nilotic Women: a Diachronic Perspective

Abstract

The pastoral Nilotic-speaking peoples of the Southern Sudan have been observed by missionaries, merchants, and casual travellers for more than a century. Significant advances in social theory have been formulated on the basis of Nilotic ethnography. In the light of the voluminous literature recorded by these and other authorities, it may now be of value to draw into clearer relief the nature of the status and authority of the women in these ‘traditional’ societies, which are increasingly drawn into and irrevocably changed by exogenous sources.