Today the Dinka are the largest ethnic group in Sudan. The size of their population centuries ago as they migrated into their present homelands is difficult to estimate. The only historical clue is given by the oral histories of the seventeenth-century Shilluk who describe the Dinka as moving along their borders in “hordes,” suggesting a sizeable population relative to their own. Dinka oral histories, however, support the view that they acquired much of their population after reaching the South by way of massive ethnic absorption of non-Dinka peoples. By the twentieth century Dinka ethnic expansion in Southern Sudan was such that their ethnic circumference was one thousand miles. Yet, in the South today one cannot easily “become Dinka.” It is only by marriage that a person and his/her children can be ethnically integrated into the community. Sandra Greene suggests that gen der studies and ethnicity in precolonial Africa cannot be understood in isolation, and I believe that this argument also applies to the history of Southern Sudan.

The Difficulties of “Becoming Dinka”

With few exceptions, adopting Dinka identity outside of marriage has been extremely difficult both in the past as well as in the present day. On the other hand, it is far easier to adopt the identity of the close neighbors of the Dinka, the Nilotic Nuer. In modern times ethnic incorporation into the latter society has been accomplished by means of a ritual of sacrifice. For the Dinka, however, there is no such cultural act or ceremony available for incorporating foreigners into their amalgam. Nor do the Dinka fully accept, in a social or political sense, non-Dinka peoples living in their midst. According to Ciec Dinka Gordon Matot Tut: “Nuer law [and custom] is different from Dinka law…. The Nuer have one thing that differs from the Dinka. When you are among them you are not discriminated against.