Getting to Know Our Nuba Mountains Neighbors
by Andraus Komi, Secretary General NMIA
For thousands of years, the Nuba have occupied most of what is known today as Kordofan Province. But because of successive attacks by the various Arab tribes, who invaded Sudan from the 16th century onwards, they retreated to the mountains of south Kordofan that became their permanent homeland. The people of the Nuba Mountains have suffered severely in the 41-year Sudanese civil war. Muslim Nuba Mountain peoples have experienced widespread destruction of their mosques because the fundamentalist Muslim government in Khartoum has declared Nuba Mountain Islam to be heretical. Many Christian churches have met similar fates. The civil war has caused many of the Nuba Mountain people to immigrate to other countries. There are four families of Nuba Mountain Sudanese people in Portland currently. They were sponsored by Trinity Episcopal Church in Portland.
The Nuba people, who live in the geographical center of Sudan, are the largest of many non-Arab groups in Northern Sudan, and are the descendants of the people of the Kush kingdom of the 8th century. They are an amalgam of dozens of different tribes with different cultures, languages, and religions. For thousands of years, the Nuba have occupied most of what is known today as Kordofan Province. But because of successive attacks by the various Arab tribes, who invaded Sudan from the 16th century onwards, they retreated to the mountains of south Kordofan that became their permanent homeland, and took the name of Nuba Mountains.
During the British rule in Sudan (1896-1956) the Nuba Mountains was a separate province with its own administration and its capital of Talodi. In 1929, it became part of Kordofan. It remained a closed district until shortly before independence in 1956.
Urban Arabs represent the power of the Sudanese State. They are trying to bring the area and its people under the writ of the central government. There is an irony in the tension between political incorporation into the state of Sudan and the maintenance of local identity. Local, tribal identities are strong. But, until recently, many Nuba villagers had no conception of the wider community of the Nuba as a whole. They had little reason to travel to other Nuba areas.
By the time the war intensified in 1989, the Nuba population numbered more than 1.5 million, plus migrants. Since then, the number in the Nuba Mountains has probably decreased, due to death, fewer births, and mass out-migration to Khartoum. There has also been massive population movement within the Nuba Mountains, with hundreds of thousands forcibly displaced to government towns and "peace camps," and a large number living as internal refugees in the areas secured by the Sudanese People's Liberation Army (SPLA). Currently, the best estimate for the population under the administration of the SPLA is between 350,000 and 400,000 people; those under government control number about one million.
The Nuba peoples possess extraordinarily rich and varied cultures and traditions. "It has been said that there are as many Nuba languages as there are hills," noted an early anthropologist of the Nuba, in 1947.
In March 2001, the Nuba community in Maine formed an organization to deepen their spirit of originality and heritage, to spread awareness through education, and to encourage the Nuba people internationally to found organizations to assist the victims of war, and publicize the war's human rights abuses. The Maine Peace Fund has agreed to be the fiscal sponsor of the the Nuba Mountain International Association of Maine until it gains its own 501 © (3) non-profit status. Peace Action Maine staff Wells Staley-Mays and volunteer Carolyn Reed have been assisting members of NMIA in filling out the proper papers for non-profit status and publicizing the organization.
Back to Peace Talk Index, Winter, 2001-2002