DINKA DWELLINGS.
The Dinka dwellings consist of small groups of huts clustered in farmsteads over the cultivated plains. Villages in a proper sense there are none; but the cattle of separate districts are united in a large park, which the Khartoomers call a “murah.”[16] The accompanying drawing represents a Dinka farm surrounded by sorghum fields. Of the three huts, the one in the centre, with a double porchway, is set apart for the head of the family; that on the left is for the women; whilst the largest and most imposing hut on the right is a hospital for sick cows, which require, to be separated from the throngs in the murah that they may receive proper attention. Under an awning in the centre of the huts is the fireplace for the cooking, sheltered from the wind by a semicircular screen of clay. The goats are kept within a small thorn fence, so that the daily supply of milk may be always at hand.
As a rule the huts of the Dinka are spacious, and more durable than those of other tribes who build their dwellings in the same conical form. They are not unfrequently 40 feet in diameter; their foundations are composed of a mixture of clay and chopped straw, and the supports of the roof are made of branches of acacia and other hard woods. Not content with supporting these with a single central prop, the Dinka erect a trunk with its spreading branches in the middle. The roof is contrived out of layers of cut straw. These buildings endure for eight or ten years, and decay at length mainly through being worm-eaten. The huts of the Bongo, on the contrary, are built up much more rapidly, but rarely last as much as three years.
Sectional View, showing
construction of Dinka Hut.
The principal plants that are here cultivated are sorghum and penicillaria, three kinds of beans, earth-nuts (Arachis), earth-peas (Voandzeia subterranea), sesame, yams, and Virginian tobacco; but we shall have a more ample opportunity of entering into the details of these crops when we speak of the Bongo, who cultivate nearly the same products of the soil.
DINKA CATTLE.
The domestic animals are oxen, sheep, goats, and dogs; poultry was never to be seen, and the cause of its absence is inexplicable. The cattle belong to the Zebu race, and are smaller than those of the Baggara and Hassanieh; they have a hump, their horns are slender, the fore part of the body prevailing so in size as to resemble an antelope. As to colour, the majority are nearly white, but it would be incorrect to say that either the speckled or the striped, the tawny or the brown, are wanting. The Dinka have separate expressions to denote every shade of colour of the breed, and, indeed, their vocabulary for all that relates to cattle and cattle-breeding is more copious than that of any European tongue.