TATUG OR DELEIB—AMERICAN PROTESTANT MISSION STATION ON THE SOBAT.
Physically, the men are tall and well-built, but show little signs of muscular development, being generally long-limbed and wiry. They are all stark naked, and cover themselves from head to foot with cow dung ash, which gives them a particularly filthy appearance and renders their skin extremely rough and coarse. They make no attempt to adorn themselves, but are extremely anxious to procure brass wire with which to make for themselves bracelets extending from the wrist to near the elbow. This seems to be about their only vanity. They are all armed with spears, of which every man carries two or three. Their weapon of defence consists of an oval-shaped buffalo-hide shield. Bows and arrows they do not appear to possess.
The elder married women are as filthy as the men in appearance. They all, however, wear a leather apron or skin fastened round their waists. The younger girls and unmarried women wear no such covering, and, like the men, are quite naked.
The right bank of the Sobat near Nasser Post is densely populated as far as the junction of the Sobat and Pibor rivers, there being several large and important villages such as Kwoinlualtong, Taufot, and Ajungmir in addition to smaller ones. The left bank of the Sobat is not inhabited, as from Nasser to the Pibor a considerable portion of the country is inundated when the rivers are full.
East of the Sobat-Pibor junction, the country through which the Baro flows may be described, until Anuak territory is reached, as worthless. For the most part it consists of open treeless grass plains, which, in the vicinity of the river, are inundated for months at a time. The population is small, and confined to villages some distance apart, and absolutely no signs of cultivation are seen, except on a large island near the border of Anuak territory.
This perhaps may be explained by the fact that the Nuers in the dry season of the year occupy villages near the river banks, which are merely used as large fishing villages during the time the rivers are low; they subsist almost entirely then on the fish speared in the many pools which are formed by the receding waters of the rivers. When the rivers become full again, and the country is inundated, they withdraw to their permanent quarters further inland, where they probably merely cultivate during the rainy season of the year, between the months of May and November.
Several of the large villages to the east of the Pibor-Sobat junction, such as Taiyau, Gunjang, Gadjak and others which were teeming with life in the month of January, were deserted in July when a visit was paid by steamer to Itang.
With the Nuers of the Sobat and Baro rivers very little trade can be done, as they possess little or no grain, living chiefly on fish. They possess, however, numerous flocks of goats and sheep in the vicinity of Nasser Post, and also some magnificent herds of cattle at Ajungmir. Thirty-five goats and sheep were obtained in exchange for a cow. Large opaque white beads, about the size of a pea, are in request as articles of barter, but brass wire “No. 8” is most in demand, and a desire for cloth is beginning to rise.
Anuaks or Yambos (E. of Nasser).The eastern Anuaks of the Baro (or Ufeno, as they call it) inhabit that portion of the river bank extending east of 34° 10′ to the mouth of the Baro river gorge at the foot of the Abyssinian hills, and the whole of their territory, with the exception of a small enclave round Itang,[91] which is leased to the Sudan Government, belongs to Abyssinia.