AfricaBib 
bibliographic database
| Previous page | New search |
The free AfricaBib App for Android is available here
 Periodical article |
 Leiden University catalogue |
 WorldCat |
| Title: | 'Dangerous to Eat': Rethinking Pollution States among the Nuer of Sudan |
| Author: | Hutchinson, Sharon |
| Year: | 1992 |
| Periodical: | Africa: Journal of the International African Institute |
| Volume: | 62 |
| Issue: | 4 |
| Pages: | 490-504 |
| Language: | English |
| Geographic term: | Sudan |
| Subjects: | Nuer popular beliefs Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) |
| External link: | https://www.jstor.org/stable/1161347 |
| Abstract: | This article offers a novel interpretation of a highly complex and deadly form of pollution ('nueer') that powerfully shapes contemporary social relations among the Nuer of Sudan. Through an examination of the myriad events thought to trigger off the condition 'nueer' (homicide, the killing of elephants, cannibalism, the death of age mates, abnormal births, close incest, grave digging, specific behaviour during lactation and menstruation, and the killing of one's totem) the author challenges earlier attempts by E.E. Evans-Pritchard to interpret this condition via Judaeo-Christian notions of 'sin'. It is argued that 'nueer' is better understood as a pollution concept that distinguishes - via the notion 'dangerous to eat' - blood flows that are culturally defined as negative, death-ridden and anomalous from others deemed to be properly mediated, positive and life-promoting. As a powerful force governing the social circulation of blood and food, 'nueer' helps to ground these more abstract distinctions in the immediacies of bodily experience, thereby lending them greater significance and intensity. The article is based on field and archival research carried out between 1980-1983 and 1989-1990. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. in English and French. |
