Mathiang Yak Anek was a 19th-century female Dinka chief and escaped slave. Born in the 1860s, she was enslaved as a child by Turkish-Egyptian traders. She escaped during the advance of British colonial troops and returned to her home in Pathiong Gok (now part of South Sudan). She became the chief of her people. Following a dispute with a rival leader, she was removed from her position by colonial officials.
Mathiang Yak Anek was born in the 1860s to a Dinka family in the Pagok Pathiong Gok community of Turkish Sudan (now South Sudan). [1] As a child, she was abducted from her village by Turkish-Egyptian traders and taken as a slave to the regional slaving post of Tonj. [1]
Anek was sold and then taken north to Omdurman, the capital of the Mahdist State, [1] where she was resold. [2] She was forced to undergo female genital mutilation, [2] a common experience for female slaves. For three years, she worked as a slave near Buri. She learned to speak Arabic and was informally married to a man in Northern Sudan. [1]
Following the turbulence caused by the advance and the victories of the British colonial troops during the Anglo-Egyptian conquest of Sudan, Anek escaped from slavery and returned to her home in Pathiong Gok where she resumed a traditional lifestyle. [2] She married a man named Dahl Marol. [1]
Anek gradually acquired stature among the Dinka of Pathiong Gok, convincing them of the worth of her knowledge of Arabic and her aggressive nature. She was eventually made a female chief and established residence in Rumbek, which had become a regional headquarters of the Anglo-Egyptian colonial administration. Anek initiated contact with colonial administrators and acted as a mediator between her people and agents of the foreign occupation. She was awarded a golden sword by a British officer for "keeping the peace" among the Gok Dinka. [2]
Anek clashed with Wuol Athian, a rival military leader and traditional priest of the Dinka community of Agar who had allied with the Nuer to attack the Turko-Egyptian garrison at Rumbek in 1883. [3] At a gathering of the region's chiefs, Anek debated Athian, successfully made a public case against him, and was awarded a gray cow as recompense. The incident was considered dishonourable for Athian. [1]
At the next annual gathering of chiefs before the British colonial officials, a charge was made against Anek claiming that she had slapped Athian on his buttocks. The charges were likely false, but considered a "grave offense". It was said that Athian was mobilising a war force to attack the Pathiong Gok. To resolve the situation, colonial officials stripped Anek of her chieftainship and appointed a man to be her successor. [1]
Afterwards, Anek abandoned her house in the city and moved to the countryside. [1] Following her rule, Gok had a higher rate of female chieftains than most groups of Dinka people. [2]
Khartoum or Khartum is the capital city of Sudan. With a population of 6,344,348, Khartoum's metropolitan area is the largest in Sudan.
Dinka spirituality is the traditional religion of the Dinka people, an ethnic group of South Sudan. They belong to the Nilotic peoples, which is a group of cultures in Southern Sudan and wider Eastern Africa. The Dinka people largely rejected or ignored Islamic and Christian teachings, as Abrahamic religious beliefs were incompatible with their society, culture and traditional beliefs.
Francis Piol Bol Bok, a Dinka tribesman and citizen of South Sudan, was a slave for ten years and later became an abolitionist and author living in the United States.
The Dinka people are a Nilotic ethnic group native to South Sudan. The Dinka mostly live along the Nile, from Mangalla-Bor to Renk, in the region of Bahr el Ghazal, Upper Nile, and the Abyei Area of the Ngok Dinka in South Sudan.
The Nuer people are a Nilotic ethnic group concentrated in the Greater Upper Nile region of South Sudan. They also live in the Ethiopian region of Gambella. The Nuer speak the Nuer language, which belongs to the Nilotic language family. They are the second-largest ethnic group in South Sudan and the largest ethnic group in Gambella, Ethiopia. The Nuer people are pastoralists who herd cattle for a living. Their cattle serve as companions and define their lifestyle. The Nuer call themselves "Naath".
Slavery in Sudan began in ancient times, and had a resurgence during the Second Sudanese Civil War (1983–2005). During the Trans-Saharan slave trade, many Nilotic peoples from the lower Nile Valley were purchased as slaves and brought to work elsewhere in North Africa and the Orient by Nubians, Egyptians, Berbers and Arabs.
The Bari are a Nilotic ethnic group in South Sudan, East Africa. The heir mother tongue is Bari, which belongs to the Nilotic language family.
Abuk is the first woman in the myths of the Dinka people of South Sudan and the Nuer of South Sudan and Ethiopia, who call her Buk or Acol. She is the only well-known female deity of the Dinka. She is also the patron goddess of women as well as gardens. Her emblem or symbols are, a small snake, the moon and sheep. She is the mother of the god of rain and fertility (Denka). The story from her birth to marriage and child-birth is:
She was born very small, when placed in a pot, she swelled like a bean.
Abuk and her mate, called Garang, were given one corn each to eat per day, by the creator god. This happened at the time when Abuk had finished growing.
The whole of all human people would have become famished if not for the fact Abuk went to steal the food the people needed.
The rain god, called Deng, was joined to Abuk in order that there might be an abundance in the land.
A daughter (Ai-yak) and two sons were born to them.
Turco-Egyptian Sudan, also known as Turkish Sudan or Turkiyya, describes the rule of the Eyalet and later Khedivate of Egypt over what is now Sudan and South Sudan. It lasted from 1820, when Muhammad Ali Pasha started his conquest of Sudan, to the fall of Khartoum in 1885 to Muhammad Ahmad, the self-proclaimed Mahdi.
Tonj is a town located in Warrap State, in the Bahr el Ghazal region of South Sudan. It is known by various names, including Kalkuel, Genanyuon, Jurkatac, Madiera, Genngeu, and Tonjdit. The town is bordered by Rumbek, Cueibet, Yambio, Bentiu, and Gogrial. As of 2010, its population is 17,340.
South Sudan is home to around 60 indigenous ethnic groups and 80 linguistic partitions among a 2021 population of around 11 million. Historically, most ethnic groups were lacking in formal Western political institutions, with land held by the community and elders acting as problem solvers and adjudicators. Today, most ethnic groups still embrace a cattle culture in which livestock is the main measure of wealth and used for bride wealth.
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Ngok Lual Yak is an African sub-tribe, within the Jiëŋ (Dinka) group. They are mainly found in Malakal, South Sudan and inhabit the land along the confluences of the Nile and Sobat rivers. It is believed that the sub-tribe numbers about 95,000. They are devoted ethnics and believe in Deŋdit as their provider. Some of Ngok sections are part of Bor Community and sections who identifies themselves as descendants of Ngok could still be traced!
Mathiang may refer to:
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Slavery in Egypt was practised until the early 20th century. It differed from slavery in ancient Egypt, being managed in accordance with Islamic law from the conquest of the Caliphate in the 7th century until the practice stopped in the early 20th century, having been gradually phased out when the slave trade was banned in the late 19th century.
The Anglo-Egyptian Slave Trade Convention, also known as Anglo-Egyptian Convention for the Suppression of the Slave Trade or Anglo-Egyptian Convention for the Abolition of Slavery was a treaty between the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and the Khedivate of Egypt from 1877. The first version of 1877 was followed by an addition in 1884 and a second addition in 1895. It formally banned the slave trade to Egypt. While slavery itself was not abolished, existing slaves were granted the right to apply for manumission, which managed to phase out slavery by the early 20th-century.