352 



THE LIVING RACES OF MANKIND 



THE DYUR. 



South-west of the Dinka country lies the territory of the 

 Dyur, who are clearly a branch of the Shilluk, and retain many 

 of the characters as well as the language of that people. Dyur 

 is a Dinka term, meaning "wild men"; for the Dinka regard 

 the Dyur with contempt, as they possess no cattle. The Dyur 

 are a peaceful and industrious tribe, and are skilled workers in iron. 

 Physically they are tall and slim, and the jaws are less prominent 

 than in most Negroes. Their dress is limited to a short flap of 

 skin, which hangs down the back, and is suspended from a string 

 round the waist. Their hair is cut short. The principal ornaments 

 are rings of brass and iron, worn in the nose, ears, and lips, or on 

 the limbs; some of the last are large and elaborately ornamented: 

 the men wear a massive ivory ring round the upper part of the 

 arm. 



Their weapons are long lance-headed spears. The iron is 

 obtained by smelting in a small conical clay furnace, in which 

 the ore is melted by a charcoal fire. The fire is maintained by 

 natural draught, as bellows are not used. This work, as well as 

 the fishing and hunting, in both of which they are experts, is done 

 by the men; while the women do all the agricultural and domestic 

 work, and make the pottery and wicker-work vessels. 



The Dyur are an affectionate race, and nurse their babies in 

 long basket-work cradles. The dead are buried in mounds or 

 tumuli. Spitting, as with the Masai, is the principal salutation, 

 expressing friendship. 



THE BONGO. 



South-west of the Dyur is the home of the great Bongo 

 nation, who formerly occupied a tract of country, 175 miles long 

 by 50 miles broad, between lat. 6 and 8 N. They are a purely 

 agricultural people, divided into a large number of independent 

 village communities and 'clans, so that they were unable to offer 

 much opposition to the old Arab slave-raiders against whom the 

 Dinka were long able to hold out. 



The Bongo, as a rule, are of a reddish colour; their average height is 5 feet 7 inches. 

 Their heads are short and round, their hair short, curly, and black, and kept short or in small 

 tufts separated by shaved spaces. One striking feature in the Bongo women is the fatness of 

 the buttocks, similar to that once regarded as characteristic of the Hottentots and Bushmen. 



The clothing of the tribe is very simple. The men wear a narrow girdle, from which there 

 usually hangs a strip of cotton-cloth or a flap of softened leather. The women content 

 themselves with a leafy twig or bunch of grass hanging from the girdle. At dances and 

 festivals the men wear a feather head-dress. Both sexes wear elaborate strings of beads, teeth, 

 claws, copper rings, or fragments of roots. The women expand the lower ear and the lip by 

 the insertion of wooden disks, the size of which is gradually increased until the lip is five or 

 six times its normal width. 



The weapons of the tribe are barbed and jagged lances, bows 4 feet long, and arrows 

 with 3-foot wooden shafts and tips poisoned by the juice of the giant Euphorbia. 



The huts are built with great care and skill; they are conical, and up to 20 feet in 

 diameter; they are made of plaited faggots, bamboos, grass, and clay. The entrance is very 

 low, and is closed by a swing-door. The floor is of beaten clay, and the people sleep on skins. 



' by Richard Buchta. 

 A SHILLUK GIRL. 



