The Dinka System of Marriage, Where 100 Cattles are Paid as Dowry

• Deep down in the savanna of South Sudan are the Dinka or Jieng People

• This small tribe consist of many groups of 1000 to 30,000 people

• -What stands out about their culture is the high cost of bride price that wife seekers pay

Think your life is hard enough as a young man in Nigeria? Thank God that you don’t reside in the South Sudan Savanna with the Dinkas.

Dinka and Jieng People follow a tradition that compels men to pay in cows. Not just one cow, some people pay as many as 100.

History

People of the Dinka and Jieng tribe primarily reside in the swamps of the Nile basin.

This tribe consists of as many as 4 million people split into groups of 1,000 to 30,000.

Some of the popularly known groups in this tribe include Agar, Aliab, Bor, and Rek.

Dinkas are primarily pastoralists- they rear cattles. They also plant killers.

Way of Life

The Dinkas celebrate the passage of boyhood to manhood, down to old age.

Boys undergo a certain level of hardship to prove that they are now men.

Marriage

What stands out in this south Sudan colony is its cultural stance on marriage and dowry payment.

Since cows are a major part of their lives, Dinka men are known to pay their dowry with cattle.

Paying your bride price with one cattle doesn’t seem too expensive. The only problem here is that grooms have to pay with as much as 100 cows in some cases.

According to their tradition, it is embarrassing to offer less than 20 cows for your bride.

Wealthy men often pay as much as 70 to 100 cows to prove their status.

How then do the young men deal with this cattle demand?

Dinka men are often compelled to steal cows since it seems like the only realistic way to gather the payment.

The cows are stolen from other tribes most times but in rear cases, cow rustlers steal within their community.

Other men take out loans and end up repaying the debt through their life’s course.

It is reported that between 2000 men were killed while trying to steal cows between 2008 and 2012.

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Over the years, the number of cows demanded for the bride price has changed and cash has come to be accepted.

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