The Ultimate South Sudan Trip To Mundari Cattle Camps Living at Nile River.
Things To Tour In The Cattle Camp of Mundari People?: A trip to Discover the fascinating Mundari world, travel with us, and have the opportunity to get to know the day-to-day life in the Mundari cattle camps in South Sudan.
The Mundari are friendly and enjoy being toured. The dust and smoke intermingle to create an inimitable atmosphere. The tribe has all their wealth in their cattle of Mundari and there are thousands of Mundari cattle. When young men of the tribe of Mundari get married the dowry may be as much as 40 cattle.
The cattle camps of Mundari are a learning space for the Mundari boys. The elder Mundari people teach the younger generations of Mundari the tribal ways/lifestyle until they are mature enough to pass the rite to become adults. Male members of the Mundari community usually live in the cattle camps, although some women accompany them to carry out some tasks within and around the cattle camps of Mundari.
The famous Mundari cattle camps are desolate places. The Mundari people usually settle their cattle camps in areas close to the banks of the Nile River in South Sudan. The cattle camp smoke set by the Mundari people from their hundreds of bonfires covers the immensity of a vast arid, dry, and hot land. Amidst that smoke, naked men, cows with giant horns, and the iconographic Mundari totem can be seen.
The semi-nomadic life of the Mundari is conditioned by the amount of pasture that exists for cattle. Their food and economic sustenance depend on these animals, which are also markers of social status and the possibility of getting married and starting a family since the dowry is fixed in units of cattle.
At night they sleep with Mundari cattle to protect them and they carry AK-47s to do so. Cattle rustling is commonplace and is a cause of conflict. The Ankole-Watusi cattle have the largest horns (perhaps a meter long in some cases). During the day the cattle disperse from the banks of the Nile into the long grasses of the alluvial floodplain. They return at dusk instinctively.
Among the Mundari tribe, young people and adults are in charge of caring for and grazing their flock. The infants' tasks are to regroup the cattle, milk the cows, and pile the cow dung to set up the bonfires. The children also carry out a peculiar practice: to increase milk production, children stimulate the cows by flowing into their vaginas.
The scarification on the forehead of men is performed during the initiation ritual. Through the use of knives, five successive V-shaped marks are made, as a reference to the horns of the cows. After the ritual, young boys are presented with a cow and a proper name, associated with it.
The Mundari cover their bodies and those of the cows with ash from the bonfires to protect themselves from mosquito bites. In addition, they shower using cow urine and also use this liquid to dye their hair, thus most men have orange hair.
In the cattle camps of Mundari, there is an inextricable bond between the tribe and their cattle. The way they lead them, rub ash into their skins, attend to their needs, and use their milk, dung, and urine. It is a symbiotic relationship where there is an understanding of the cattle that goes beyond normal animal husbandry. They take pride in their animals and the whole community of man and beast is interconnected.
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