you
we’ve actually traveled about 270,000
miles across Africa in 40 different
countries in the Sahara by camel caravan
in the Omo River Valley by mule train by
sailing down across the East African
coast and on foot in many different
areas we like to take you to one of the
most remote corners of Africa good
evening everyone
Angela and I would like to welcome you
all warmly to our presentation tonight
at National Geographic lies tonight were
gathered here to celebrate the launch of
our new book on the Dinka the legendary
cattle keepers of Sudan of all of the
pastoral people’s across the continent
that we’ve worked with over 30 years the
Dinka remained closest to our hearts
Sudan is the largest country in Africa
and roughly one-quarter the size of the
United States it’s also the most
challenging terrain that we’ve ever
worked in for each of our daily trips we
would drive a vehicle from Nairobi Kenya
fully stocked with all of the food the
fuel the spare parts that we would need
for a stay of 5 weeks and when we
arrived in Sudan we faced another
challenge and that is finding the data
cattle camps scattered in the vast
swamplands of the river nile the largest
swampland in the world even before we
went to southern Sudan in the 1970s
we’ve actually been fascinated
Dinka they have some of the most
beautiful body beadwork they have
wonderful courtship ceremonies but above
all we were really taken by their
extraordinary relationship with their
cattle once every year for four months
the Dinka actually take their animals
down to the swamplands to graze this is
a time when young people leave the old
people behind in the villages and go on
their own with the animals it’s also a
chance for young people to get to know
one one another they actually spend
their time done on the swamplands
grazing their animals during the day and
sleeping beside them at night the dinkar
say that of all the people in Africa
they are the most devoted to their
animals and their cattle they see as the
most beautiful cattle in the world they
live off their milk they sleep off their
heart they sleep on their hides and they
actually believe that these animals are
their spiritual link to God Dinka men
wear colorful beaded corsets that
actually indicate their progression in
life these corsets are literally tied
onto the body at the front and they’re
never taken off except to be removed to
be replaced by another corset which
indicates they’re going into a new age
grade the man on the right here wearing
the pink corset is actually 15 to 25
years old whereas the man on the left
with the yellow corset is indicating
that he’s nearly 30 and ready for
marriage the size of a man’s corset is
revealing to every young girl the number
of cattle that his family have and also
the number of cattle they would be
willing to pay for this young girl’s
hand in marriage this is probably the
most beautiful course that we’ve ever
seen ending
Calland and it’s the only one that we’ve
ever seen being worn by a woman the
height of this corset at the back was
extraordinary and it was revealing that
her family wanted 80 head of cattle for
her hand in marriage Carol and I’ve
often wondered about the origin of the
corset where did this design come from
was it the early 19th centuries century
travelers coming up the River Nile may
be the wife of Sir Samuel Baker who was
highly fashionable and had an incredible
wasp waist or were they the people
inspiring the Dinka or were the Dinka in
turn actually inspiring the early
travelers with their incredible beaded
corsets that really shaped their
extraordinary physiques the date that
dry season cattle cabs offered time in
place for young people to beat in
freedom sexual matters are discussed
quite openly but behavior is extremely
innocent for a girl to become pregnant
out of wedlock is absolutely taboo and
would seriously hamper her chances of
finding a proper husband the Dinka were
up to seven foot six inches tall and
covered with white ash were referred to
as the gentle or ghostly Giants by the
early explorers but they however call
themselves mone John which means the men
of all men and they are indeed the
tallest race on the African continent
when a girl reaches 17 to 18 years old
her family considers that she’s ready
for marriage they fatten her up to look
attractive and they veiled her
femininity with an alluring beaded
bodice these beaded bodice ‘iz are
meticulously crafted by the girl’s
mother and given to her at the time of
Mara
later to be handed down to a younger
sister if you look closely at the center
band of this corset you see that there
are a number of calories Shell’s study
it these shells are believed to promote
fertility and assure that a girl will
have a child within the first few years
of marriage at puberty a man receives a
namesake ox this is a very particular ox
he’s not only named after him but this
is his personality ox he actually
believes at this stage that he and the
animal are one this animal is the
completion of his personality he takes
this animal everywhere with him and he
even takes him when his courting young
girls at this stage he sings songs
extolling the beauty of this young girl
but also songs praising the magnificence
of his ox this huge powerful and virile
Beast which he of course believes is
himself he’s trained his horn since
karffard and he’s powdered them with ash
he also hangs cow tail tassels from the
very tip of them of the horns and this
is an extra beautification during the
courtship period every day when we’re in
the cattle camps we watched thousands of
animals being taken out to graze the
white bulls are the Dinkas favorite
color but then we realize there’s
hundreds of recognized colors for Bulls
and each has its tiny distinction what
we enjoyed was watching Dinka elders
during the day spending hours discussing
their Bulls markings and they would do
it with such reverence and detail we
thought this is just how we discuss a
fine work of art in the West one day
when the animals were out grazing we
actually saw two dinkar men holding
their arms in the shape of the horns of
their face
at balls and we looked at them and we
thought what is happening here and then
suddenly we saw them approach a young
girl who was ready for marriage this
young girl was named young she had just
turned 17 and she just been given a
beaded bodice by her mother indicating
that she was ready for courtship her two
suitors took turns
leaping as high as they could in front
of her trying to captivate her attention
and she in turn would dance with each
one of them carefully studying their
intentions Angela and I could see that
she was clearly attracted to one over
the other
however we knew that despite this
attraction the man who had the most
cattle would be the man who had wind her
hand in marriage he would be able to
afford the high bride price required by
her parents to give away their daughter
during the dry season the Dinka move
their cattle camps quite frequently they
do this because they’re searching for
new pasture for their animals
now often they had to cross tributaries
of a Nile and sometimes these
tributaries were so deep but we couldn’t
take the vehicle across and we had to
turn back at other times we were lucky
and we found a dugout canoe at this
stage we would cross the river by canoe
and then follow the Dinka on foot
the only problem here is what to do with
our vehicle and we had to take the risk
we left the vehicle with what we hoped
was a trusty herdsmen cross the river
and then sometimes came back maybe four
or five days later praying that the
vehicle with all our equipment in was
still intact and every single time we
found the same trusty herdsmen sitting
by the Dinka sitting by the car at least
and we thought to ourselves
these Dinka are
really amazing they were patient
tolerant and extremely trustworthy as we
watched the river crossings we would
often see herdsmen carrying the baby
calves across protecting them from the
deep Swift lowing waters
well the herdsmen looked after all the
young animals the women are responsible
for the children but being in Africa
this wasn’t where a woman’s
responsibility finished women were in
fact responsible for carrying the entire
communities possession from Camp to camp
they would very carefully wrap up all
the cooking parts and the personal items
in their hide sleeping mats put them on
their heads and carry them from Camp to
camp often very many miles apart as the
dry season grew to an end we often saw
many Dinka herdsmen come together and
start what we called wild fishing
frenzies this is a time where the Dinka
herdsmen take their spears and catch the
fish that are caught beneath the swamps
the reason for this is they’re looking
for a supplement to their milk diet the
milk is getting less and less and the
fish was an important supplement the
Dinka would take the fish but they would
never be called fishermen they used to
say we’re not fishermen fishermen a poor
and weak
we’re herdsmen and herdsmen a tall
strong and sturdy at this time Dinka
formed small groups around clumps of
grass and at a signal they actually
raised their spears high in the ground
and as they close in their circle they
stabbed the grass repeatedly catching
absolutely everything as they go
sometimes quite by accident they would
spear monitor lizard
which you see here or even pythons and
when a boy would catch a monitor lizard
he would say the fatty substance of this
creature is highly nutritional to build
the strength of newborn calves Angela
and I would spend hours sitting along
the banks of the rivers or by the
watering holes watching children collect
water hyacinth flowers and fashion
fantastic masks and headdresses and then
present themselves to us to photograph
the data are very possessive about their
animals they will rarely kill an animal
they will sometimes exchange them to pay
for brides to win women for their hands
in marriage and occasionally they’ll
sacrifice an animal to receive a
blessing from God when they sacrifice
animals they do so in shrines which are
deep in the bush and at these sites one
sees many cattle horns tarped from the
trunks of trees the Dinka would explain
to us that these cattle horns are
believed to be their direct link into
the spirit world following our first
visits to the Dinka in the late 70s and
early 80’s the Dinka fell victims to it
a 30 year civil war between the islamic
north and the animist and christian
south during this time two million Dinka
were killed and four million southern
Sudanese displaced many of the Dinka
were taken to the United States and
became known as The Lost Boys of Sudan
in 2005 a peace treaty was signed
between the Islamic north and Christian
animus south the borders reopened and
Angela and I immediately returned but
everywhere the tragedy of war had left
its mark villages were bombed roads were
mined
and the Dinka had virtually lost their
unique creative identity their beautiful
body beadwork had been replaced with
Kalashnikov rifles and often with
western clothes after the war it became
more and more difficult to find the
Dinka dry season cattle camps the last
trip that carol and I did to Southern
Sudan in 2007 was one of the most
grueling trips we’ve ever done in Africa
we traveled for a month on the swampland
and we traveled skirting mined roads
driving over potholed boggy terrain and
through 12-foot elephant grass of the
swamps the temperatures each day range
from a hundred to a hundred and twenty
degrees and the only shade in the midday
hours was under the some of a car we
actually never kept a diary
we couldn’t even make our minds think it
was so hot however when we were just
about to turn back we came across the
most unforgettable sight this is a Dinka
dry season cattle camp with 2,000 head
of cattle and this was a camp that still
hold the very essence of Dinka
traditional life the camp really held a
beauty for us and we were just taken at
the view at sunset the layers of smoke
that lay across the camp and the
silhouettes of the herders with their
cattle and their like horns every night
we would watch the gentle dinkar bring
their animals in from grazing they
tether them and then they would rub
their horns and caress them for several
hours and rub their bellies with ash
young children had actually been
scraping dry cattle dung into
chronical mounds during the day this
cattle dung fuels the fires at night and
these fires fill the camp with smoke
that actually keeps the mosquitoes at
bay the fires burned down to ash in the
morning and then the young Dinka boys
apply the ash to their skin to further
protect themselves from not just
mosquitoes
but also from taxi flies what touched us
throughout our stay and time with the
Dinka was their incredible bond with
their animals in the early mornings we’d
walk into the camp and there we’d find
children still cuddled up round the
conical fires and they were cuddled up
with their dogs their calves and their
goats these creatures were their closest
members of the family every age grade in
the cattle camp has its own duties and
responsibilities early in the morning we
would watch the young boys go out to
milk the goats often with the young kid
competing for the milk and sometimes we
would even see the boys sucking directly
from the utter of a cow at the quick way
to quench their thirst one morning we
came out and saw four boys leap onto the
body of one of the herders all eager to
be photographed by our digital cameras
and we were amazed when we realized that
this seven foot six herder was so easily
able to bear their way and that his
sweet Dinka nature tolerated the load
the children were absolutely fearless of
the animals often two or three times
their size they’ve grown up with the
earth with the animals they would climb
on branches to caress their horns they
would crawl underneath them to rub their
bellies the boys were in fact named
after the Bulls and the girls were named
after the cows every aspect
the animal is valued when a cow lifts
its tail one sees the young girls race
out to collect the fresh cow urine which
they used to wash their bodies when
water is scarce or contaminated the data
would tell us that fresh cow urine was
considered a natural antiseptic we would
sometimes see the oval facial design of
a young girl being delineated with cow
urine in contrast to the white ash skull
cap design applied to her head the men
would powder their hair with ash and
they would also dye their hair with set
with a number of applications of cow
urine over a period of months the dicta
believe that a reddish golden colored
hair is a true sign of beauty and that
if a man leaves his hair black it’s
believed that he’s in a period of
mourning Dinka elders are believed to
hold the wisdom of the clans and are
responsible for handing down the age-old
beliefs to the next generation the Dinka
say that even though cattle represent
wealth all men and women are seen as
equal to be in chief one must be kind
and generous gentle and virtuous when it
came time to leave the Dinka cattle
counts behind we realized how incredibly
privileged we’ve been to experience
these traditional lifestyles firsthand
where people actually treat each other
as equals they feel at one with
themselves and in harmony with their
land and animals in the beauty of the
cattle camp and in the presence of these
generous and loving people somehow our
sensors had become opened and our
awareness heightened it was like being
in a completely different environment we
had become so connected with the Dinka
that it was really impossible
to leave Angela and I realized that the
Dinka lived in a fragile utopia faced
with a thirty-year struggle for peace it
is our hope that the future of the Dinka
will allow them to sustain their ideals
of unity and harmony and that these
deep-rooted values will be conveyed to
the world at large we hope also that our
book will be part of this process
bringing awareness of these exceptional
people to the outside world and
supporting them during this
extraordinary period in their history in
January 2011 of this year the people of
Southern Sudan successfully voted to
become an independent nation this was
the first important step in their long
sought-after quest for peace we’d like
to thank you all very much for coming
this evening it’s really great to see
you all here and particularly after so
many years for us it’s also wonderful to
share some of the extraordinary
experiences we’ve had whilst recording
African ceremonies we realize that
having spent over 30 years in Africa
what a privilege we have had and how
much we’ve learned from the ancient
cultures of Africa the benefit of
knowledge being passed from one
generation to another the importance of
community of growing up in a community
and of elders being an active part of
the community and sharing their wisdom
the values of rites of passage which
helped define and teachers what is
expected of us at each stage of life and
the importance of ceremony that keeps us
in balance with our environment and in
touch with our own in a world every time
Carol and I come back from Africa
we think there are so many of these
great values missing from the Western
world due to the ever increasing chaos
and conflict in the world and in the
light of what’s been happening in the
last ten years
we believe that it’s become even more
important to understand the ancient
cultures of the world and their
humaneness on a worldwide level one of
the great things that we’ve learnt from
Africa one of the many great things is
that although we appear physically very
different either naked or dressed
scarified or made up lit plated or
veiled we’re actually all the same human
beings with similar human emotions and
similar human needs understanding each
other’s cultures celebrating our
similarities and celebrating our
differences is not only essential to the
evolution of humankind but we believe
paramount to the pursuit of world peace
you
we’ve actually traveled about 270,000
miles across Africa in 40 different
countries in the Sahara by camel caravan
in the Omo River Valley by mule train by
sailing down across the East African
coast and on foot in many different
areas we like to take you to one of the
most remote corners of Africa good
evening everyone
Angela and I would like to welcome you
all warmly to our presentation tonight
at National Geographic lies tonight were
gathered here to celebrate the launch of
our new book on the Dinka the legendary
cattle keepers of Sudan of all of the
pastoral people’s across the continent
that we’ve worked with over 30 years the
Dinka remained closest to our hearts
Sudan is the largest country in Africa
and roughly one-quarter the size of the
United States it’s also the most
challenging terrain that we’ve ever
worked in for each of our daily trips we
would drive a vehicle from Nairobi Kenya
fully stocked with all of the food the
fuel the spare parts that we would need
for a stay of 5 weeks and when we
arrived in Sudan we faced another
challenge and that is finding the data
cattle camps scattered in the vast
swamplands of the river nile the largest
swampland in the world even before we
went to southern Sudan in the 1970s
we’ve actually been fascinated
Dinka they have some of the most
beautiful body beadwork they have
wonderful courtship ceremonies but above
all we were really taken by their
extraordinary relationship with their
cattle once every year for four months
the Dinka actually take their animals
down to the swamplands to graze this is
a time when young people leave the old
people behind in the villages and go on
their own with the animals it’s also a
chance for young people to get to know
one one another they actually spend
their time done on the swamplands
grazing their animals during the day and
sleeping beside them at night the dinkar
say that of all the people in Africa
they are the most devoted to their
animals and their cattle they see as the
most beautiful cattle in the world they
live off their milk they sleep off their
heart they sleep on their hides and they
actually believe that these animals are
their spiritual link to God Dinka men
wear colorful beaded corsets that
actually indicate their progression in
life these corsets are literally tied
onto the body at the front and they’re
never taken off except to be removed to
be replaced by another corset which
indicates they’re going into a new age
grade the man on the right here wearing
the pink corset is actually 15 to 25
years old whereas the man on the left
with the yellow corset is indicating
that he’s nearly 30 and ready for
marriage the size of a man’s corset is
revealing to every young girl the number
of cattle that his family have and also
the number of cattle they would be
willing to pay for this young girl’s
hand in marriage this is probably the
most beautiful course that we’ve ever
seen ending
Calland and it’s the only one that we’ve
ever seen being worn by a woman the
height of this corset at the back was
extraordinary and it was revealing that
her family wanted 80 head of cattle for
her hand in marriage Carol and I’ve
often wondered about the origin of the
corset where did this design come from
was it the early 19th centuries century
travelers coming up the River Nile may
be the wife of Sir Samuel Baker who was
highly fashionable and had an incredible
wasp waist or were they the people
inspiring the Dinka or were the Dinka in
turn actually inspiring the early
travelers with their incredible beaded
corsets that really shaped their
extraordinary physiques the date that
dry season cattle cabs offered time in
place for young people to beat in
freedom sexual matters are discussed
quite openly but behavior is extremely
innocent for a girl to become pregnant
out of wedlock is absolutely taboo and
would seriously hamper her chances of
finding a proper husband the Dinka were
up to seven foot six inches tall and
covered with white ash were referred to
as the gentle or ghostly Giants by the
early explorers but they however call
themselves mone John which means the men
of all men and they are indeed the
tallest race on the African continent
when a girl reaches 17 to 18 years old
her family considers that she’s ready
for marriage they fatten her up to look
attractive and they veiled her
femininity with an alluring beaded
bodice these beaded bodice ‘iz are
meticulously crafted by the girl’s
mother and given to her at the time of
Mara
later to be handed down to a younger
sister if you look closely at the center
band of this corset you see that there
are a number of calories Shell’s study
it these shells are believed to promote
fertility and assure that a girl will
have a child within the first few years
of marriage at puberty a man receives a
namesake ox this is a very particular ox
he’s not only named after him but this
is his personality ox he actually
believes at this stage that he and the
animal are one this animal is the
completion of his personality he takes
this animal everywhere with him and he
even takes him when his courting young
girls at this stage he sings songs
extolling the beauty of this young girl
but also songs praising the magnificence
of his ox this huge powerful and virile
Beast which he of course believes is
himself he’s trained his horn since
karffard and he’s powdered them with ash
he also hangs cow tail tassels from the
very tip of them of the horns and this
is an extra beautification during the
courtship period every day when we’re in
the cattle camps we watched thousands of
animals being taken out to graze the
white bulls are the Dinkas favorite
color but then we realize there’s
hundreds of recognized colors for Bulls
and each has its tiny distinction what
we enjoyed was watching Dinka elders
during the day spending hours discussing
their Bulls markings and they would do
it with such reverence and detail we
thought this is just how we discuss a
fine work of art in the West one day
when the animals were out grazing we
actually saw two dinkar men holding
their arms in the shape of the horns of
their face
at balls and we looked at them and we
thought what is happening here and then
suddenly we saw them approach a young
girl who was ready for marriage this
young girl was named young she had just
turned 17 and she just been given a
beaded bodice by her mother indicating
that she was ready for courtship her two
suitors took turns
leaping as high as they could in front
of her trying to captivate her attention
and she in turn would dance with each
one of them carefully studying their
intentions Angela and I could see that
she was clearly attracted to one over
the other
however we knew that despite this
attraction the man who had the most
cattle would be the man who had wind her
hand in marriage he would be able to
afford the high bride price required by
her parents to give away their daughter
during the dry season the Dinka move
their cattle camps quite frequently they
do this because they’re searching for
new pasture for their animals
now often they had to cross tributaries
of a Nile and sometimes these
tributaries were so deep but we couldn’t
take the vehicle across and we had to
turn back at other times we were lucky
and we found a dugout canoe at this
stage we would cross the river by canoe
and then follow the Dinka on foot
the only problem here is what to do with
our vehicle and we had to take the risk
we left the vehicle with what we hoped
was a trusty herdsmen cross the river
and then sometimes came back maybe four
or five days later praying that the
vehicle with all our equipment in was
still intact and every single time we
found the same trusty herdsmen sitting
by the Dinka sitting by the car at least
and we thought to ourselves
these Dinka are
really amazing they were patient
tolerant and extremely trustworthy as we
watched the river crossings we would
often see herdsmen carrying the baby
calves across protecting them from the
deep Swift lowing waters
well the herdsmen looked after all the
young animals the women are responsible
for the children but being in Africa
this wasn’t where a woman’s
responsibility finished women were in
fact responsible for carrying the entire
communities possession from Camp to camp
they would very carefully wrap up all
the cooking parts and the personal items
in their hide sleeping mats put them on
their heads and carry them from Camp to
camp often very many miles apart as the
dry season grew to an end we often saw
many Dinka herdsmen come together and
start what we called wild fishing
frenzies this is a time where the Dinka
herdsmen take their spears and catch the
fish that are caught beneath the swamps
the reason for this is they’re looking
for a supplement to their milk diet the
milk is getting less and less and the
fish was an important supplement the
Dinka would take the fish but they would
never be called fishermen they used to
say we’re not fishermen fishermen a poor
and weak
we’re herdsmen and herdsmen a tall
strong and sturdy at this time Dinka
formed small groups around clumps of
grass and at a signal they actually
raised their spears high in the ground
and as they close in their circle they
stabbed the grass repeatedly catching
absolutely everything as they go
sometimes quite by accident they would
spear monitor lizard
which you see here or even pythons and
when a boy would catch a monitor lizard
he would say the fatty substance of this
creature is highly nutritional to build
the strength of newborn calves Angela
and I would spend hours sitting along
the banks of the rivers or by the
watering holes watching children collect
water hyacinth flowers and fashion
fantastic masks and headdresses and then
present themselves to us to photograph
the data are very possessive about their
animals they will rarely kill an animal
they will sometimes exchange them to pay
for brides to win women for their hands
in marriage and occasionally they’ll
sacrifice an animal to receive a
blessing from God when they sacrifice
animals they do so in shrines which are
deep in the bush and at these sites one
sees many cattle horns tarped from the
trunks of trees the Dinka would explain
to us that these cattle horns are
believed to be their direct link into
the spirit world following our first
visits to the Dinka in the late 70s and
early 80’s the Dinka fell victims to it
a 30 year civil war between the islamic
north and the animist and christian
south during this time two million Dinka
were killed and four million southern
Sudanese displaced many of the Dinka
were taken to the United States and
became known as The Lost Boys of Sudan
in 2005 a peace treaty was signed
between the Islamic north and Christian
animus south the borders reopened and
Angela and I immediately returned but
everywhere the tragedy of war had left
its mark villages were bombed roads were
mined
and the Dinka had virtually lost their
unique creative identity their beautiful
body beadwork had been replaced with
Kalashnikov rifles and often with
western clothes after the war it became
more and more difficult to find the
Dinka dry season cattle camps the last
trip that carol and I did to Southern
Sudan in 2007 was one of the most
grueling trips we’ve ever done in Africa
we traveled for a month on the swampland
and we traveled skirting mined roads
driving over potholed boggy terrain and
through 12-foot elephant grass of the
swamps the temperatures each day range
from a hundred to a hundred and twenty
degrees and the only shade in the midday
hours was under the some of a car we
actually never kept a diary
we couldn’t even make our minds think it
was so hot however when we were just
about to turn back we came across the
most unforgettable sight this is a Dinka
dry season cattle camp with 2,000 head
of cattle and this was a camp that still
hold the very essence of Dinka
traditional life the camp really held a
beauty for us and we were just taken at
the view at sunset the layers of smoke
that lay across the camp and the
silhouettes of the herders with their
cattle and their like horns every night
we would watch the gentle dinkar bring
their animals in from grazing they
tether them and then they would rub
their horns and caress them for several
hours and rub their bellies with ash
young children had actually been
scraping dry cattle dung into
chronical mounds during the day this
cattle dung fuels the fires at night and
these fires fill the camp with smoke
that actually keeps the mosquitoes at
bay the fires burned down to ash in the
morning and then the young Dinka boys
apply the ash to their skin to further
protect themselves from not just
mosquitoes
but also from taxi flies what touched us
throughout our stay and time with the
Dinka was their incredible bond with
their animals in the early mornings we’d
walk into the camp and there we’d find
children still cuddled up round the
conical fires and they were cuddled up
with their dogs their calves and their
goats these creatures were their closest
members of the family every age grade in
the cattle camp has its own duties and
responsibilities early in the morning we
would watch the young boys go out to
milk the goats often with the young kid
competing for the milk and sometimes we
would even see the boys sucking directly
from the utter of a cow at the quick way
to quench their thirst one morning we
came out and saw four boys leap onto the
body of one of the herders all eager to
be photographed by our digital cameras
and we were amazed when we realized that
this seven foot six herder was so easily
able to bear their way and that his
sweet Dinka nature tolerated the load
the children were absolutely fearless of
the animals often two or three times
their size they’ve grown up with the
earth with the animals they would climb
on branches to caress their horns they
would crawl underneath them to rub their
bellies the boys were in fact named
after the Bulls and the girls were named
after the cows every aspect
the animal is valued when a cow lifts
its tail one sees the young girls race
out to collect the fresh cow urine which
they used to wash their bodies when
water is scarce or contaminated the data
would tell us that fresh cow urine was
considered a natural antiseptic we would
sometimes see the oval facial design of
a young girl being delineated with cow
urine in contrast to the white ash skull
cap design applied to her head the men
would powder their hair with ash and
they would also dye their hair with set
with a number of applications of cow
urine over a period of months the dicta
believe that a reddish golden colored
hair is a true sign of beauty and that
if a man leaves his hair black it’s
believed that he’s in a period of
mourning Dinka elders are believed to
hold the wisdom of the clans and are
responsible for handing down the age-old
beliefs to the next generation the Dinka
say that even though cattle represent
wealth all men and women are seen as
equal to be in chief one must be kind
and generous gentle and virtuous when it
came time to leave the Dinka cattle
counts behind we realized how incredibly
privileged we’ve been to experience
these traditional lifestyles firsthand
where people actually treat each other
as equals they feel at one with
themselves and in harmony with their
land and animals in the beauty of the
cattle camp and in the presence of these
generous and loving people somehow our
sensors had become opened and our
awareness heightened it was like being
in a completely different environment we
had become so connected with the Dinka
that it was really impossible
to leave Angela and I realized that the
Dinka lived in a fragile utopia faced
with a thirty-year struggle for peace it
is our hope that the future of the Dinka
will allow them to sustain their ideals
of unity and harmony and that these
deep-rooted values will be conveyed to
the world at large we hope also that our
book will be part of this process
bringing awareness of these exceptional
people to the outside world and
supporting them during this
extraordinary period in their history in
January 2011 of this year the people of
Southern Sudan successfully voted to
become an independent nation this was
the first important step in their long
sought-after quest for peace we’d like
to thank you all very much for coming
this evening it’s really great to see
you all here and particularly after so
many years for us it’s also wonderful to
share some of the extraordinary
experiences we’ve had whilst recording
African ceremonies we realize that
having spent over 30 years in Africa
what a privilege we have had and how
much we’ve learned from the ancient
cultures of Africa the benefit of
knowledge being passed from one
generation to another the importance of
community of growing up in a community
and of elders being an active part of
the community and sharing their wisdom
the values of rites of passage which
helped define and teachers what is
expected of us at each stage of life and
the importance of ceremony that keeps us
in balance with our environment and in
touch with our own in a world every time
Carol and I come back from Africa
we think there are so many of these
great values missing from the Western
world due to the ever increasing chaos
and conflict in the world and in the
light of what’s been happening in the
last ten years
we believe that it’s become even more
important to understand the ancient
cultures of the world and their
humaneness on a worldwide level one of
the great things that we’ve learnt from
Africa one of the many great things is
that although we appear physically very
different either naked or dressed
scarified or made up lit plated or
veiled we’re actually all the same human
beings with similar human emotions and
similar human needs understanding each
other’s cultures celebrating our
similarities and celebrating our
differences is not only essential to the
evolution of humankind but we believe
paramount to the pursuit of world peace
you
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