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Pagan Tribes of the Nilotic Sudan
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Historical SummaryIn comparison with this, the attention is directed among the Neuer (a Nilotic tribe) to the regularization of the twins. The mother is not defiled but she and the father and all the relatives are endangered. The underlying idea is that the twins are one person, a dissociated personality, and cherish a grudge:
The danger to the parent comes chiefly from the twin of the opposite sex. It is believed that the spirit of girl twins will kill the father, and that the mother will fall a victim to her twin sons. When the twins are of opposite sexes the danger is lessened, for, as among the Dinka, the twins will quarrel. The boy will suggest killing the mother, but his twin sister will object, saying, "Whowill then provide for my wedding dance?" and she will suggest killing the father. The boy in turn will complain that then there will be no one to provide him with spears. So owing to their indecision both parents will survive.
The fiction that the twins are one person is preserved throughout life. Until the twins have gone through a sham marriage ceremony with one partner of the opposite sex it is not even safe for a girl twin to be courted. If a young man should unwittingly seize the arm of a girl twin at the end of a dance in the manner recognized as an invitation to courtship, she will recoil and say, "Iam a twin," and he will immediately leave her, for otherwise she might die.
In the sham marriage ceremony the twins are dressed in the clothes and wear the ornaments of the opposite sex, and the single spouse does the same, so that boy twins dressed as girls are "married" to one girl dressed as a boy, and vice versa.1
1Seligman, C.G.n/an/an/an/a and B.Z.n/an/an/an/an/a, , 227 (George Routledge and Sons. By permission).
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Chicago: "Pagan Tribes of the Nilotic Sudan," Pagan Tribes of the Nilotic Sudan in Primitive Behavior: An Introduction to the Social Sciences, ed. Thomas, William I. (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., 1937), Original Sources, accessed October 27, 2024, http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=H38CX4GKA37YPAW.
MLA: . "Pagan Tribes of the Nilotic Sudan." Pagan Tribes of the Nilotic Sudan, in Primitive Behavior: An Introduction to the Social Sciences, edited by Thomas, William I., New York, McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., 1937, Original Sources. 27 Oct. 2024. http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=H38CX4GKA37YPAW.
Harvard: , 'Pagan Tribes of the Nilotic Sudan' in Pagan Tribes of the Nilotic Sudan. cited in 1937, Primitive Behavior: An Introduction to the Social Sciences, ed. , McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., New York. Original Sources, retrieved 27 October 2024, from http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=H38CX4GKA37YPAW.
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