The Nuer By Ivans Pritchard Summary

In Evans-Pritchard’s, The Nuer, the text is an examination of the political structure of a society that is seemingly without political institutions, in simpler terms, how they maintain order (Evans-Pritchard 1940:4). In order to understand the political realities of their society, the author, explores other questions about Nuer life, such as: how they subsist, interact with their environment, as well as noting how the Nuer identify kinship patterns among themselves. The following essay seeks to summarize the answers given to the questions presented, evaluate the data in support of those answers, analyze the organization of the text, and finally reflect on the effectiveness of Evans-Pritchard’s seminal work. In regard to answering his questions about
the Nuer, Evans-Pritchard, begins the work with a description of the most evident facts of Nuer life, in that they greatly enjoy their cattle in an extreme fashion (Evans-Pritchard 1940:18-19). Evans-Pritchard makes it clear that while they are pastoralists they are not able to sustain themselves on their cattle alone; given that the consumption of meat from cattle is only sanctioned on special occasions (Evans-Pritchard 1940:21,26-27). From these facts we quickly arrive at one of Evans-Pritchard’s supporting questions of how the Nuer manage to feed themselves. In the chapter, “Ecology”, Evans-Pritchard observes that the Nuer, in addition to their cattle also fish, keep millet gardens, and in times of hardship subsist off of wild flora (Evans-Pritchard 1940:21, 82-83). However, in the dry season Evans-Pritchard notes that often there is not enough food to go around even with these measures and food sharing occurs within the cattle camps in family groups as well as across the whole village which the author establishes as the smallest unit of political organization (Evans-Pritchard 1940:84-85). The organization of kinship among the Nuer is perhaps the most important of the supporting questions to the text’s central theme as kinship patterns underscore the anatomy of Nuer organization. Evans-Pritchard details how the lineages are indeed a description of genetic descent among the Nuer (Evans-Pritchard 1940:192). However, the smaller lineages within the clan level serve to coordinate the structure of political groups. It should also be understood that lineages give dominance to those individuals that belong to the group most associated with the territory they occupy thereby giving direction in conflict between groups (Jacobson 1991:34). However, it must be noted that lineages of the same clan across tribes do not unify thus denoting the difference between lineage and territorial segments (Evans-Pritchard 1940:213). Finally, we arrive at the main topic of address, that of how political order is maintained when no western like institutions exist to maintain order (Evans-Pritchard 1940:4). Cohesion is assured via the institutions of feuding and arbitration, which work along lines of political organization (Evans-Pritchard 1940:151-153). Feuding exists as the consequence for transgressions of Nuer customs, which vary from tribe to tribe, and includes acts of violence against the transgressor. Arbitration on the other hand exists to amiably settle a transgression of custom particularly when violence is not desired by either party i.e. when the groups are closely tied (Evans-Pritchard 1940:156-157). Evans-Pritchard asserts that the fission-fusion nature of the Nuer is at the heart of the political organization. The author then states that tribes break into primary, secondary, and tertiary sections and then further into villages and kin groups (Evans-Pritchard 1940:139). The different sections of a tribe incorporate with one another in order to resolve intra and inter-tribal conflicts. The intra-tribal conflicts occur between parallel groups only, and it should be stated that violence among the Nuer primarily occurs intra-tribally (Evans-Pritchard 1940:152). We now come to scrutinizing the data used by Evans-Pritchard to elucidate the existence of the Nuer and primarily their political structures. Evans-Pritchard focuses on a modes of thought analysis with the use of linguistic evidence in the form of words and diagrams derived from interviews. To illustrate this an example is given: in the text Evans-Pritchard identifies the word “cut”, which is associated with the settlement of discourse through arbitration and the payment of blood-cattle (Evans-Pritchard 1940:121). The basis for linguistic evidence being that symbols identified with concepts can then be translated into terms familiar to the reader and understood (Jacobson 1991:38). However, Evans-Pritchard’s work does suffer from both insufficiencies and contradictions in his data. As was discussed in our reading of Jacobson one of the chief problems in the data is that concepts crucial to Evans-Pritchard’s argument are not supported by linguist evidence (Jacobson 1991:43). Not only this but it seems that the author also struggles to effectively separate those who do have influence in Nuerland from similar individuals in western society; this is evidenced by his use of the terms chief and aristocrat (Evans-Pritchard 1940:161,212). In his account Evans-Pritchard also makes reference to prophets which do have the ability to lead groups of Nuer and even to amass wealth (Evans-Pritchard 1940:185). The roles, aforementioned, suggest that Evans-Pritchard’s initial premise was not as strong and renders his data contradictory. Evans-Pritchard’s data is a skewed representation of reality as it is focused towards only a modes of thought analysis. Finally, it is required to assess the structure of the piece and if it was a successful ethnography or not.
The structure of The Nuer is such that Evans-Pritchard includes contextual information about the life of the Nuer before addressing the main thesis, so that the central argument can be made with the reader well aware of common themes in Nuerland; this allows the reader to follow the argument with a deeper understanding of it. The chapters that follow “Political Structures” further supports Evans-Pritchard’s claims about Nuer politics by examining how kinship and age relations solidify the political atmosphere described. However, I feel that the amount of detail present in the first part of the book is unnecessary and could have been incorporated into the main argument without difficulty, while preserving the strength of his argument. Even in the light of these criticisms though I felt as if Evans-Pritchard has achieved a good example of an ethnography as it is states a clear question and then answers them with the greatest detail possible. Lastly, the majority of the data he presents does support his argument, however, as has been previously stated the data is insufficient to completely support his
argument.