NUBA, THE. The Nuba may be regarded as the negro or negroid aborigines of Kordofan, although at the present day the northern half of this area is inhabited by Arabic-speaking tribes professing Islam, so that Dar Nuba, the country of the Nuba, oc cupies only the southern half of the administrative province, ex tending over 21° to ED° N.
One of the most remarkable features of Dar Nuba is the multi plicity of languages spoken within its bounds. The inhabitants of hills only a few miles apart may speak languages mutually unin telligible, and even on the same massif, there may be two or three communities speaking different languages and coming little in contact with one another, though their customs and beliefs are fundamentally the same.
The inhabitants of the hills of southern Kordofan situated but little north of the Bahr-el-Ghazal have a series of languages with grammatical structure and vocabularies differing substantially from the Berberine dialects. The resemblances noted between the lat ter and those of Kordofan apply only to those spoken by a lim ited number of northern communities which have been subjected to foreign, i.e. Berberine, influence for a considerable period. Moreover, as Meinhof points out, such "Nubian" or "Hamitoid" languages extend scarcely a hundred miles south of El Obeid. Further south in the territory recognized by the Arabs as the true home of the Nuba (Dar Nuba corresponding on the administrative side roughly to the Jebel sub-province) two groups of languages must be recognized. One includes a number of "Sudan" lan guages, the other a series of tongues, called by Meinhof "pre Hamitic," which, in some respects, resemble Bantu and Fulani and which Struck now terms "Bantoid." These latter languages, first noted in 191o, differ from the Berberine dialects, in which grammatical changes in both nouns and verbs are produced by suffixes, in that in the Bantoid languages these are brought about by initial change.
Struck, who has also studied the Nuba physical material avail able from the standpoint of its distribution among the linguistic groups considers that each is to be distinguished physically, and although the small number of individuals measured belonging to the Nubian and Sudanic groups renders some of Struck's conclu sions premature it is probably true to say that the Bantoid group, with an average stature of 68in. and a cephalic index of 76.5, is rather longer headed and narrower nosed than the Sudanic who are themselves rounder-headed than the Nubian-speaking group from whom they do not substantially differ in breadth of nose or face.
Mode of Life.—The Nuba are for the most part agriculturists, the regulation of public life in each community being ultimately in the hands of the rainmaker. There is no clan organization - among the southern Nuba and no restrictions upon marriage other than those imposed by blood relationship. No bride-price is paid, and either party can break the marriage at pleasure ; property passes in the female line. This applies especially to the southern communities speaking Bantoid languages; further north, where a bride-price is paid, matters are less simple. Neither circum cision nor infibulation is practised, but the women of Jebel Talodi and the hills round it perforate the lower lip, in which they wear a quartz ornament. On many hills, especially where the lip ornament is worn, the lower incisors are removed in both sexes. Darfur.—The non-Arab races of Darfur belong ethnically to, or originated from (many are now mixed) the hill stock, spoken of in Kordofan as Nuba (supra). In the north are the Bedayat, a nomad people related to Zaghawa ; to the north of these are the Kura'an, who have been identified with the ancient Gara mantes. The Zaghawa to the south are mentioned by Mas'udi, while Ibn Khaldun speaks of them as living further east, and at the present day there is a colony of them at Jebel Kagmar in Kordofan. These folk, although Mohammedans, have not yet given themselves Arab pedigrees; they retain their belief in rain makers and are noted as potters. The people of Jebel Midob about 400m. west of Khartoum, described by MacMichael, differ but little from the Nuba of Kordofan ; they are perhaps the least unknown of the pagan tribes of Darfur. The Tungur and Dargu are other ancient peoples of Darfur, the latter living by cultiva tion and breeding cattle in the fertile areas to the west of Dara. None of these peoples are as important as the Fur, from whom the country takes its name. Their stronghold is or was the consider able range known as Jebel Marra, whence they descended prob ably in the 17th century. Now nominally Mohammedans they still worship stones or trees to the extent that certain spots asso ciated with rocks or trees are regarded as holy and are the scenes of sacrifice. (C. G. S.)