Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Rome (Agenzia Fides) – Becoming familiar with other religions, especially those of Africa, is of fundamental importance for understanding the context and listeners in announcing the Gospel, so that it may become “incarnate” in a certain people, which has a centuries-old religious and cultural tradition. With this spirit, the Pontifical University Urbaniana held a conference on May 12, given by Professor Werner Daum, who spoke on “The African religion of the Dinka in South Sudan. For a new interpretation.” Daum, expert scholar and German diplomat, showed the religious roots of this people which, ironically and paradoxically, “due to decades of human fratricide has maintained its tradition more than any other African people, in that no Westerner has entered in prolonged contact with them to study or observe their life. As physics shows, no observation is neutral and it always provokes changes in the object of analysis and study.” The great researchers of traditions in Sudan have been English, and in recent times, Catholic missionaries. We still do not know how many people live in South Sudan. It is estimated between 2-5 million.
Prof. Daum continued: “The Dinka are divided into two main social classes, crossing all the many tribes that form this people. There is the class of men and women, which we could call the 'popular' class, and the class of the priests, called 'spear masters' because of their symbol of a fisherman's spear...”
The Dinka have an extensive and dense mythology that explains creation, divinity, and death. The Dinka maintain that there is a supreme being, designated “mialich” meaning “high one” who created men to be immortal and made them fall down to earth from on high, while the earth was still in the process of being created, with only water, without light or sun and where he had to eat without having to work. The story shows several parallelisms with the Christian creation account, in fact. Later, the supreme being “mialich” comes down to earth and marries a human woman. Their son is the one who supposedly begins the “spear masters” who have this certain “divine nature.” This first “divine” son frees mankind from the darkness, bringing them light that was hidden on top of a great tree or, as some myths say, behind a giant cloud that was making the sun invisible.
“The rites that are still celebrated today by the Dinka relive these first moments of creation, in an effort to respond to man's great questions...where do we come from? Who created us? Why are we here? What is there after death?...” It is amidst these circumstances that missionaries must go to South Sudan today to preach the Gospel. (MT) (Agenzia Fides 13/5/2009)
