NUBA

inhabitants of the Nuba hills in the Kordofan region of the central part of The Sudan. This region is studded with rugged granite hills that rise sharply from a wide clay plain and vary considerably in size and content. The Nuba peoples live on or near the hills (the plains being mainly occupied by Baqqarah Arabs); their many tribal groups differ in physical type and culture. They all speak Nubian languages, which are Eastern Sudanic languages of the Chari-Nile branch of the Nilo-Saharan family. Kinship descent among the Nuba is, broadly speaking, matrilineal in the south and patrilineal elsewhere. The Nuba are agriculturists, with hill terraces and larger cultivations on the plains. Their main crops are millet, sesame, corn (maize), groundnuts (peanuts), beans, onions, cotton, and tobacco. They also keep cattle, sheep, goats, donkeys, fowl, and (except in Isl amized areas) pigs. Their religious practices are linked with agricultural rituals; animal sacrifices are made to ancestral spirits; and priestly experts and rainmakers have an important position. Facial and body design on a young Nuba man, The Sudan. The Nuba's tribal units are under government-appointed chiefs. Marriage payments are made in livestock, weapons, and other objects and by agricultural service. In the remoter hills men still go naked, and women wear beads and lip plugs; but clothes are increasingly worn. In some areas the lower incisors are removed in both sexes; male circumcision is now more widely practiced. Wrestling and stick fighting are the principal sports. Varying degrees of Islamization may be observed among the Nuba, and Arabic is used as the lingua franca.