Bari people: Difference between revisions

{{Short description|Ethnic group of South Sudan, Also Known as Eaters people who continue to eat}}

| group = Bari

| image = Richard_Buchta_-_Portrait_of_a_Bari_man.jpg

| population = 475,004

| popplace = [[{{flag|South Sudan]]}}

| rels = [[Traditional African religion]],<br>[[Christianity]],<brref>[[Sunni{{cite Islam]]web | url=https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/south-sudan-religion.htm#:~:text=Christianity%20was%20most%20prevalent%20among,Moru%2C%20Azande%2C%20and%20Bari. | title=South Sudan - Religion }}</ref>

| langs = [[Bari language]]

| related = other [[Nilotic peoples]], esp. the [[Pojulu people|Pojulu]], the [[Kakwa people|Kakwa]], the [[Nyangwara people|Nyangwara]], the [[MandariMundari people|Mandari]], and the [[Kuku people|Kuku]]

The '''Bari''' are a tribe of [[Karo people (East Africa)|Karo]], [[Nilotic peoples|Nilotic]] peopleethnic inhabitinggroup in [[South Sudan]], East Africa. The Bari speak the [[Bari language]] as a mother tongue, which belongs to the [[Nilotic]] languages|Nilotic language family]].

The Bari of the Nile are sedentary agro-pastoralistagropastoralist. They exploit the [[savanna]] lands along the river Nile, and up to 40 miles east and west of the Nile. Their economy is based on subsistence [[mixed farming]]; their domestic livestock (small and large) are mainly raised for supplementing food, but mostly as a socio-economic and financial investment. Notably, livestock are exchanged as gifts in marriages, and other social functions or sacrificed in celebrations, and funerals; and whenever the need arises they are sold for cash.

The Bari areis consistently under pressure: now from modern urbanization annexing their green lands and infusing different cultures into their lifestyles; and historically the Baris have been devastated by [[slave traders]], and forced by Belgians (especially from the [[Lado Enclave]]) into labor camps and used as porters to carry ivory tusks to the Atlantic coast. The two [[Sudanese Civil War (disambiguation)|Sudanese Civil War]]s (1955–1973; 1983–2005) have also affected the Bari social, economic and financial dynamics.

War (intertribal or resisting foreigners) is not alien to Bari history. Generally, the Bari have co-existed well with the neighboring ethnic groups, but have had to pick up arms to defend their land against slave traders, and plundering warriors. There is documentation of Bari resistance against invasion by [[Dinka]], [[Azande]] (Zande), and numerous encounters with [[Turkish people|Turkish]] slave traders.

The Bari havehas a caste system of two groups, the "lui" (freemen) and the "dupi" (serfs). The lui were the chiefs and the fathers of the soil while the lower caste, dupi, were people captured during a war from other tribes, and those who had a trade such as iron smelting, ironmongingiron monging, or fishing. The dupi were a hereditary class of serfs who had to give their services to the lui. The lui represented the superior cattle owning element of Bari society.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8v9yAAAAMAAJ&q=cows|title = Some Aspects of Bari History: A Comparative Linguistic and Oral Tradition Reconstruction|isbn = 9789966846976|last1 = Nyombe|first1 = Bureng G. V.|last2 = Nyombe|first2 = George V.|last3 = Nyombe|first3 = George Bureng|year = 2007| publisher=University of Nairobi Press }}</ref><ref name=":1">{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8YYhBQAAQBAJ&q=lui+bari&pg=PA63|title=A Concise History of South Sudan: New and Revised Edition|isbn=9789970253371|last1=Breidlid|first1=Anders|date=20 October 2014|publisher=Fountain Publishers }}</ref>

Based on Bari folklore, their history dates back to the 15th century when the Bari came from the north. Diodours Siculus (1st century AD) mentions the Megabari as part of the Trogodytes and says they use round shield and clubs with iron knobs. They seem to be placed further north than their present location, somewehere in Eritrea region. Some places in southern DinkalandDinka land still retain Bari names, which indicate those areas were previously home to the Bari until the Dinka arrived and the Bari fled southwards. The Bari probably arrived in their current location in the 1650s or the early 18th century.

Oral history recounts that when they arrived in their present homeland from the north they found a group, the [[Pari people]], there, and drove them away.<ref name=":1" /><ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=r61i6BD0Vw0C&q=bari&pg=PA60|title = Sudan's Blood Memory: The Legacy of War, Ethnicity, and Slavery in Early South Sudan|isbn = 9781580461511|last1 = Beswick|first1 = Stephanie|year = 2004| publisher=University Rochester Press }}</ref>

Since their arrival in the new land, the Bari are have been plagued by war and conflict, especially from slave raiders and Azande. Even before the 19th century, the Arabs and Turks involvedtraded inBari thechildren ivoryfor tradeenjoyment raidedand slavespayment. Also, from the Bari to supply domestic needs of their home communities and to sell them in the markets of Northern Sudan and beyond.

The second expedition to discover the source of the White Nile entered the Bari lands on 24 January 1841. However, with this progress in the quest for knowledge, came undesirable invaders in the form of European and Turkish traders looking for slaves and ivory. This was the first time Bari encountered Europeans travellerstravelers. The Bari werewas lucky in this encounter, as the Turkish army assigned to protect the Nile explorers behaved, unlike the brutality they unleashed on the ethnic groups ([[Mondari]], Dinka, [[Shilluk people|Shilluk]]) to the north of the Bari, [[pojulu Tribe|Pojulu]], Kakwa to the south and [[Kuku people|Kuku]] to the south-east. However, subsequent expeditions were different.

In April 1854, the peaceful relationship between the traders/explorers and the Bari came to an end when a Turkish trader, without provocation, fired his guns into a crowd of Bari at [[Gondokoro]]. Accordingly, the Bari mounted a counterattack that was devastating to both sides. Subsequent to this the Bari became defensive and less friendly, and the traders (mostly Arabs, and Turks) resorted to violent means to procure ivory tusks, but also started taking people (young men and women) as slaves. Girls were raped, or taken as wives by force. Some of the merchants even built fortified depots near Gondokoro where people were kept awaiting shipment down the White Nile.

Baker returned in 1869 with the express purpose of stamping out the slave trade. By this time, the Bari people and land were already devastated. Bari folklore tells us of how long ago the land flanking the Nile was full of strings of villages spread out to the horizon, as far as the eye could see. Baker concurs, in his book "Ismailia" (1874),<ref>{{cite book|last1=Baker|first1=Sir Samuel White, Pasha|title=Ismailia, A Narrative of the Expedition to Central Africa for the Suppression of the Slave Trade|url=https://archive.org/details/ismailianarrativ02bakeiala|date=1874|publisher=Macmillan and Co.}}</ref> that this had been so when he first visited the area. However, he describes how, by the time of his next expedition, the slave traders had reduced the Bari villages to a miserable few. Neither could he obtain co-operation from the Bari, who had been persuaded by Abou Saood, the chief slaver of Agad and Company, who had a government monopoly for trade and slaving, that it was in their best interests to help the slavers and hinder Baker.

The Bari werewas ravaged in their encounter with Baker and his team.

[[File:Group of Bari people.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|A group of Bari talking with a European misisonarymissionary, {{circa}} 1860]]

Many Bari combine aspects of their traditional religion with [[Christianity]], which the majority of Bari today follow. They believe in one almighty God and existence of powerful spirits (good and evil). Some still worship solely the traditional gods, one of which is nameless and has two different sides. Half of this god lives in the sky and brings forth rain and the other half of this god lives in the ground and encourages growth in agriculture. They also have many cultural heroes, such as Sabaseba, who is known as "Old Wind." The elders in the village were valued for their knowledge of gods such as these.<ref name=":0">{{cite web|title=Barí|url=https://www.encyclopedia.com/places/spain-portugal-italy-greece-and-balkans/italian-political-geography/bari#3458001155|access-date=22 October 2020|website=Encyclopedia.com|publisher=Encyclopedia.com}}</ref>

The Bari will make small animal sacrifices to the spirits of the dead, and that by doing so, when they die, they will move onto the next life in the horizon, which is very much like their first one.<ref>{{cite web|last1=The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica|title=Bari |url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/Bari-people |website=[[Encyclopaedia Britannica|publisher=Encyclopaedia Britannica]]}}</ref>