The Nuer: A Description of the Modes of Livelihood and Political Institutions of a Nilotic People

Evans-Pritchard begins this chapter with an assessment of the geography of Nuerland, which he suggests has “no favourable qualities” (51) from a European perspective, while the Nuer themselves view it as “the finest country on earth” (51). Given the territory’s position on both the upper Nile swamplands and the edge of the desert, it revolves between overly wet and overly dry periods each year, with both droughts and floods a regular feature of the terrain. It is flat land, usually covered in thick, waist-high grass, and interspersed with depressions and channels that fill up during wet periods. Evans-Pritchard believes that the nature of the Nuer’s territory exercises a significant influence on their culture, both directly affecting their seasonal movements and also reinforcing their predisposition for a pastoral lifestyle: “[T]heir country is more suitable for cattle husbandry than for horticulture, so that the environmental bias coincides with the bias of their interest and does not encourage a change in the balance in favour of horticulture” (57). This ties in with the theme of Ecological Influence on Human Culture, as well as the centrality of cattle in Nuer society. Evans-Pritchard portrays the environmental constraints of Nuer territory as a reinforcing influence on their own preference for cattle husbandry.