Several years ago my wife who is a professional interpreter and I went to a studio in Sydney, Australia to record an educational health programme for some members of Sudanese migrant community. (The subject was ear infection that affects young school children and how it could be prevented or treated.) Our hostess the technician in charge of recording video programmes was herself a migrant of European extraction but a full-bloodied Aussie as they say there. Although a pleasant person she was clearly naïve and probably held stereotypes about migrants from non-European backgrounds or didn’t appreciate that something different was not necessarily negative or inferior to others.
As she was escorting us to a railway station the recordist turned to ask us whether in our society, meaning Sudan (this was before the South had become independent), people observed table manners. I was quickly stunk by her question while my wife played down what was an impolite view based on no case since we had not taken a meal or water or tea to provide her with a “basis” for her gratuitous question. However, unlike me my wife remained unperturbed and remained calm.
“Yes!”, we replied instinctively in unison. I immediately lashed into a lecture, or what almost amounted to a tirade.
“We observe what you call table manners. I am wrong to use that expression; these practices to our community back home and here area more than manners or etiquettes. What we have are values that define a proud and dignified person. Those who fail to live according to what I can call “food or eating ethics” are seen as outcasts, uncivilised. Failure to observe them would lead to any person violating them to be branded as immature and a subject of ridicule by family, peers and society at large; an embarrassment…” I had to stop to take a breath. I had also noted that my wife’s silence might have been an indication that I had over-reacted to a trifle matter that should have been attributed to ignorance on the part of the lady in failing to understand or appreciate the existence of different cultural and social values. Indeed, her question deserved to have been overlooked and forgotten altogether. We agreed, however, that there was an urgent need for such customs that are fading very fast with the globalisation should be documented for posterity.
Eating etiquettes and food ethics
While on the train on our way home we began to recall the way children were brought up to observe several “dos” and “don’ts” in the area of eating in general and food in particular. In the pre-modern Dinka society, for example, children were severely reprimanded if they sang or talked while eating. One was to sit down properly to eat and any other posture such as lying down while eating was not permitted, so was gulping, eating nosily or in hurry or picking huge morsels of food especially when one was sharing with others. Such conducts were condemned as a form of gluttony and greed.
Concepts such as wäth or gluttony and acïwäth/raan cï wäth, synonyms for glutton are clearly words for abuse. Every self-respecting person, young or old or even children of five years old would try very hard not to be seen as associated with such characteristics.
In general, nearly everyone in those days avoided eating food from families or individuals who were not directly related by blood and never from in-laws until certain ceremonies had been performed. Even with relatives there were unwritten laws of civility known as dheeng, a value loaded word that stands for dignity, grace, gentleness, well fashioned and behaved, noble and so forth.
I recall a tall man who called at our homestead to spend the night. I must have been about seven years old at that time. The man who was a complete stranger had travelled from a far place. He was evidently tired, thirsty and hungry. His destination was some 80 more miles away. My parents offered him water and tobacco which he took and enjoyed. He showed happiness in his face. Traditionally good manners prevented a grateful recipient from saying “Thank you” in the face of one someone who had done them a favour if that person was a relative or a friend. And strangers had to do the thanking and praise behind the giver’s back!
When the turn for food came, no amount of persuasion from my father would make him drink the milk or eat the kuin that my mother had prepared and offered him. His word prevailed because my parents respected his sense of self-esteem and the prevailing social norms of the time. It was clear the guest was going to make the two day trip on an empty stomach, all the way to his destination, just depending on water. Even at that tender age I felt sorry for the friendly visitor.
My father and the guest spent much of the evening in conversation as they smoked the traditional the tobacco. The following morning our hungry but proud guest who was provided with a comfortable sleeping place bade the family farewell to continue his journey to the home of his sister at the southern-most part of the district.
To this day I still wonder about the premium people of my area of the day put on the value in upholding mores we easily throw to the wind these days of the fast changing social landscape.
In one of his books the best known writers and an undisputed authority on the cultures of Dinka, Francis Mading Deng has documented a fact that a young man in the habit of moving aimlessly between relatives’ homesteads would risk being misunderstood as one looking for an opportunity to be “invited” to a meal.
Consumption of food in public or in an open place outside house or in daylight was unthinkable except for very young children. (Some years ago a friend of this writer told a story which had scandalised the narrator. He said he saw a former senior public figure from Upper Nile region chewing at a roasted maize cob at a crowded Nairobi’s bus stop. That was during the last war and the former VIP was a destitute refugee there.)
Even on pain of hunger one was expected to hide the desire for food; men should and could not ask wives, sisters or any other close female relatives (initiated men were prohibited to cook or milk cows) to prepare or serve meals.) Division of labour was very clear as to who would perform what and under which situation. The role of male members of a household was to secure raw food such as game meat from hunting; fish from rivers teeming with crocodile and hippos; production of grains and care and procurement of cattle when necessary.
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