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The Dinka people are an ethnic group inhabiting the Bahr el Ghazal region of the Nile basin, Jonglei and parts of southern Kordufan and Upper Nile regions. The Dinkas are mainly agripastoral people, relying on cattle herding at riverside camps in the dry season and growing millet (''awuou'') and other varieties of grains (''rap'') in fixed settlements during the rainy season. They number around 4.5 million people according to the 2008 Sudan census, constituting about 18% of the population〔Ancient Historical Society Virtual Museum, 2010〕 of the entire country, and the largest ethnic tribe in South Sudan. Dinka, or as they refer to themselves, ''Muonyjang'' (singular) and ''jieng'' (plural), one of the branches of the River Lake Nilotes (mainly sedentary agripastoral peoples of the Nile Valley and African Great Lakes region who speak Nilotic languages, including the Nuer and Luo). Dinka are sometimes noted for their height. With the Tutsi of Rwanda, they are believed to be the tallest people in Africa.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=The Tutsi )〕 Roberts and Bainbridge reported the average height of in a sample of 52 Dinka Ageir and in 227 Dinka Ruweng measured in 1953–1954. However, it seems the stature of today's Dinka males is lower, possibly as a consequence of undernutrition and conflicts. An anthropometric survey of Dinka men, war refugees in Ethiopia, published in 1995 found a mean height of . Other studies of comparative historical height data and nutrition place the Dinka as the tallest people in the world.〔Eveleth and Tanner (1976) Worldwide Variation in Human Growth, Cambridge University Press; --Floud et al 1990 Height, Health and History: Nutritional Status in the United Kingdom, 1750-1980, p. 6〕 The Dinka people have no centralised political authority, instead comprising many independent but interlinked clans. Certain of those clans traditionally provide ritual chiefs, known as the "masters of the fishing spear" or'' beny bith'', who provide leadership for the entire people and appear to be at least in part hereditary. Their language, called Dinka or "thuɔŋjäŋ" (''thuongmuoingjang''), is one of the Nilotic languages of the eastern Sudanic language family. The name means "people" in the Dinka language. It is written using the Latin alphabet with a few additions. ==Pastoral strategies== * Southern Sudan has been described as "a large basin gently sloping northward",〔(Roth 2003)〕 through which flow the Bahr el Jebel River, the (White Nile), the Bahr el Ghazal (Nam) River and its tributaries, and the Sobat, all merging into a vast barrier swamp. * Vast Sudanese oil areas to the south and east are part of the flood plain, a basin in the southern Sudan into which the rivers of Congo, Uganda, Kenya, and Ethiopia drain off from an ironstone plateau that belts the regions of Bahr El Ghazal and Upper Nile. * The terrain can be divided into four land classes: * * Highlands: higher than the surrounding plains by only a few centimeters; are the sites for “permanent settlements”. Vegetation consists of open thorn woodland and/or open mixed woodland with grasses. * * Intermediate Lands: lie slightly below the highlands, commonly subject to flooding from heavy rainfall in the Ethiopian and East/Central African highlands; Vegetation is mostly open perennial grassland with some acacia woodland and other sparsely distributed trees. * * Toic: land seasonally inundated or saturated by the main rivers and inland water-courses, retaining enough moisture throughout the dry season to support cattle grazing. * * Sudd: permanent swampland below the level of the toic; covers a substantial part of the floodplain in which the Dinka reside; provides good fishing but is not available for livestock; historically it has been a physical barrier to outsiders’ penetration. * Ecology of large basin is unique; until recently, wild animals and birds flourished, hunted rarely by the agro-pastoralists.〔Roth 2003〕 The Dinka tribe (or Jieng) has twenty six subdivisions: Gok, Agaar, Pakam, Nyang, Aliab, Ciec, Bor, Nyarweng, Hol, Twi/Twic, Twi/Twic Mayardit, Rek, Luac, Malual, Apuk, Aguok, Awan, Panaruau, Ruweng, Alor, Dongjol, Nyiel, Ager, Rut, Abialeng, and Ngok.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=TECOSS )〕〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=The UN Refugee Agency )〕 Malual is the largest of those groups, numbering over a million people. The Dinka's migrations are determined by the local climate, their agro-pastoral lifestyle responding to the periodic flooding and dryness of the area in which they live. They begin moving around May–June at the onset of the rainy season to their “permanent settlements” of mud and thatch housing above flood level, where they plant their crops of millet and other grain products. These rainy season settlements usually contain other permanent structures such as cattle byres (luaak) and granaries. During dry season (beginning about December–January), everyone except the aged, ill, and nursing mothers migrates to semi-permanent dwellings in the toic for cattle grazing. The cultivation of sorghum, millet, and other crops begins in the highlands in the early rainy season and the harvest of crops begins when the rains are heavy in June–August. Cattle are driven to the toic in September and November when the rainfall drops off; allowed to graze on harvested stalks of the crops.〔Deng, Francis Mading. The Dinka of the Sudan. Prospect Heights: Waveland Press, 1972.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Dinka people」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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