Research Paper on:
Nuer Tribe's Political and Social Systems

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
on the upper reaches of the White Nile (Viz 1) , cattle-keepers -- physically and culturally a bit like the famous Masai further south, in east Africa. Evans-Pritchard did holism  with a vengeance among the Nuer, writing one book about their economics, ecology, political and social structure -- the book called The Nuer...-- writing a second, thicker, but equally tidy  book called Nuer Religion; and writing a third book on Nuer kinship and family life" (Moffatt, 1999; azande.html). Bearing this in mind we can assume that there is a great  deal of information in Evans-Pritchards work as well as that of other anthropologists concerning the Nuer tribe people. In the following paper we examine the work of Evans-Pritchard as it  relates to the Nuer, examining their social and political systems. The paper examines the possibility that the systems are hierarchical or egalitarian, with arguments leaning more towards the fact that  the tribe is egalitarian. The Nuer The Nuer are essentially "mobile and war-loving animal herders -- they kept cattle -- they were ferociously egalitarian and proud, and still  quite politically independent when EP [Evans-Pritchard] did research with them a few years after his work with the Azande, in the mid-1930s. (Moffatt, 1999; azande.html). Evans-Pritchard described these people as  "an entirely remote, unchanging, highly distinctive African culture. The two best-known features of his classic portrayal of them was their Interest in Cattle, and their stateless social organization -- aka  their segmentary lineage system" (Moffatt, 1999; azande.html). Interestingly enough, these people were not necessarily far removed from the cattle they tended, for they were almost so entirely egalitarian that  the cattle were included in the system: "Getting carried away with this simple imagery, forgetting that there are a few mental differences between the human Nuer and their bovine cattle,