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Gwek Ngundeng (1890 - 1929) was a Nuer people's prophet and spiritual leader proclaimed seizure by the spirit of Deng(sky God) divinity and a son of the Nuer people's prophet Ngundeng Bong.[1][2][3] He helped rebuild the Ngundeng Pyramid a few years after his father's death. He fought the colonial government in their campaigns to demolish the Pyramid and was eventually killed in action in 1929.[4][5]

In 1929, the Anglo-Egyptian colonial government in Sudan dispatched police and military operations under the Nuer district commissioner Percy Coriat to what was known as the "Nuer Settlement" in Upper Nile province. The event proceeded with the machinations of young Nuer prophet Gwek Ngundeng, known to the colonial administration as a witch doctor, the son of the most important Nuer prophet Ngundeng Bong. It is with Gwek and the Pyramid of Ngundeng, a symbol of Nuer's resistance and which Gwek served as its guidance that his narratives chiefly concerned the colonial administration.[6][7]

Biography

Gwek Ngundeng was believed to have been born in 1890 in Wech Deng village, Nyirol County of Lou Nuer territory today part of Jonglei State, South Sudan. His father Ngundeng Bong, the most revered and famous Nuer prophet was from Lou Nuer and his mother Nyaduong Duoth hailed from Eastern Jikany Nuer.[1] After the demise of Prophet Ngundeng in 1906, Ngundeng's followers believed that Deng's divinity would possess Ngundeng's elder son Reath to carry on his father's work. Still, his little brother Gwek happened to be the one who proclaimed seizure by his father's spirit of Deng divinity.[8][4]

Gwek Ngundeng throughout his life received considerably less sympathy from government officials unlike his father Ngundeng. The colonial administration carried out a military campaign against Gwek and the other two Lou prophets Puok Kerjiok and Char Koryom in 1917. In 1920 the government heard rumors that Gwek was planning a rebellion. In 1921, H. C. Jackson, the Deputy Governor of the upper Nile province visited Gwek and Ngundeng Pyramid in Wech Deng and found out that the allegations against Gwek were false. Gwek was cleared of the charges of rebellion, but he followed his father's reluctance to deal directly with government officials. Often time, he would stay on top of his father's pyramid in a sense of spiritual possession throughout the government officials' visits.[9]P9

C.A. Willis, the new governor of Upper Nile Province and the then commander in chief of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan military proposed to build the road that connect Lou Nuer territory to Bor district, a Dinka territory. Gwek refused to provide labor for a road-building scheme. Percy Coriat, the Nuer district commissioner shared a meeting with Lou Nuer chiefs where he explained to each chief what their responsibility is and the amount of labor required of them. Again, Gwek objected to the labor. Willis interpreted Gwek's objection to road work as "anti-government" propaganda.[9]P10

Following Gwek's fallout with the colonial government, Dok Dieng, the Lou Nuer chief contacted the government several times in 1927 in an effort for reconciliation. In his first letter, he urged Coriat to sit down with Gwek again about the road project, but Coriat refused. He then visited Coriat in Abwong where he presented an elephant tusk to Coriat as a gift from Gwek and appealed that Gwek had no intention to fight the government. The third time, he took a delegation with him including Gwek's little brother Bol to Abwong, Coriat assured them that he didn't appreciate Gwek's conduct so he told Dok Dieng that they would meet in a few days to settle the road project matter and all the Lou chiefs and Gwek must be presence and to ensure that the meeting happens, he held Gwek's little brother in detention.[8]P12

Between November and December of 1927, Coriat took on several trips across Lou territory where he noticed some sort of war preparation by Gwek and the Lou Nuer. Coriat requested permission from Willis to grant him an escort of mounted police to personally meet Gwek but Willis vetoed this request and instead, an airplane raid on Wech Deng village was suggested.

In 1928, four planes of the Royal Air Force carrying 20-pound bombs were sent to destroy the Pyramid in Wech Deng which resulted in Pyramid's partial demolition. following the Royal Air Force raid, the government in Khartoum announced to the world that the Ngundeng Pyramid was "destroyed completely". By January 1929 another government troops were sent to Wech Deng and encountered Gwek leading large numbers of spear-carrying Nuer warriors dancing at the base of the Pyramid. Gwek gave water to the warriors to drink and told them that the water would make them immune to bullets. The warriors advanced toward the government troops, singing and driving Gwek’s white bull before them. When they had reached closer, the troops opened a withering fire that dispersed the Nuer. Gwek’s dead body, drum(bul), rod(dang), and brass pipe(tony) were found beside the slain white bull.[10][6]

References

  1. ^ a b "Short Biography of Guek Ngundeng Bong (Sept 1890 – Feb 1929) - Lich Research Institute". 2022-12-22. Retrieved 2024-06-26.
  2. ^ "Sudan Notes and Records Volume 22 — Sudan Open Archive". sudanarchive.net. Retrieved 2024-06-26.
  3. ^ Murdoch, Brian (April 1995). "Governing the Nuer: Documents by Percy Coriat on Nuer History and Ethnography 1922–1931". African Affairs. 94 (375): 298–299. doi:10.1093/oxfordjournals.afraf.a098821. ISSN 1468-2621.
  4. ^ a b Coriat, P. (1939). "Gwek, the Witch-Doctor and the Pyramid of Denkgur". Sudan Notes and Records. 22 (2): 221–237. ISSN 0375-2984. JSTOR 41716333.
  5. ^ "Prophecy: African Prophetism | Encyclopedia.com". www.encyclopedia.com. Retrieved 2024-06-30.
  6. ^ a b ADMINROOT (2022-07-14). "Epistemicide, Historicide and Ethnocide: Cases for the Restitution of the Artefacts of African Knowledge. By Harry Wilson Kapatika". roots§routes. Retrieved 2024-06-30.
  7. ^ johnson, douglas h johnsondouglas h (2011-01-01), Akyeampong, Emmanuel K.; Gates, Henry Louis (eds.), "Ngundeng Bong", Dictionary of African Biography, Oxford University Press, doi:10.1093/acref/9780195382075.001.0001, ISBN 978-0-19-538207-5, retrieved 2024-06-30
  8. ^ a b "Nuer Prophets: A History Of Prophecy From The Upper Nile In The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries | Oxford Academic". academic.oup.com. Retrieved 2024-06-30.
  9. ^ a b Johnson, Douglas H. (1979). "Colonial Policy and Prophets: The 'Nuer Settlement'". Journal of the Anthropological Society of Oxford. 10 (1): 1–20.
  10. ^ ""As imposing a show as possible": Aviation in colonial Sudan and South Sudan, 1916-1930". Juba in the Making. 2019-10-04. Retrieved 2024-06-30.
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