Aiwel

In the belief of the Dinka people of Sudan, Aiwel was the founder of the priesthood known as the spearmasters. He was the son of a water spirit and a human mother. During his childhood, Aiwel's mother died, and he went to live with his father in a river. When he became a man, he returned to his mother's village with a beautiful multicolored ox he called by the name Longar. When the people saw him, they called him Aiwel Longar. Thus, there entered into the cosmology of the Dinka people one of their most important figures.

Aiwel Longar is representative of so many values, attitudes, and dispositions in Dinka philosophy that one could almost say that the Dinka measure other humans by the characteristics of ...