Spear Masters

Spear masters are those who learned the lessons of good and evil as represented in the use of the spear. The Dinka of the Sudan say that long ago there were dances held by lions, and a man was dancing when a lion looked at him and demanded his bracelet. The man refused to give his bracelet to the lion, whereupon the lion bit his thumb completely off. Then the man bled to death. The man had left a wife and daughter behind, but they had no son, and so the widow went weeping to the river. The river spirit heard her and asked her what was wrong. When she told the story of her misfortune, the river spirit said to her, “Lift your skirt and brush the waves toward you so that they enter your body.”

The spirit gave her a spear and told her that the spear was a symbol of her bearing a male child. He also gave her a fish for food and told her to go home and relax without delay. The woman went home and soon bore a son, Aiwel, who had a full set of teeth when he was born, a sign of unusual spiritual powers.

As an infant, he was left sleeping on the floor, but when the mother came back into the room, she noticed that a gourd of milk had been drunk. Not believing that it could have been the infant, she accused her daughter of stealing the milk. She punished the daughter. The same thing happened over and over again. The mother was quite disturbed by this situation and soon became suspicious. She acted like she was leaving the baby alone with the milk, but as she went out she thought that she should hide herself in the bushes and just watch the baby. This she did and, to her surprise, she saw the baby Aiwel get up from the floor and drink the milk. She opened the door and accused him of drinking the milk. He told her not to tell anybody or she would die. She could not keep the secret to herself, and she died as Aiwel had said. He had begun to develop the power of the Spear Masters to make his words come true.

He could no longer live with his family after his mother's death. He went to stay with the spirit father in the river until he grew up. He left the river as a man with an ox of many colors, representing all the colors of his cattle. The ox was named Longar, and from then on the man was Aiwel Longar.

Aiwel Longar tended cattle that had belonged to his mother's first husband, who had died when the lion bit his finger off. Soon a great drought hit the land and the cattle of the people began to die. Aiwel's cattle stayed fat and healthy. The people could not understand why their cattle were dying, but Aiwel's were not. One day a group of young men spied on him. They watched him feed and water his cattle. They saw him give the cattle long-rooted grass. When Aiwel discovered that the young men had spied on him, he told them not to tell anyone or else they would die. They told and they died.

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