Nuer People and Religion and its views of nature

The Nuer people are a Nilotic ethnic group concentrated in the Greater Upper Nile region of South Sudan. They also live in the Ethiopian region Gambella. They speak the Nuer language, which belongs to the Nilotic language family. They are the second largest ethnic group in south Sudan. The Nuer people are pastoralists who herd cattle for a living. Their cattle serve as companions and define their lifestyle. The Nuerians call themselves "Naath". The Nuer and Dinka peoples belong to the Nilotic group of the Nilo-Saharan language family and inhabit the savanna and sudd region of the upper Nile in the southern part of the Republic of the Sudan. The Nuer number some 300,000 and the Dinka about 1 million; the figures are approximate, partly because some sections of each group have intermingled. It has been argued that they should be considered a single people, but cultural and political differences are marked enough to distinguish them, and each considers itself to be distinct from theother. Their religious systems should also be differentiated, although perhaps as variants of a common system. Both Nuer and Dinka are cattle herders on the vast savannas of the region.