Dogri

Nile Nubian · numen · Nile Nubian traditional religion; continuing · numen

The dogri, singular dogir, are the malevolent water beings of Nubian belief, the dark counterpart to the benevolent aman-nooti. The word is uniform across the Nile Nubian dialects, and the beings are ranged alongside the jinn and ghul of the desert and mountains as dangers of the wild, watery margins. They attack, frighten and sicken people who are careless near the river, and they may be driven off by the ordinary apparatus of protection against jinn. John Kennedy, who devoted a chapter of the Nubian Ethnological Survey volume to them, described the dogir narratives as a peculiar amalgam of the many supernatural traditions of the region, drawing together Nubian, Egyptian and Islamic elements. Against them and against the evil eye, Nubian households mount stuffed crocodiles over their doors, a custom still visible in villages near Aswan.

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