Deng
Nuer · deity · mythic · Recorded classification
Prominent Nuer spirit of the above, associated with rain and sickness; son of Buk. Cognate with Dinka Deng.
Parentage
- parent: Buk
Domains
- sky above
- sickness rain
- rain and fertility
- disease and pestilence
Powers
- Bring sickness and fever upon people
- sends the rain as the foremost spirit of the above
- brings fever and sickness on those he seizes
Relations
- equated with: DengReciprocal of dinka_deng.equated-with — Same theonym and figure: Deng, the great rain/sky free-divinity. Evans-Pritchard records that the Nuer regard Deng as a spirit of Dinka origin — a Nilotic areal identity, part inheritance, part borrowing.E. E. Evans-Pritchard, Nuer Religion (1956), ch. 2, on air-spirits of Dinka origin (secondary); Godfrey Lienhardt, Divinity and Experience: The Religion of the Dinka (1961) (secondary)
Sources
- existence: Evans-Pritchard, Nuer Religion (1956) (secondary)