Mani
Mani (in the prophetic literature usually MAANI) is one of the named spirits of the air of the Nuer, particularly associated with war. Evans-Pritchard records its honorific ox-names luthpara and bilcuany and notes that the western Nuer regard it as a divinity of foreign origin which came to them from somewhere to the north. Mani is the most celebrated divinity of the western Nuer: in the late nineteenth century it seized Kolang Ket, whose cattle byre stood near Koch, and after his death in government custody in 1925 it seized his daughter Nyaruac Kolang ('daughter of speech'), who remained the most powerful spiritual authority west of the Nile until her death in the 1970s. The prophets of Mani wielded influence from Bentiu in the north to Mayendit and Ler in the south, over matters of war and peace, life and death, justice and healing.
Parentage
Domains
- war
- sky
- prophecy
Powers
- to seize men and women and make them prophets
- to empower its prophets with authority over war, peace, healing, and justice
Epithets
- luthpara
- bilcuany
Relations
- subordinate to: Kwoth
Sources
- E. E. Evans-Pritchard, Nuer Religion, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1956, ch. II, 'The Spirits of the Above'.
- Douglas H. Johnson, Nuer Prophets: A History of Prophecy from the Upper Nile in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994.
- Sharon E. Hutchinson and Naomi R. Pendle, 'Violence, Legitimacy, and Prophecy: Nuer Struggles with Uncertainty in South Sudan', American Ethnologist 42(3), 2015.