Nyaliep

Nyaliep is a named female water-spirit of the Nuer, associated with streams. Evans-Pritchard records that Buk, the river-divinity and mother of Deng, is said to have 'daughters' likewise associated with streams or with particular streams, among them Nyaliep; he explains that 'daughters' is here a figure of speech for Nuer maidens whom God took and put in the water, where they became spirits. In some accounts Candit, elsewhere treated as another name of Buk herself, is named alongside Nyaliep as such a daughter. Reference works on female divinities, following Evans-Pritchard, list Nyaliep among the river-goddesses of the Nuer of the southern Sudan.

Parentage

• parent: Buk

Domains

• rivers

Powers

• to dwell in rivers and streams as a spirit

Relations

• subordinate to: KwothNuer tradition holds that God took the maiden and put her in the water, where she became a spirit; she thus remains subordinate to Kwoth, from whom her divinity derives.E. E. Evans-Pritchard, Nuer Religion, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1956, ch. II, 'The Spirits of the Above'. (secondary)

Sources

• Nyaliep is a female Nuer water-spirit, one of the 'daughters' of Buk, explained as a maiden whom God took and placed in the water, where she became a spirit of the streams.: E. E. Evans-Pritchard, Nuer Religion, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1956, ch. II, 'The Spirits of the Above'. (secondary); Martha Ann and Dorothy Myers Imel, Goddesses in World Mythology: A Biographical Dictionary, Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 1993. (secondary)