Rang

Rang is one of the named spirits of the air recorded by Evans-Pritchard among the Nuer. It is associated with giraffes and is said to have come to the Nuer from the Twic Dinka who neighbour them, one of several divinities of Dinka origin (as Deng and Buk also are) that were absorbed into Nuer religion during the long history of contact between the two peoples. The name corresponds to that of Garang, one of the great free-divinities of the Dinka described by Godfrey Lienhardt. Like the other divinities of the air, Rang is conceived as one of the children of God, a partial and subordinate manifestation of Kwoth, which makes itself known chiefly by seizing people and sending sickness that is answered with sacrifice.

Parentage

• parent: Kwoth

Domains

• sky
• wild animals

Powers

• to fall upon people, seizing them and sending sickness

Relations

• subordinate to: KwothRang is one of the spirits of the air, the gaat kwoth or 'children of God', a lesser refraction of Kwoth.E. E. Evans-Pritchard, 'The Nuer Conception of Spirit in Its Relation to the Social Order', American Anthropologist 55(2), 1953, pp. 201-214. (secondary)

Sources

• Rang is a Nuer spirit of the air associated with giraffes, adopted from the neighbouring Twic Dinka, among whom the corresponding free-divinity is Garang.: E. E. Evans-Pritchard, Nuer Religion, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1956, ch. II, 'The Spirits of the Above'. (secondary); Godfrey Lienhardt, Divinity and Experience: The Religion of the Dinka, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1961. (secondary)