Dear deng santo, thank you for asking that nice question about the mothers of the Aweil. There is one answer, and its that we don;t have no single mother of the land because we don't put them in the history. We sudanese and african  specially the third world don't recognize the right of the women from the past till now. We don't give them their right as minorities in the society. We consider them as the no say no to their husbands, brothers, fathers, and whatever. That is the reason why we don't have them in the history of sudan, southern sudan, and Africa all. We need to give the minorities their right of self expression and dignity of being a human being, but if we put an obstacles to all of these.  there will be no women in the history book for the next hundred year. Woman think that they are the victim of humilaition, desrespect, oppression, depression, and restriction of self expresion. So, in this way they fill weak and depessed, they don't have the ability to cope with reallity of the world and situation of the place they  at. they don't have no more power to do things by them self without the support of the males while we suppress them down. they don't have chance to do things that can make them land in the history book. they are weak and independable as we still give them more hard time of taming and intoregative and abusive attitude. That is why a lot of women revolutionise and rebelise against their original husband when they came to the first and civilise world. We need to respect our ladies first at home and outdoors so that we can attract them to the congregation of the civilised world then we will have more mothers in the history. Dear fellows don;t judge me of being to feminise I know alot of you will have some words to say in this matter, but what I am saying is the truth andrealityand if you dissagree with me go show your lawfully lady some disrespects at home you will see what she will do in the next few days. Recently, in the Uncle Sam, Canada, and Austrialia there alot of broken homies in the Aweil Comminities, and if we came to the fact its us who are center of the problem because we disrespect our wives. Every female in this world don't start the problem first at least if  she got a signal from you. So we need to respect our wives and ourselves so that they can respct us too. In this way we can came together in unity as the community and society of mading aweil the greatess. God bless y'all and thank you.               

Dear Santo Deng and all,

 

Because, I was so inundated with academic work, I had not been able for the past two weeks or so to look in depth into which topic in the net that requires my attention. However, I was just been told today by one of my daughters to have a look at page two of the madingaweil.com, main page to see this question. And so, I had to prepare this response herein. First, I would like to thank you very much for having appreciated the work I have done in respect of our history. Of course writing history is totally different from that of novel. On writing history, one had to ensure that the history is not misleading in any way – as the history is a art that requires tremendous research, before it is made for public consumption. Before I had embarked on providing the history page of Aweil people, and how they had evolves over time, I had nevertheless made efforts to ensure my work does live-up to the standard expected of a competent "Historian". Though our history, like its other counterparts in other areas of South Sudan, is too modern, and it is expected to have all of its’ corner written down in history books somewhere, unfortunately, the large part of our history remains oral, and it is only accessible through talking to the elders. Per se, it is a difficult job to embark on, as in the circumstances one may run the risk of putting down some irrelevant part, or in other word the subject matter may vary in accordance with the sources of those informations. In the process, I had tried my best to ensure I’ve provided the correct one at time, unless proven contrary by any other available texts book in respect of the subject in question.

 

To come to your question as to, "whether there was at all, any women that played any role in our history". Of course, it is noted the history is for both men and women’s past work.. However, in our society we tend to acknowledge the fact that, women are the guardian of our society, but do not necessarily need to be expressly mentioned. As history is a process, not necessarily peaceful deeds sometimes, it is expected that the history of people existence come through invasions, by some peoples, or resistance by other peoples. In Dinka and Jur-col or Lou for that matter, the only two major tribes that inhabited Aweil, who are related in term of ethnicity, women are only allowed to take food supply to the warriors, who must be men, up to recent time, but do not directly participate in the battle. Socially, the women are without any doubt the champion of the nations. In Bulk, we tend at time to first state the history of our resistance to the invaders which we had found useful for our purpose. In Aweil’s social folklore, women had founded areas and had their names borne by those areas to-date. Paliet area, of South Aweil for instant is called “Paliet Anyout”. This Anyout was a lady nicknamed “Anyuot-makuanython” the mother of Wek Deng-Kojeck the founder of Aguok were the word “Gograil name derives from. Not, did Anyout-Makuanython was known only, because she was the mother of the powerful spiritual leader Wek Deng Lual (Wek Deng-Kojeck), she was the pioneer of what is known as Paliet today, and she had also passed the respect she had earn amongst Paliet People of South Aweil to her descendants up-to-now. Her legacy, remains one of the obstacle the Paliet peoples of South Aweil could not accept to be referred to as “Malual-geirnyang”. This is simply because Malual was name after certain spiritual leader, Akot Tong. By that time, Aweil was not administratively in its shape of today. By the standard of Dinka, sovereignty is bested in“Spiritual leader”. Hence, the Paliet do not see any reasons to accept this new name given to Aweil as Malual, taking into account the fact that Akot Tong, hailed from Parek Clan, While Wek Deng-kojeck hailed from Pakuein clan. Spiritually Pakuein are regarded to be more spiritual than Parek by all standard. That is why, Paliet are so allegiance to their spiritual leader, and the founder of the area called Paliet, which is purely a nation founded by a woman and the mother of their spiritual leader.

 

Politically, Aweil is the name that hold us together, irrespective of our thinking as to which other names should be the unifying factor. Again, other areas such as Akenyjok of Chief Richard Rual-Abun, is called “Wun teek Amou (literally translated as the land of lady Amou)   due to their founder, a spiritual lady Amou. Some other small areas such as Machar-Adut in Doluit Bol Deng area, was name after a lady called Adut Bol.  Malith-Achai known as Ariath in Atokthou area, was named after the lady called Achai Araith – which the Arab had prefers to call “Araaith” to avoid the danger of mispronunciation of this double barren name (Malith-Achai).Those details had been intentionally omitted for the purpose of the subject matter – since all of this, falls outside the scope of our writing at least for the moment. It was not because we did intend to omit this historical reality, but because we were concentrating on political history, and how Aweil as political entity, evolves to become what it is today. Of course, I must acknowledge one error, but that was intentional too, because the history page is still under construction, and would in the due course acknowledge the role played by our grandmothers. I had in the course of my writing had omitted one lady that had played politics in our modern history i.e Awetdit. This lady Awetdit was a daughter of Dengdit- Chek Chek, one of the key players in the Aweil area of those years. She (Awetdit) had once said to have contended to become Chief of Goumjuer area, instate of her brother Autiak Akot, the then Chief of Gumojuer. As male dominated society, as was the case in those days, even in Britain, Awetdit’s sex counted against her, in her endeavours to become, what could have, had she were to be elected, became the first female paramount Chief, not only in Aweil area, but in the whole of Bhar El Gazal, if not South Sudan. Albeit, she had lost her battle for Chieftainship, Awetdit established number of places of leisure in Aweil town of those days. The example of those places is Makuac-Awet’s liquors brewery compound, west Aweil town, one mile south of Mathiang army barracks. Bear brewery and trade in those days was not any thing the Dinka people could want to be proud of - but if it is taken in a modern context, then Awet was the first architect of what is politically came to be known as Aweil town, the Capital of Aweil State. No town, or city of course may rise without leisure places, as this may create the most boring environment.

 

In the outsets of my answer to those who concerns themselves with gender equality, I must assure them that, the women you had felt we had intentionally excluded them, were without any doubt our great grandmothers. How, else should a strong person claiming, his/her pride heritage just only to have came form grandfathers and not grandmothers? The answer is clear – it does not make any sense for any prudent person to do that. So our omission of women in the first page was intended to be the subject for the next writing, which is now underway. Gender inequality is not a problem unique to Aweil people for that matter, if our intention was meant for marginalising women – democratic countries and the first countries in the world to acknowledge women ability to be as that of men, like Britain and France, could have not, in those days when Awedit lost election against her male contender, readily accepted women as the head of its' governments. Of, course the British Monarchy had over time accepted the coronation of a females heir to the throne, but only when there was no male in the family of the King to be crowned as King. I am not suggesting women should remain underdog, rather I am citings examples. So our omission of the women, at least in this stage wasn’t anything calculated to belittle women role in our history - as the author, I was cognizant the history of women is part and parcel of men's. We, had thought to do it other time. But, for the purpose of telling other people who are not from Aweil, and possibly by telling our children about our ancestors role in creating us a place called Aweil, of which we shall remain proud of for ever. History can only mention those who had play a role in it, be they men/women - it is not a matter of the gender equality.

 

Kind Regards.

 

Ateny Wek Ateny 

London, 2004