God's Last-born

In the beginning was Jo-Uk, the Great Creator, and he made the Sacred White Cow. Out of the Nile that Cow came up. The White Cow gave birth to a man child whom she called Kola; his grandson was Ukwa. Ukwa took two wives, beautiful holy maidens who rose out of the sacred river. One of Ukwa's sons, Nyakang, a Negro, went south to the swampy country of the Upper Nile; there he founded the Shilluk nation and became its first ret (ruler) and a demigod. That was about four centuries ago.

Last month the passing of Ret Fafiti (rets, like Christian Scientists, do not die) brought the stately Shilluk peers into conclave. The peers elected the 30th in a long line of rets: middleaged, blue-black Anei Kur, prepared to install him at Fashoda.*

A bodyguard of towering Shilluks, their hair gummed with mud and cattle dung into rampant cockscombs a foot tall, gathered around Anei Kur. They carried long durra stalks, symbolizing spears. As they approached the sacred river, they chanted age-old incantations, their meanings lost in history. At Nile-edge they met another bodyguard, bearing bamboo poles with ostrich feathers, defending the revered founder, Nyakang. With thongs of twisted grass, the guards of Nyakang bound the willing Anei Kur, marched him into Fashoda.

Inside the crowded inner circle, ringed by huts, Anei Kur saw two comely Nubian maidens, his brides. Priests led him through the chanting throng to one of four royal huts before which stood the sacred stool, Kwom. On the stool stood the image of Nyakang. While the proud Shilluks watched intently, Anei Kur seized the stool by one leg. The priests removed the image and Anei Kur was ret. He retired to a royal hut with his two wives. His people gorged themselves on oxmeat and heady merissa, brewed from millet.

Three days later Anei Kur came forth as a bridegroom out of his chamber, invested with the spirit of Nyakang, and rejoicing as a strong man to run his course. Henceforth his people know him as Kuna Jo-Uk--God's last-born, the immortal ret of the Shilluks.

* In 1898 Britain and France almost came to blows over possession of Fashoda, key to the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, Kitchener of Khartoum won the day for England.

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