SUMMARY
The Ingessana (alternatively Gâmk) is an ethnic group that lives in the southern part of Sudan and the northern part of South Sudan, numbering around 139 000. The large majority of the group is located in the Ingessana (or Tabi) Mountains and the surrounding plains in Sudan’s Blue Nile State. Apart from the area being rich in natural resources, the region has historically been considered a political and cultural borderland. For several hundred years, the Ingessana Mountains was alternatively plundered and protected by either the Funj sultans of Sennar or the Abyssinian kings in Gondar, and subsequently by their successors in the 19th and 20th centuries. In more recent years, the Ingessana has mainly clashed with the neighboring ethnic group Uduk following the split of SPLM/A-North in 2017.
The Ingessana Mountains are divided into four major tribal territories according to the Ingessana people; Buek, Gor, Kuthelek, and Tao. These territories are subsequently inhabited by a sub-tribe with the corresponding name. Even though the sub-groups share common characteristics, one prominent difference between these four areas is linguistic in nature; each area has a different dialect of the common language Gaam. A second difference has to do with livelihood. The Ingessana are both agricultural and pastoral people. Yet, though perhaps objectively less valid, each sub-tribe is traditionally said to have an economic specialization. The people of Buek are farmers, the people of Gor are weavers, the people of Kuthelek are cattle headers, and the people of Tao are blacksmiths and iron-workers. The areas also differ in their tribal organization, as well as in their performance of calendrical rites. Moreover, the concept of villages and townships are not part of the Ingessana culture, and the group’s settlement patterns are rather dispersed. Instead of villages, several households form a homestead which is led by the (male) head of the household. These types of formations are mobilized under social relationships between the head of the households’ kinship. Furthermore, the above-mentioned tribal territories can be divided into several sub-districts. Each such sub-district has a politico-religious leader called an aur who holds a prominent part in religious ceremonies. Each sub-district additionally has a war leader and a secular head of the community called a sen.
The Ingessana word for sun (tel) is the same as the word for God (Tel) which is why a common misunderstanding is that the Ingessana people view the sun as God. The Ingessana believe in many gods which all have proper names and are related to each other by kinship and affinity. The gods are said to travel around the locality on horseback and are only visible to certain exceptional people, such as the aur, which are attributed to the ability to see them. However, some confusion exists, not just among the Ingessanas, about the particular details of the gods. Yet, a broad distinction can be made between local shrines and great shrines, or we i tel. The former is located within the homestead and are used to make offerings to the gods, the latter is set apart from the homestead and are dispersed around the Ingessana Mountains, with each tribal territory having between two to four great shrines in their area.
Several of the indigenous tribes of the Blue Nile State, including the Ingessana, have been subjected to oppressive policies by the Government of Sudan since the country gained independence in 1956, such as land grabbing, environmental degradation, and forced labor. During the country’s second civil wars (1983-2005), the various rebel groups who fought the government largely recruited among indigenous tribes, in particular the Ingessana, and the ethnic group have a long history of being affiliated with SPLM/A. When SPLM/A-North split from SPLM/A, the former group was able to win over the Ingessana people’s loyalty and recruit a substantial number of fighters from the community, mainly because, the leader of SPLM/A-North - Malik Agar - was Ingessana. This connection led to the indiscriminate targeting of the Ingessana people by the government of Sudan, including the burning of villages primarily occupied by the Ingessana due to their presumed support of SPLM/A-North, as well as the forced displacement of a large part of the Ingessana community.
In 2017, when SPLM/A-North-MA faction split from SPLM/A-North, inter-ethnic tensions surfaced. The Ingessana Malik Agar led the break-away faction, whereas the new leader of SPLM/A-North, Abdelaziz al-Hilu, was Uduk, and the break-up of the group along ethnic lines subsequently led to a non-state conflict between the Ingessana and the Uduk people.
