Below images are typical Anyuak dancing. In some image a group of youths dancing and holding dance sticks, some decorated including bodies with mud and white ashes. Several youths have rattles [or Gare] attached to their legs and some them has leaves attached to their belt. The dance has just started. The youths are stretched out or in groups. Some images show different stages of the dance. “Awawa” shows the girls in a curved or straight line with the drum usually at the back of the line, youth running jumping, dancing showing their best to the girls. The dance leads into “Achanya” one of the stages of show off. Later the girls choose their partners and they always go for the best performer. The group is then mixed. This is “Okama”. The girls and the youths sing to each other love notes incorporated into the general song. This encounter may result into courtship and hence marriage.

All these images were taken by Evans-Pritchard during his period of fieldwork amongst the Anyuak between early March and May 1935 (E.E. Evans-Pritchard, 1940, The Political System of the Anuak of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, p. 3). Click on the photo to enlarge