Ox Peace. Douglas H. Johnson and the Nuer Violence

This article seeks to restore the status of Nuer warrior in the anthropological and historical debate on the colonial period, and challenges the negative conclusions of Douglas H. Johnson about the cultural dimension of the fighting. In 1839, when Nuer sacrificed an ox to a fleet from the North, the Egyptians shot at them, thinking it as an act of aggression. But did the mistake inaugurated a series of misunderstandings on the offensive provision of this people? If that Johnson's assertion, a return to the sources allows an alternative interpretation. The article puts in symmetry this episode and another, ninety years later which also involved an "ox peace". The British have killed this animal in 1929 during the repression of the Nuer prophetic movement. But if Johnson seeks to contradict the importance of the prophets as leaders of revolt, this article points out that their pacifism was embedded in the ideology of war.