In a tribal battle fought over a century ago, according to oral history, a prophet in South Sudan raised his stick and summoned a thunderbolt that killed a crowd of fighters from a rival tribe. The prophet's dang, as the sacred stick is known, was never again wielded so magically.
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Here's how to stay safeOne Tech Tip: Here's how AI can help you in your job huntThe future of fish is looking a lot like meatPope Leo XIV rejects claims that God justifies war in Palm Sunday Mass messageCalifornia lidera plan para añadir vitamina a tortillas y reducir defectos congénitos entre latinosIn this undated handout photo from Professor Wendy James Estate, from left, Douglas H. Johnson, Husein Mar, Rev. Gabriel Gai Riam and Philip Lyon Roussel hold the sacred stick also known as Ngundeng Bong’s dang. FILE- South Sudan’s suspended First Vice President Riek Machar, right, sits in the dock with seven others charged with murder, treason, and crimes against humanity at the Freedom Hall in Juba, South Sudan, Wednesday, Sep. 24, 2025. In this Saturday, May 25, 2019 file photo, South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir arrives for the swearing-in ceremony of Cyril Ramaphosa at Loftus Versfeld stadium in Pretoria, South Africa. South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir, right, and Vice President Riek Machar, left, attend a Holy Mass led by Pope Francis at the John Garang Mausoleum in Juba, South Sudan Sunday, Feb. 5, 2023. In this undated handout photo from Professor Wendy James Estate, from left, Douglas H. Johnson, Husein Mar, Rev. Gabriel Gai Riam and Philip Lyon Roussel hold the sacred stick also known as Ngundeng Bong’s dang. In this undated handout photo from Professor Wendy James Estate, from left, Douglas H. Johnson, Husein Mar, Rev. Gabriel Gai Riam and Philip Lyon Roussel hold the sacred stick also known as Ngundeng Bong’s dang. FILE- South Sudan’s suspended First Vice President Riek Machar, right, sits in the dock with seven others charged with murder, treason, and crimes against humanity at the Freedom Hall in Juba, South Sudan, Wednesday, Sep. 24, 2025. FILE- South Sudan’s suspended First Vice President Riek Machar, right, sits in the dock with seven others charged with murder, treason, and crimes against humanity at the Freedom Hall in Juba, South Sudan, Wednesday, Sep. 24, 2025. In this Saturday, May 25, 2019 file photo, South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir arrives for the swearing-in ceremony of Cyril Ramaphosa at Loftus Versfeld stadium in Pretoria, South Africa. In this Saturday, May 25, 2019 file photo, South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir arrives for the swearing-in ceremony of Cyril Ramaphosa at Loftus Versfeld stadium in Pretoria, South Africa. South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir, right, and Vice President Riek Machar, left, attend a Holy Mass led by Pope Francis at the John Garang Mausoleum in Juba, South Sudan Sunday, Feb. 5, 2023. South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir, right, and Vice President Riek Machar, left, attend a Holy Mass led by Pope Francis at the John Garang Mausoleum in Juba, South Sudan Sunday, Feb. 5, 2023. JUBA, South Sudan — A South Sudanese prophet — as the story goes — wielded a sacred stick during a tribal battle in 1878 and summoned a deadly thunderbolt that struck down rival fighters. That stick is known as Ngundeng Bong’s dang, and not only has its reputation as a magical and dangerous weapon lived on, but it also plays a role in the latest cycle of violence in the world’s youngest nation. The dang has emerged as a contentious relic in the quarrel between South Sudan President Salva Kiir and opposition leader Riek Machar, who took ownership of the stick years ago. Machar is believed by his followers to be the gap-toothed, left-handed man who would become president in fulfillment of Ngundeng’s prophecy. While that sustains Machar’s struggle, it also makes him a target for his opponents. Kiir and Machar are from different ethnic groups. Kiir is Dinka, the country’s largest group, while Machar — like Ngundeng — is Nuer, the second largest. Fighting exploded along ethnic lines when Kiir and Machar disagreed in 2013. Kiir claimed Machar was plotting a coup. Machar then launched a rebellion that became a deadly civil war in whichSome rebels, including a militia known as the White Army, believe they are fighting to fulfill Ngundeng’s words and finally install Machar as president.Douglas H. Johnson, the British-American historian who brought the dang back to South Sudan, compares the stick’s authority to a parliamentary speaker’s mace, needed for official business to proceed. Machar is said to keep the dang as a religious object, using it to galvanize political support, according to Johnson and others who spoke to The Associated Press. “Very much of the conflict is linked to spirituality,” said Mawal Marko, an independent researcher in Juba. “Most of the people fighting, especially the eastern Nuer, you find so many fighting in the name of Ngundeng.” South Sudanese mythology abounds with cruelty, and the fight between Kiir and Machar is the latest installment of the hatred Ngundeng himself witnessed and later sought to stop: Dinka against Nuer, Nuer against Dinka. Ngundeng’s prophecies were expressed in songs that even today some people play on the internet, searching for revelations about their country’s fate. There can be disagreement on the literal meaning of Ngundeng’s words. “If we look at a prophecy progressively, there is always room for doubt,” said Christopher Tounsel, a historian of greater Sudan who teaches at the University of Washington, speaking of Ngundeng’s prophecies. “That’s the most powerful thing: What people think and what they feel. That is the thing that can be the most impactful — not what it is, but what people perceive to be.”Ngundeng, who died in 1906, is believed to have predicted his country’s independence. He foresaw violence. And he is said to have prophesied about a messianic Nuer leader for South Sudan who lacked the facial marks of his tribe, was left-handed and gap-toothed, and had been with a white woman. Machar is said to check those boxes. “We know it can have power,” said Alex Miskin of the Rift Valley Institute think tank, speaking of Ngundeng’s dang. “Can speak power into that stick? That is something I don’t know.” “Who has the stick and what is the story may make some people a bit frightened” of Machar, said Miskin. The dang was fashioned from the root of a tamarind tree and decorated with copper wire. It is about 110 centimeters long. One end of it broke during the 1878 battle won by the Nuer. Afterward, Ngundeng would say the dang was broken; there’s no account of him using it so successfully again. The dang was inherited by Ngundeng’s son, who was shot dead trying to use it against colonial troops. He is said to have cried when he raised the stick and nothing happened. Collected as a trophy, the stick was presumed lost forever until it was discovered in the British town of Bournemouth by Johnson, a prominent South Sudan specialist. He bought the relic and sought to return it to South Sudan, which didn’t have a museum. Machar, as the highest-ranking Nuer leader in a government then at the cusp of independence from Sudan, received the dang in the South Sudan capital of Juba in 2009. A white ox was slaughtered in a ritual overseen by Machar, who was photographed holding the dang aloft.The dang’s return was seen as a national event. Kiir welcomed its arrival in a statement that warned the dang should not be used to wage war. While serving as the vice president, Machar kept the dang in his house and showed it off to visiting Nuer leaders, said Johnson. “In a way, he was using this as a cultural object, something of interest to the Nuer rather than to South Sudan, to bring in other people as part of his coalition,” he said. Johnson recalled that the dang looked ordinary in an umbrella stand when he first saw it. But if Machar has the stick, it wouldn’t be surprising that Kiir “would be worried that it was out of the control of the government,” he said. The AP was unable to reach Machar for comment. His spokesman, Puok Both Baluang, said that freeing Machar would be “synonymous with the release of peace.” Despite his detention, the 73-year-old Machar remains a formidable opponent for Kiir, who has governed without an electoral mandate for 15 years. Authorities say elections will be held in December. But a vote without Machar on the ballot and which returns Kiir as president would be seen as disenfranchising the Nuer. Their military rivalry began in the bush in the 1990s, when Machar led a breakaway unit that drew accusations of treachery against him during the long war for independence. Amid the split, forces loyal to Machar carried out a massacre that targeted the Dinka, angering Kiir and others. Fighting among southerners briefly undermined their struggle for independence, and sowed lifelong distrust between Machar and Kiir. Machar remained influential because he had the loyalty of Nuer fighters. Kiir suspended Machar as his deputy in September after Machar was accused of remotely playing a role in an attack on a garrison of government troops. Machar regularly appears in a cage in the criminal trial he says is politically motivated. It is unclear if Ngundeng’s dang is still kept in his house. The stick “is the heritage of South Sudan,” even though it isn’t at the building in Juba that holds national archives, said archivist Peter Tako.The dang, he said, was a sacred item “embedded” with the kind of political authority that made him feel unqualified to discuss it.
Riek Machar South Sudan War And Unrest General News International News Africa Peter Tako Religion Douglas H. Johnson World News Christopher Tounsel South Sudan Government Military And Defense Alex Miskin Politics World News
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