Best Travel Guide To Toposa Tribe/People In Kapoeta Of South Sudan

Ladies and gentlemen, we welcome you to likely our end of 2022-2023 South Sudan travel expedition with the Toposa tribe. Okay, you may be asking yourself who are the Toposa. 

 

The Toposa are an ethnic group in South Sudan, living in the Greater Kapoeta region of the erstwhile Eastern Equatoria state. They have traditionally lived by herding cattle, sheep, and goats, and in the past were involved in the ivory trade.

One of the largest tribal groups in South Sudan, the Toposa live in organized villages in arid, rugged, hilly land with vegetation of shrubs and grass and seasonal streams.

 

Those who have visited the Karamoja of Uganda, the Toposa are part of the Ateker cluster, believing they moved away from the Losolia Mountains in Uganda due to drought. They believe that when the first people (Murle and Didinga) arrived they cheated the Toposa by taking the gazelle meat and leaving only soup for the Toposa. 

 

This precipitated the split. Successive governments in Khartoum and Juba have marginalized the Toposa. They have regular disputes with other groups in their area and also raid tribes in Kenya and Uganda.

 

The Toposa are one of the tribes of South Sudan with amazing culture with a patrilineal society, their cultural norms and values are passed to children early. 

Culture is transmitted orally through songs, dance, music, poems, and folklore as presented to us yesterday while welcoming us, Much has to do with the accumulation and keeping of large herds of cattle. 

The boys are put in age sets and taught to herd. The girls look after the home and care for the elderly and smaller siblings. Men wear a draped cloth, and women wear leather skirts embellished with colored beads. 

Both men and women scar their bodies. The young men are proud of the beauty of their hair. They abhor the practice of circumcision. Interestingly, they do not count people or animals. 

 

They share certain totems and body marks, and they come together for social occasions such as dances, marriages, funerals, and cattle raids. Decisions are made by the men as a community. Respect for elders is mandatory.

 The Toposa have a strong religious faith they believe in the existence of a supreme being and the spirits of departed ones. They pray and make sacrifices, using a medium. Chiefs, sub-chiefs, medicine men, and witch doctors all wield administrative and spiritual power. 

They believe chiefs are nearer to God by virtue of their wisdom, am always here to have a cup of wisdom from the elders, so let me sign out and drink my cup of wisdom in peace, let’s meet at the next post! 

Writer: Musah Travels