The designer gold pendant “The Main Value of Mundari”

The designer gold pendant “The Main Value of Mundari” is made of gold, sapphires and opal from Australia, Yowah deposit.

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The designer gold pendant “The Main Value of Mundari” is made of gold, sapphires and opal from Australia, Yowah deposit.

The history of the pendant began more than 10 years ago, when I saw magnificent photographs from the life of the Mundari tribe from South Sudan by travel photographers Dmitry Arkhipov and Victoria Rogotneva. The photographs interested me so much that I began to look for information about this tribe. The information I received made a strong impression. A couple of years later, while choosing stones on the Australian mineralogical site, I saw a stone, looking at which, I immediately remembered these photographs and stories. Photos in which a “forest” of long horns and slender human bodies are visible in the smoke. The stone was immediately bought and lay until this year, waiting for its turn. My hands were “itching”, but I did not get to it. The queue of orders leaves little time for free and so desired works.

Mundari is a tribe of cattle breeders in the young African state of South Sudan. They are descendants of the ancient Nubians, who once fought the ancient Egyptians quite effectively. The tribe’s entire life is connected with cows, for them they are relatives. It would not be an exaggeration to say that the long-horned Watusi cow (a descendant of wild African cows, a sort of cross between a zebu and an Egyptian cow) is of absolute value to the Mundari. In addition to its large mass, the Watusi is distinguished by its long, up to 2.5-meter horns, which regulate body temperature in the heat. Cows are the most precious thing they have, literally and figuratively. The Mundari hardly build houses, and even those that they build can hardly be called houses. They sleep on the ground, putting their head on a cow by a fire in which dry manure smolders all night. Such fires create a dense smoke screen in the camp. The fire gives a little warmth and drives away flies, mosquitoes, and also ashes from the fires, which they rub their bodies and the bodies of cows with to protect them from blood-sucking insects. The Mundari live only on cereal porridge and fresh milk. They can drink it straight from under the cow, straight from the udders. They wash themselves, excuse the details, with cow urine, which does not smell. And sometimes they drink milk with cow blood. They kill and eat cows only when they become very old or injured, but this happens rarely. The nomads’ camp itself is a flat area dotted with pegs, to which the cows are tied every evening. And the cows remember their pegs. Twice a day – in the evening and in the morning – the cows are milked. If the Mundari thinks that there is not enough milk, he helps the cow increase productivity. This is a special ritual that will shock you. All that the Mundari have of value is the cows, a machine gun for protection against raids, a cape, which is also a blanket at night, and meager kitchen utensils. Once again I was convinced how little a person needs to live… The absence of “benefits of civilization” in no way prevents them from enjoying life…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnTc5021wr4  short video by Victoria Rogotneva

https://rogotneva.ru/articles/afrika/putevoditel-po-yuzhnomu-sudanu-ot-fotografa-katalog/ More about the life of the Mundari tribe

https://print.dmitryarkhipov.com/South-Sudan  Photographs of the life of the Mundari tribe by Dmitry Arkhipov