Bayyu

Bayyu lies in Bahr el Ghazal in north-western South Sudan, a region of swamps, seasonal rivers and ironstone plateaus. The name means sea of gazelles in Arabic, and the flooded grasslands look like a sea in the wet season. Dinka communities combined cattle herding with sorghum farming, while Luwo and Fertit peoples occupied neighbouring lands. Floods forced settlement onto higher ground and made dry-season routes crucial.

From the early nineteenth century, ivory and slave traders entered the region from the Nile, linking local chiefs to the markets of Khartoum and Egypt. Armed merchants built followings of their own and challenged one another for the chiefs' cattle, grain and captives. These networks drew the Bahr el Ghazal into the politics of the Nile valley. Seasonal water created islands of settlement connected by cattle tracks and canoe routes. Grazing rights and marriage alliances organised relations among communities. Cattle camps moved between the high ground and the dry-season grass, following the water. Cattle provided bridewealth and milk, and they also carried loads, and the herds were the basis of wealth and prestige.