Accusations that some baany e biith are now impure are also often accompanied by accusations that they no longer adhere to moral boundaries. One interviewee gave the example of how, in 2012, two thieves killed an old medical professional within Tharkueng on the road to Gogrial Town. He owned a small pharmacy that sold a few medicines to the surrounding villages. Therefore, the thieves knew that he had some money and they killed him as they stole this money. Yet, after the man’s death, the thieves started to fear the spiritual repercussions of their deed. So, they approached a bany e bith to ask for protection and to wash their bodies free of the man’s spirit. The bany e bith agreed to help them but said that they should bring him a share of the loot for his power to work fully. He told the thieves to deposit his share in a certain mahogany tree. The thieves did not return and did not share their loot. Without this financial incentive, the bany e bith lost his appetite to hide the crimes of these two men. He explained later that the old man’s spirit had come to him at night to tell him to tell people who had killed him. The bany e bith went to the relatives of the slain who then went to the police. The two thieves were arrested and fined. While this case became public, it appears that financial incentive would have encouraged the thieves’ identity to remain the bany e bith’s secret.
This moral degradation is even more acute when baany e biith are accused of killing without restraint. This association with thieves is also said to diminish the baany e biith’s power over peace. Part of their role in peace is to encourage truth-telling. Their own deceit prevents their power to do this.
As early chapters in this book discussed, the power to kill with impunity through cursing is at the heart of the baany e biith’s authority. It is this power over life and death that gives them authority to demand war but also to demand and enforce peace. As the white bull is being prepared to be slaughtered to bring peace, the bany e bith usually utters that harm, often unto death, will meet anyone who reopens the feud. If people do again act with aggression and then die, this is easily interpreted as an act of the baany e biith’s power to curse with impunity. Therefore, the power to kill in itself creates and does not diminish the baany e biith’s power over peace.
A story is known in Gogrial of a recent example from Lakes State. To the east of Rumbek, a famous ‘bitter’ bany e bith made peace between two warring sections and threatened to curse to death whoever violated the peace. The peace was almost immediately violated. The bany e bith’s son was among those who violated the peace; his son quickly fell ill and died. People questioned whether the bany e bith should have killed his own son, but the act highlighted his impartial enforcement of peace.
After the CPA, people in Gogrial have accused some baany e biith of accepting money in exchange for cursing someone to death. These baany e biith have been nicknamed baany e biith nak koc – ‘the spear masters who kill people’. The baany e biith nak koc are contrasted with the baany e biith who seek to reconcile and so have ‘cold hearts’ – liir puoth – and are ‘without dirt in their hearts’ – acin puoth acuol.
The acceptance of money to kill makes the power to kill subordinate to the logics of the market and money. This subordination undermines the distinct nature of the authority of the divine and undermines claims that they can offer an alternative moral economy. It is as if their powers have become used as an arbitrary weapon and are no longer bounded by the moral expectations of Dinka cosmologies and moral orders. Therefore, these killings become frightening displays of arbitrary power, and not acts of necessary justice contained by law.
‘Raan aci thong kek weng tok’1 Interview with Apuk elder in Juba, December 2018. – ‘A man is not equivalent to only one cow’. An additional problem is that killing for money deflates the value of the dead. Some
baany e biith are accused of being willing to curse to death for the price of only one cow. These exchanges are discussed as if the
bany e bith is being paid for an assassination. In these discussions, people referenced that compensation for the dead is set at at least thirty-one cows that once had the ability to restore life through having an equivalence to bride wealth. Then the cattle could restore life through the posthumous wife’s children. Yet, demanding only one cow to slay a man implies that a man’s life has become worth so little and that there is no intention to seek life after death. The moral ambiguity of accepting money to kill is evidenced by accusations that
baany e biith nak koc hide evidence of killed animals or invocations that evidence their acts. They are accused of carrying them out at night. People claimed to have witnessed their invocations over an animal that result in the immediate death of the named person.