The Last of the Nuba - Hardcover

Riefenstahl, Leni

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0060135492 ISBN 13: 9780060135492

Publisher: Harper & Row, 1974

Synopsis

Dust jacket notes: "The Nuba of the Kordofan in the Sudan - specifically the Mesakin and Korongo Nuba - are perhaps the most remarkable tribal group in Africa to have survived the enormous changes which have overcome the rest of the Continent. Well away from trade routes, remote in the arid mountains of the central Sudan from the disruptions of alien cultures and the meretricious ideas of Western man, these fragile groups of noble men have clung to their traditional culture with a rare and stubborn devotion, which has so far preserved them from the Arabization of so many of the people of that vast, but sparsely inhabited, area. Over a period of ten years, Leni Riefenstahl has lived on and off with the Mesakin Nuba, sometimes for several months at a time. Here she presents her remarkable record of the everyday rhythms of life; of eating, sleeping, building, gathering food and taking their leisure; of the great cycles of birth, marriage and death; and of the remarkable central factor of their culture and religion: the wrestling contest. It is alas, a commonplace to represent a tribal group, whose life has evolved in an inspired and intimate harmony with their environment, as being on the brink of extinction. For all their physical magnificence, the Mesakin Nuba are indeed a fragile stem of the human race. But there will be perhaps no people in the world doomed to extinction as an ethnic entity who will have been survived, for so long as our civilization lasts, by a more devoted record such as Leni Riefenstahl has brought out from Africa."

About this title

Language Notes:

Text: English, German (translation)

About this edition

• Publisher: Harper & Row
• Publication date: 1974
• ISBN 10: 0060135492
• ISBN 13: 9780060135492
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 208