History
The Shilluk legend traces their origins to a hero called Nyikang, the first Reth. Nyikang was the son of a king Okwa who ruled a country located “far south near a large lake”. This may be the Lake Albert where the Acholi live. Following the death of Okwa, Nyikang goes to war with his brother Duwadh, the legitimate successor to the throne. Facing defeat Nyikang leaves his homeland with his retinue and migrates north-east to a place called Wau located near the Bahr el Ghazal, the river of gazelles in Arabic. In this country known by the Shilluk as the Pothe Thuro, Nyikang married the daughter of Dimo, the local magician-king. Around the year 1550, after a conflict with Dimo, Nyikang emigrated north again, crossing the Bahr el Ghazal, and arrives at Acietagwok, a Shilluk village located about thirty kilometres west of the village of Tonga. Nyikang then runs along the left bank to reach Nyilual; an uninhabited region west of the present town of Malakal
The Shilluk Kingdom was situated along a strip of land along the western bank of White Nile, from Lake No to about 12° of latitude North. The Shilluk people are closely related to the more common ethnic groups of South Sudan the Nuer and Dinka who are their neighbors to the south and east respectively. Their language is closer to that of the people Anuak near the rivers Baro and Pibor.
Like most of the Nilotic peoples of South Sudan, like the Nuer and Dinka they lived a semi-nomadic life with their cattle with a limited level of grain farming. Their social system was very egalitarian and herds of cattle were of great symbolic value. The lifestyle of the modern Shilluk is not much different exception that the size of their herds are smaller. Their lifestyle was much more settled as the strip of land they occupy along the White Nile is much more fertile than elsewhere in the region
The Shilluk country was divided into two provinces i.e. Gerr , the northern most and Luak , the southern most, which were in turn subdivided into several more zones.