Song ox
Among the Dinka and Nuer of South Sudan, a favourite ox with which a young man identifies and about which he composes songs.
Also: display ox, name ox, personality ox
Among the Dinka and Nuer, a young man is given or chooses an ox, often at his initiation, which becomes his companion and a kind of second self. He may take a name from its colour pattern, decorate it with tassels and bells, and shape its horns by cutting them so that they grow in a chosen curve. He composes songs about it, praising its looks and, through it, himself and his family, and sings them in the cattle camp and at dances. The colour vocabularies of these languages are very detailed, with many words for patterns of cattle. Writers such as Francis Mading Deng have recorded Dinka songs.