The Nara are a Nilotic ethnic group inhabiting Eritrea. There are four sub-tribes and the society is organised into clans and subclans. The Nara are mostly subsistence farmers and speak their own language, Nara.
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Overview
According to the Eritrean government, the Nara are descendants of the first Nilo-Saharan settlers in Eritrea, who had migrated from the Upper Nile area and intermarried with local Pygmy populations.
Today, the Nara number around 108,000 individuals, and constitute about 1.5% of the population of Eritrea. They are typically agrarian and have settled primarily along the border with Sudan.
The Nara population is divided into four subtribes: the Higir, Mogareb, Koyta and Santora. They traditionally adhered to animist beliefs, but most have since adopted Islam and a minority also follow Christianity.
The Nara ethnonym means "Sky Heaven". They also used to call themselves the Barya.
Language
The Nara people speak the Nara language. It belongs to the Nilo-Saharan family, and is closely related to Kunama. It is not a written language, and Nara literature is normally written in Tigre or Arabic. The language is also known as Nara-Bana, meaning "Nara-Talk".
Social organization
Social organisation of the Nara people is based on the clan and subclan, with people living in villages and hamlets. The lineage system is patrilineal, unlike that of the Kunama people. Land belongs to the clan and shared out among the families in the clan.
Genetics
According to Trombetta et al. (2015), 60% of Nara are carriers of the E1b1b paternal haplogroup. Of these, around 13% bear the V32 subclade, to which belong 60% of the Tigre Semitic speakers in Eritrea. This points to substantial gene flow from neighbouring Afro-Asiatic-speaking males into the Nara's ancestral Nilotic community. Cruciani et al. (2010) likewise observed that the remaining Nara individuals are primarily carriers of the Afro-Asiatic-associated haplogroup J (20%), as well as the A lineage (20%), which is instead common among Nilotes.