Among the Dinka people of South Sudan, stories were told around cattle-byres, where the fires burned low and children gathered to hear the wisdom of elders. One such story is that of Aluel, a young girl whose beauty and fate stirred both love and sorrow.
Aluel’s life began in hardship. Her mother died when she was still a child, leaving her father Chol to raise her alone. Chol, however, was no ordinary father. His heart overflowed with devotion, and he poured all his love into his daughter. He comforted her through grief, guided her through childhood, and provided for her in the way only a deeply loving father could. In the cattle-byre, where cows lowed in the evening and smoke from the fires curled into the air, he would sit with Aluel and speak to her gently, as though she were the very soul of his household.
Time passed, and Aluel grew into a beautiful young woman. Her beauty was not only of her face and form but in her quiet strength, her resilience, and her kind spirit. Yet her life took a bitter turn when Chol remarried. His new wife, unlike the gentle mother Aluel had lost, was cruel and resentful. Jealous of the love between father and daughter, she mistreated Aluel, making her days heavy with sorrow.
READ: Aluel and Her Loving Father: Orphaned and Raised Alone
READ: Aluel and Her Loving Father: Life with the Sun
READ: Aluel and Her Loving Father: Return and Ruin
It was during these days of hardship that Aluel’s destiny changed. One day, while tending cattle, she was suddenly taken up into the heavens by the great Sun. To the Dinka, the Sun was a powerful being, the giver of warmth and life. In his celestial household, the Sun’s two wives welcomed Aluel. They looked upon her with compassion, recognizing her suffering, and took her in as if she were their own daughter.
In the Sun’s home, Aluel was bathed, cared for, and adorned. The wives anointed her skin with fragrant oils, placed ivory bangles upon her arms, and clothed her in radiant beauty. Her sorrow was soothed by their kindness, and in that heavenly realm she shone brighter than ever.
READ COMPLETE FOLKTALE: Aluel and the Sun: A Dinka Folktale of Love, Loss, and Betrayal
But on earth, her father Chol could not understand where she had gone. He searched and wept, filling the cattle-byre with his cries. His lament echoed over the fields, a haunting song of loss. “My daughter, my Aluel, where have you gone?” he wailed, his grief heavy enough to break the hearts of those who heard it.
From the Sun’s home, Aluel heard her father’s mourning. Though she was cherished in her new life, her heart longed for the father who had loved her so dearly. And so, one day, she returned to earth.
When she stepped back into the world of the Dinka, Aluel was transformed. Her beauty was dazzling, heightened by the care of the Sun’s wives. Her skin glowed, her ivory ornaments shone in the light, and those who saw her marveled. Her father’s heart leapt with joy, for he thought his grief had ended. Aluel was back.
But her return brought more than joy. It stirred desire and jealousy. Among those who beheld her was Ring, a young man who desired her for himself. He saw her radiance and could not rest, for he wished to claim her as his wife. Yet Chol, who had already lost her once, was unwilling to let her go. His love, which had always been tender, became fierce and possessive.
Tension grew between the father and the suitor. The cattle-byre, once filled with the cries of grief, became a place of rivalry. Words sharpened, pride swelled, and the bonds of community began to fray under the weight of jealousy.
At last, anger overcame them. Chol and Ring confronted one another, each unwilling to yield. Their struggle, born from love and pride, ended in tragedy. Both fell, leaving Aluel bereft, caught between the devotion of her father and the desire of the young suitor.
The story closes with sorrow. Aluel, once cherished and radiant, was left in silence. Her father’s love, which had been her shield, had become her undoing. Ring’s desire, which could have been her future, ended in blood. The cattle lowed in the byre as though mourning with her, and the land seemed to sigh with the weight of tragedy.
So the Dinka remember the tale of Aluel and her loving father: a story of love that became possession, of beauty that drew rivalry, and of how unchecked pride can turn devotion into destruction.
Moral of the Story
The tale of Aluel and her father Chol teaches that love, though noble, must never become possessive. True love allows freedom and growth, while jealousy and pride lead only to loss. From the Dinka people comes this wisdom: devotion should protect, not destroy, and care must be tempered with humility.
Knowledge Check (Q&A)
1. Who raised Aluel after her mother died?
Her father, Chol, who loved her with deep devotion.
2. How did Aluel’s life change after her father remarried?
Her stepmother mistreated her, filling her days with hardship.
3. Who took Aluel into their care after she left the earth?
The Sun and his two wives, who treated her as their own daughter.
4. How did Chol respond to Aluel’s disappearance?
He mourned bitterly in the cattle-byre, filling the air with his cries.
5. What caused the conflict between Chol and Ring?
Both claimed Aluel — one out of possessive love, the other out of desire — leading to rivalry.
6. What central lesson does this story convey?
That love must be free of pride and jealousy, or it will destroy the very bonds it seeks to protect.
