The Dinka people have no centralised political authority, instead comprising many independent but interlinked clans.
Some of those clans traditionally provide ritual chiefs, known as the "masters of the fishing spear" or beny bith,
who provide leadership for the entire people and appear to be at least in part hereditary.
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Lienhardt, G. (1961). Divinity and Experience: the Religion of the Dinka. Oxford: Clarendon Press.