resistance. When the Gaahmg attacked tax patrols in protest to tribute collections, the Anglo-Egyptian government conducted ‘military operations’ which, although they did not involve taking slaves, seized livestock and killed those deemed responsible. Since the 1980s, the state has become a major battleground for the ideological competition between two opposed models: Khartoum’s attempts at unifying and centralising the country with a dominant Arab-Islamic identity, which South Sudan’s separation is paradoxically reviving, versus the rebel SPLM/A’s and now SRF’s agenda for a more inclusive and devolved Sudan. Attempts to resolve Blue Nile’s past and current conflicts thus very much reflect Sudan’s existential dilemma as to how best it should define itself. By the 1980s, land grabbing and exploitation by the centre led some in Blue Nile State to identify more with the South. In 1985, the newly formed SPLM/A was quick to send Southern troops and recruit from among local communities, including many Ingessana. Some of the most prominent leaders of SPLA-North are Ingessana, including Malik Agar. As a result of on-going conflict, most of the Ingessana have since 2011 been displaced as refugees to South Sudan. Lifestyle The main occupations of the Gaahmg relate to livestock, cultivation, or craftmaking. In particular, the Gaahmg grow sorghum, sesame, maize, peppers, gourds, and tobacco. They keep cattle, goats, pigs, sheep, hens, donkeys, mules, and camels. During the dry season, young men and boys take herds of up to 50 head of cattle a hundred miles south to the Yabus River for water and pasture. The Gaahmg are also famous for their throwing knives, called koleth. There are two types of these, called "Sai" and "Muder".The designs on the blade are fixed and different for both the varieties. The "Muder" features a scorpion (deit) on the left side and an insect called fil on the other. Fil is a water insect and often stings people who are bathing but the pain is slight relative to that inflicted by a scorpion. The "Sai" also carries two creatures from nature, the snake (der) and the spider (maras) Both are represented on each side of the blade and spider four times in all, twice on each side. The shank and hilt of each variety are engraved with either pairs of small incisions (representing the footprints of a small deer, mofor) or parallel zig-zag lines called 'the millipede' (dongole) and sometimes combinations of both. The design here reflects