The Toposa are a Nilotic ethnic group in South Sudan, living in the Greater Kapoeta region of Eastern Equatoria state.

[3] The Toposa mainly rely on cattle, sheep and goats, from which they obtain milk, blood, meat and leather.

[1] The Toposa economy and social life revolves around herding livestock, including cattle, camels, donkeys, goats and sheep.

The attacker would run forward zigzagging to dodge missiles, hurl his spear and then retreat, ready to ambush a pursuing enemy.

Gulliver, writing in 1952, "Turkana made war on all their neighbours with the exception of the Jie, with whom they occasionally allied themselves against the Karamajong and the Dodoth.

However, Toposa elders have limited power and the NGO went ahead and trained some women in ox ploughing, mostly widows and orphans.

The experiment ended in 1985 when rebel forces arrived in the area, a disaster the elders naturally attributed to letting women manage cattle.

Most decisions about the clan or community are made in meetings attended only by the men, traditionally held in the dark hours before the dawn.

[10] Captain King, a soldier of the Anglo-Egyptian Condominium who conquered the Toposa and ruled them for sixteen years, wrote: "There seems no doubt that prior to the advent of the Abyssinians even the idea of 'the Chief' was entirely unknown to the Topotha; the affairs of section and nation were regulated by the leaders of the ruling class, next but one above the warrior class...

Gifted individuals such as Tuliabong or Lotukol, himself an elder, might by their force of character or prowess come to exercise unusual sway; but this was purely personal and there was no concept of it passing on his death to his son".

[11] The Toposa believe in a supreme being and in ancestral spirits, who may assist in overcoming problems such as drought or epidemics of disease among their herds.

[13] The Toposa say that they originated in the Losolia Mountains in Uganda, moving away during a severe drought that killed both people and animals.

[3] A mortal quarrel between the Lwo and Tap (ancestors of the Taposa) people was thought to have upset the harmony of all life in northern Uganda, causing a great famine in 1587–1623.

[14] After leaving the heartland of the original group the ancestors of the Toposa settled at Losilang for a while, then drifted north in search of grazing.

At Loyoro one group, the Nyangatom or Dongiro, went east, while the Mosingo and Kor sections of the Toposa, under pressure from the Turkana, moved west and had settled in Kapoeta by 1830.

[15] The Lotuho have a tradition that their glorious kingdom of Imatari was destroyed by the Toposa some time around the start of the nineteenth century.

[17] As the British established a presence in Sudan and East Africa in the 1890s, they imposed regulations preventing export through their territory of immature or female ivory.

[18] Before World War I, Ethiopian influence stretched westward to the Kidepo River and beyond, and the ivory trade in this area was unaffected before 1927.

[19] The ivory trade brought arms and ammunition from Ethiopia into Toposa territory, and these were used in joint cattle raids with the Swahili on neighbouring people.

[21] With steadily tightening restrictions, by the early 1930s the Toposa were the main remaining traders in ivory in the southern Sudanese lowlands.

[28] In March 1992, Toposa militia staged attacks on relief columns attempting to bring supplies into Kapoeta.

[29] Refugees escaping from Pochalla, which had fallen to the Sudanese government, were attacked by Toposa militia as they made their way to Kapoeta.

The Inter-African Bureau for Animal Resources sponsored harmonization workshops and meetings to resolve and prevent conflicts among pastoralist communities such as the Toposa and their neighbors.

The participants in a Didinga-Turkana-Toposa-Nyangatom women's workshop in February 2000 undertook responsibility for discouraging further livestock rustling and raiding between the communities.

[35] In May 2007 Toposa tribesmen of Namorunyang raided the Ngauro Payam of Budi County, attacked a group that were resting after working in a collectively-owned field, and took 300 head of cattle and 400 goats or sheep.

It also said that George Echom, Deputy Governor of Eastern Equatorial State, had claimed that Nadapal belonged to South Sudan.