Zande spirit-shrine in garden
104 x 78 mm | Print gelatin silver
There are records relating to alternative images that we do not have scans for in the database:
1998.341.353.1 - Negative film nitrate , (104 x 78 mm)
1998.341.353.1 - Negative film nitrate , (104 x 78 mm)
Date of Print:
Unknown
Previous PRM Number:
EP.A.353
Previous Other Number:
47 3 (84) [frame 4]
Accession Number:
1998.341.353.2
Description:
A tuka or spirit shrine in a garden, showing a split stick, the ends bound at the top, with ritual offerings in the split of the stick and on the ground below under an upturned pot.
Such shrines are sites for medicines or ngua that are invoked to ensure ancestral (spirit) favour for the garden.
This tuka was erected on the occasion of sowing a garden.
Photographer:
Edward Evan Evans-Pritchard
Date of Photo:
1927 - 1930
Region:
[Southern Sudan] Western Equatoria Yambio
Group:
Zande
PRM Source:
Edward Evan Evans-Pritchard
Acquired:
Donated 1966
Other Owners:
E. E. Evans-Pritchard Collection
Class:
Religion , Ritual , Ritual Object , Agriculture and Horticulture
Keyword:
Religious Offering , Garden , Shrine
Activity:
Ritual Activity
Documentation:
Original catalogue lists in Manuscript Collections. Additional material in related documents files. [CM 27/9/2005]
Primary Documentation:
PRM Accession Records - [1966.27.21] G PROFESSOR E.
E.
EVANS-PRITCHARD; INST.
OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY, 51 BANBURY RD.
OXFORD - S.
SUDAN, AZANDE TRIBE.
Box of negatives in envelopes.
Nos.
1 - 400
Added Accession Book Entry - [In pencil in column] Catalogue room.
[1966.27.23] G PROFESSOR E. E. EVANS-PRITCHARD; INST. OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY, 51 BANBURY RD. OXFORD - S. SUDAN, AZANDE TRIBE. Box of prints in envelopes, nos. 1 - 400 (prints of negatives in 1966.27.21)
Manual Catalogues [typewritten, entitled "Zande Photographs (E-P)"] - 353. Spirit shrine in gardens. (Showing offerings and medicines). 47/3 (84)
Added Accession Book Entry - [In pencil in column] Catalogue room.
[1966.27.23] G PROFESSOR E. E. EVANS-PRITCHARD; INST. OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY, 51 BANBURY RD. OXFORD - S. SUDAN, AZANDE TRIBE. Box of prints in envelopes, nos. 1 - 400 (prints of negatives in 1966.27.21)
Manual Catalogues [typewritten, entitled "Zande Photographs (E-P)"] - 353. Spirit shrine in gardens. (Showing offerings and medicines). 47/3 (84)
Other Information:
A similar image taken at the same time as this image (front the front of the tuka) is reproduced as Plate XXIX (facing page 442) in E.
E.
Evans-Pritchard's Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic Among the Azande (OUP 1937), with the caption "A ghost-shrine erected in an eleusine cultivation on the day of sowing.
At the foot of the shrine are medicines under a pot.
Other medicines can be seen protruding from the adjacent termite mound.
In the shrine are food offerings to the ghosts" In The Azande (OUP, 1971) page 99, E.
E.
Evans-Pritchard notes that "the ordinary old Mbomu shrine is the tuka, a stake split at the top and with the split sections bound to form a recepticle for offerings." In Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic Among the Azande (OUP 1937, page 441) he also states that 'Medicines which are domesticated are planted around the ghost-shrine, and when a new shrine is erected medicines are often buried at its base and ghosts and medicines are alike addressed to ensure the welfare of the inmates of the homestead.
Likewise, when a shrine is erected in an eleusine cultivation medicines are placed around it, and both they and the ghosts are asked to protect the eleusine.
The association is here close, but the power of the medicines is not attributable to the ghosts, for the power is in the medicines.'
Recorder:
Christopher Morton 4/11/2003 [Southern Sudan Project]
