Bongo rain and hunting medicine posts
103 x 75 mm | Print gelatin silver
There are records relating to alternative images that we do not have scans for in the database:
1998.343.32.1 - Negative film nitrate , (103 x 75 mm)
1998.343.32.1 - Negative film nitrate , (103 x 75 mm)
Date of Print:
Unknown
Previous PRM Number:
EP.B.36
Previous Other Number:
29 [frame 3]
Accession Number:
1998.343.32.2
Description:
A long wooden rain-post (riyak) stuck into the ground with a shorter notched post (lingi) for hunting-magic offerings, usually fowl sacrifice.
During drought the rain-post was the focus for rain-making rituals involving the sprinkling of durra (Sorghum bicolor) over an assembled crowd by a rain-maker (biriak).
Photographer:
Edward Evan Evans-Pritchard
Date of Photo:
1929 March
Region:
[Southern Sudan] Warab/El Buheyrat Tonj-Rumbek Road
Group:
Bongo
Publication History:
Contemporary Publication - A heavily cropped version is reproduced as Plate II (facing page 26) in E.
E.
Evans-Pritchard's "The Bongo" (Sudan Notes and Records Vol.XII Part I 1929) with the caption 'Riyak rain-post with Lingi notched stake at its base.' [Chris Morton 16/1/2004]
PRM Source:
Edward Evan Evans-Pritchard
Acquired:
Donated 1966
Other Owners:
E. E. Evans-Pritchard Collection
Class:
Ritual , Ritual Object
Keyword:
Public Space , Shrine
Primary Documentation:
PRM Accession Records - Accession Book Entry [p.
98] 1966.27 [1 - 24] G[ift] PROFESSOR E.
E.
EVANS-PRITCHARD; INST.
OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY, 51 BANBURY RD.
OXFORD - 1966.27.19 - S.
SUDAN, DARFUNG.
VARIOUS TRIBES.
Box of negatives in envelopes, [1 - 242] & 1966.27.20 - Box of prints of these negatives [refers to object 1966.27.19] [1 - 242], in envelopes.
Notes on print/mount - "29"
Notes on print/mount - "29"
Other Information:
Ethnographic context - In "The Bongo" (Sudan Notes and Records Vol.XII Part I 1929 page 27) E.
E.
Evans-Pritchard notes that 'there is another of these posts, with a medicine post, called lingi, placed under it, on the Tonj-Rumbek road.' On page 43 he also notes that 'the traditional hunting medicine of the Bongo is lingi.
This consists of two or three little carved posts about a foot or eighteen inches high, which are driven into the earth near the entrance to a hut...
The hunter takes a hen and cuts its throat over these posts, and willspeak to the spirits as he does so, saying: "Give me animals, let my crops succeed," and so on.
He throws the head of the hen into the bush and eats its body.' [Chris Morton 16/1/2004]
Recorder:
Christopher Morton 16/1/2004 [Southern Sudan Project]
