Nuer homestead ritual
58 x 55 mm | Negative film nitrate
Date of Print:
Unknown
Previous PRM Number:
EP.N.221
Accession Number:
1998.346.221
Description:
A group of people gathered at a homestead, tightly surrounding either a sacrificial animal or a person.
The group are mostly standing on the earthern mound of the homestead's riek shrine, the altar of God and spirits within the home, although the forked post is not visible.
The crowding around of people in this way bears a striking resemblance to Evans-Pritchard's description of a scene he witnessed at a ceremony in 1936, in which a leopard-skin priest sacrificed an ox to appease two groups after the death of a Lual man some years after an accident involving the fishing spear of a man from the Jikul clan.
Photographer:
Edward Evan Evans-Pritchard
Date of Photo:
1936
Region:
[Southern Sudan] ?Wahda
Group:
Nuer ?Leek
PRM Source:
Edward Evan Evans-Pritchard
Acquired:
Donated 1966
Other Owners:
E. E. Evans-Pritchard Collection
Class:
Ritual , Religion , Social Life , Weapon
Keyword:
Shrine , Spear
Documentation:
Original catalogue lists in Manuscript Collections. Additional material in related documents files. [CM 27/9/2005]
Primary Documentation:
Accession Book Entry: [p.
98] 1966.27 [1 - 24] G[ift] PROFESSOR E.
E.
EVANS-PRITCHARD; INST.
OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY, 51 BANBURY RD.
OXFORD 1966.27.17 S.
SUDAN.
NUER TRIBE.
Box of negatives each in separate envelope, labelled.
(some missing).
Nos.
1 - 213.
(prints in box 1966.27.18)...1966.27.18 S.
SUDAN.
NUER TRIBE.
Box of prints each in separate envelope.
Nos.
1 - 213.
(negatives in 1966.27.17.)
Other Information:
In Kinship and Marriage Among the Nuer (Clarendon Press, Oxford 1990 [1951]), page 109, E.
E.
Evans-Pritchard notes that 'At the end of his address he speared the ox and those present rushed in, as is the custom on this occasion, to obtain what they could of the carcass, hacking and slicing, waving their spears, and shouting.
It was a scene of great confusion.' [Chris Morton 19/5/2004]
Recorder:
Christopher Morton [23/4/2004] [Southern Sudan Project]
