Portrait of a Nuer youth
100 x 75 mm | Print gelatin silver
Date of Print:
Unknown
Previous PRM Number:
EP.N.62
Previous Other Number:
09 (5)
Accession Number:
1998.346.62.2
Description:
A head and shoulders full face portrait of an initiated male youth (identified as Wie or Wia) wearing a white shirt and numerous elephant-hair neck ornaments, with ash smeared on his face and ritual scarring on forehead and earrings.
Evans-Pritchard records a Wia as a son of Cam of Yakwach village on the Sobat River.
Evans-Pritchard employed Wia in 1931 during his fieldwork among the Lou at Yakwach, and re-engaged him again for a month-long visit to his father Cam's village of Yakwach in July 1935.
After working for Evans-Pritchard in 1931, Wia worked as a groom for F.
D.
Corfield the District Commissioner at Nasir, where he managed to get together a small herd of cattle at the district headquarters there.
Photographer:
Edward Evan Evans-Pritchard
Date of Photo:
1931
Region:
[Southern Sudan] Upper Nile Sobat River ?Yakwach
Group:
Nuer Lou
NamedPerson:
Wia or Wie
Publication History:
Contemporary Publication - Reproduced as Plate XXVIIIb.
(facing page 256) in E.
E.
Evans-Pritchard's
The Nuer
(Oxford University Press, 1940), with the caption 'b.
Youth (Lou)' Also reproduced as Plate XXc.
(facing page 208) in C.G.
& B.
Seligman's
Pagan Tribes of the Nilotic Sudan
(London, Routledge 1932), with the caption 'Three Nuer types'.
[CM 26/8/2005]
Notes:
The information about Wie or Wia referred to in this record is found on p.46 of E.
E.
Evans-Pritchard's paper
Some Aspects of Marriage and the Family Among the Nuer
.
Rhodes-Livingstone Papers
No.11, 1945.
Livingstone: Rhodes-Livingstone Institute.
[CM 07/07/2006]
PRM Source:
Edward Evan Evans-Pritchard
Acquired:
Donated 1966
Other Owners:
E. E. Evans-Pritchard Collection
Class:
Physical Anthropology , Ornament , Body Art
Keyword:
Ornament Neck , Body Art Paint , Ornament Ear
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.)
Manual Catalogues [typewritten, entitled "Nuer Photographs (E-P)"] - 62. Wie. (L.) [large size]
Note on print reverse ms pencil - "09 62 XXVIIIb"
Manual Catalogues [typewritten, entitled "Nuer Photographs (E-P)"] - 62. Wie. (L.) [large size]
Note on print reverse ms pencil - "09 62 XXVIIIb"
Display History:
A print of this photograph forms part of the Nuer & Dinka display in the upper gallery of the PRM, illustrating neck ornaments of the Nuer. [CM 07/07/2006]
Other Information:
Ethnographic context - In Kinship and Marriage Among the Nuer (Clarendon Press, Oxford 1990 [1951]), page 18, E.
E.
Evans-Pritchard notes that the Jekany man Cam-Carau's marriage to a Lou wife happened with 'the name of his maternal uncle, Dar, with Dar's cattle, so that his eldest son and the other children born of this wife count as Dar's children and not his own; and as Dar and Cam are of different clans and tribes, the distinction between pater and genitor is emphasized.
His eldest son, Wia, belongs to the dominant clan of the Lou territory and he does not.' [Chris Morton 5/4/2004]
Recorder:
Christopher Morton 5/4/2004 [Southern Sudan Project]
