A female Nuer diviner
58 x 55 mm | Print gelatin silver
Condition:
slight Sulphide staining right hand side acid migration [7/89 EE]
Date of Print:
Unknown
Previous PRM Number:
EP.N.XI.42
Previous Other Number:
7 [1]
Accession Number:
1998.355.518.2
Description:
Two women wearing textile body cloths, one or both of whom being described as a tiet or diviner.
The older woman to the left is holding a pipe with a large bowl , and the younger to the right has her hand in the pipe bowl as well as an ambatch log and other objects on her head.
A tiet was a local practitioner of divination and leechcraft who were understood to gain their powers from the lesser spirits, but never rose to widespread prominence in the way that prophets did.
The film number suggests a location of western Nuerland in 1936.
Photographer:
Edward Evan Evans-Pritchard
Date of Photo:
1936 October - November
Region:
[Southern Sudan] Wahda
Group:
Nuer ?Leek
Notes:
There appears to be three Rolleiflex films identified as film 7, which I have identified according to differences in notation on the print reverse as well as image content.
[CM 29/10/2007]
PRM Source:
Edward Evan Evans-Pritchard
Acquired:
Donated 1966
Other Owners:
E. E. Evans-Pritchard Collection
Class:
Ritual , Narcotic , Religion , Clothing
Keyword:
Pipe , ?Shield , Textile
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 1966.27.1-16 S.
SUDAN.
NUER TRIBE.
Sixteen negative albums containing negatives
and
prints of photographs taken by donor during field-work.
All listed in albums.
Added Accession Book Entry - [p.
98 in right hand column, in pencil] Catalogue room.
Manual Catalogues [index taken from album book XI, ms ink] - 42. Women
Note on print reverse ms pencil - "7 tiet" & print front border ms ink - "NUER XI/42"
Manual Catalogues [index taken from album book XI, ms ink] - 42. Women
Note on print reverse ms pencil - "7 tiet" & print front border ms ink - "NUER XI/42"
Other Information:
In Nuer Religion (Oxford University Press 1974 [1957], page 95, E.
E.
Evans-Pritchard notes that 'Those who practice various forms of divination and leechcraft are known, as in other Nilotic languages, as tiet.
Their powers come from some minor spirit, which is not, as I understood the Nuer, regarded as entering into and possessing a tiet, as spirits of the air and colwic possess men...' [Chris Morton 3/8/2004]
Recorder:
Christopher Morton [3/8/2004] [Southern Sudan Project]
