Dinka parrying shield
Other views of this artifact:
Accession Number:
1944.10.20
Country:
?Eritrea , Sudan
Region:
[Southern Sudan]
Cultural Group:
Dinka
Date Made:
By 1912
Materials:
Wood Plant
Process:
Carved , Hollowed , Grooved , Stained , Polished
Dimensions:
1345 mm long. The central grip area is 78.5 mm wide and 96.5 mm thick, while the handle is roughly 33 mm wide [RTS 15/7/2005].
Weight:
>1000 g
Local Name:
?kuerr kwerr ?quayre ?quer
Other Owners:
Collected by L. Gorringe, husband of donor Mrs L. Gorringe
Field Collector:
L. Gorringe
PRM Source:
Mrs L. Gorringe
Acquired:
Donated October 1944
Collected Date:
1902 - 1912
Description:
Wooden parrying shield, carved from a single piece of wood stained a light orangey brown colour (Pantone 730C) and polished.
This consists of a narrow body with swollen centre, tapering to a rounded point at either end.
This swollen area represents the handle grip; this has convex sides, while it has been hollowed out from its inside face to leave a narrow rectangular handle running across the top of the opening.
The inside face of the handle has two flat sides that slope in towards one another to meet at a sharp angle, while the inside wall of the grip opposite is concave to allow room for the knuckles.
The back of the shield curves down from the centre towards each end, and has a sharp ridge running along its length,
while the opposite face is straight, with a shallow v-shaped groove cut along the surface.
The shield is complete, but has 2 cracks on either side of the handle and a small area where the surface has been chipped.
It has a weight in excess of 1000 grams, and is 1345 mm long.
The central grip area is 78.5 mm wide and 96.5 mm thick, while the handle is roughly 33 mm wide.
Collected by L. Gorringe between 1902 and 1912, and subsequently donated by his wife to the museum in 1944. The provenance is given rather generically as 'White Nile', which has been used throughout the twentieth century to denote an administrative district immediately south of Khartoum. However at the time this object was collected the term was also used more loosely to refer to the Bahr el Abiad and Bahr el Jebel rivers, or the areas immediately around them, and association with the Dinka suggests this is probably the case here.
This object is very similar in style to 1936.10.11 (Ngok Dinka), 1979.20.75 (Dinka Tuich), 1931.66.10 and 1934.8.9, and 1944.10.21 (Dinka), although the latter has been carved from a much lighter wood. Schweinfurth gives the Dinka name for this type of shield as kuerr / Kwerr (G. Schweinfurth, 1875, Artes Africanae, pl. I figs 13-15, giving the wood species as diospyrus mespiliformis; G. Schweinfurth The Heat of Africa, 1873, vol. 1, p. 156, in anglicised spelling as quayre) . Note that Petherick also illustrated the type, which he associated with the Mundu, a group located between the Dinka and the Zande (J. Petherick, 1861, "On the Arms of the Arab and Negro Tribes of Central Africa, Bordering on the White Nile", Journal of the Royal United Service Institution IV no. 13, fig. 16). The groove along the inside face of the shield is probably designed to allow a spear to slot in place, enabling both to be carried together more easily and freeing up the other hand (D. Plasche & M.A. Zirngibl, 1992, African Shields, p. 75).
In the early 1930's, Percy Horace Gordon Powell-Cotton filmed footage of a staged fight between a Dinka and Jur, each armed with a club and heavy parrying shield (Mrs Powell Cotton, "Village Handicrafts in the Sudan", Man 34 (112), pp 90-91). A copy of this film is held in the archives of the Powell-Cotton Museum at Quex Park in Kent.
Rachael Sparks and Jeremy Coote 1/8/2005.
Collected by L. Gorringe between 1902 and 1912, and subsequently donated by his wife to the museum in 1944. The provenance is given rather generically as 'White Nile', which has been used throughout the twentieth century to denote an administrative district immediately south of Khartoum. However at the time this object was collected the term was also used more loosely to refer to the Bahr el Abiad and Bahr el Jebel rivers, or the areas immediately around them, and association with the Dinka suggests this is probably the case here.
This object is very similar in style to 1936.10.11 (Ngok Dinka), 1979.20.75 (Dinka Tuich), 1931.66.10 and 1934.8.9, and 1944.10.21 (Dinka), although the latter has been carved from a much lighter wood. Schweinfurth gives the Dinka name for this type of shield as kuerr / Kwerr (G. Schweinfurth, 1875, Artes Africanae, pl. I figs 13-15, giving the wood species as diospyrus mespiliformis; G. Schweinfurth The Heat of Africa, 1873, vol. 1, p. 156, in anglicised spelling as quayre) . Note that Petherick also illustrated the type, which he associated with the Mundu, a group located between the Dinka and the Zande (J. Petherick, 1861, "On the Arms of the Arab and Negro Tribes of Central Africa, Bordering on the White Nile", Journal of the Royal United Service Institution IV no. 13, fig. 16). The groove along the inside face of the shield is probably designed to allow a spear to slot in place, enabling both to be carried together more easily and freeing up the other hand (D. Plasche & M.A. Zirngibl, 1992, African Shields, p. 75).
In the early 1930's, Percy Horace Gordon Powell-Cotton filmed footage of a staged fight between a Dinka and Jur, each armed with a club and heavy parrying shield (Mrs Powell Cotton, "Village Handicrafts in the Sudan", Man 34 (112), pp 90-91). A copy of this film is held in the archives of the Powell-Cotton Museum at Quex Park in Kent.
Rachael Sparks and Jeremy Coote 1/8/2005.
Primary Documentation:
Accession Book Entry
[p.
375] -
Mrs L.
GORRINGE, Rosaries Farm, Ngong, Kenya
.
Specimens collected by her late husband, Captain L.
Gorringe, M.C., in the ANGLO-EGYPTIAN SUDAN between 1902 and 1912.
Undocumented.
[p.
377] 1944.10.20 - Wooden parrying-shield, or parrying-stick, for deflecting club-blows; a neatly carved narrow piece of wood, comparatively thick and rounded in the centre, which is hollowed out from the sides so as to provide a protected handle, and symmetrically tapering, in width as well as in depth, towards both ends; with an edge in [p.
379] front and a groove at the back, both running the whole length of the long axis.
Length 4' 5 1/8 ".
DINKA, WHITE NILE.
Additional Accession Book Entry [p. 376] - To 1944.10.20/21. The type is figured, e.g. in the Brit[ish] Mus[eum] Handbook of the Ethnogr[aphic] Coll[ection] (1910), on p. 194, Fig. 170, 2. The specimens are rather longer than the usual length which seems to be about 3 ft. or slightly more. According to Schweinfurth, this weapon is “quite peculiar to the Dinka”, but the type [p. 378] has more recently also been recorded from the Shilluk, in ambach (sic) wood, e.g. by Bernatzik: Zwischen Weissem Nil and Belgisch-Kongo, fig. 131, and by Domville-Five: Savage Life in the Black Sudan, p. 69 and fig. on p. 70. According to the latter, the ambach (sic) shield is used as an arm guard when lion hunting and also when fighting from canoes or rafts [however note that ambatch wood is considerably lighter than the wood used in this example; RTS 15/7/2005]. Schweinfurth gives the Dinka name as kuerr (or, in the English edition: The Heat of Africa, 1878, vol. 1, p. 54, in anglicised spelling as quayre ), another spelling is quer .
Card Catalogue Entry - The catalogue card repeats the information in the accession book, but adds that the note on the item's provenance on accessions book p. 376 is by Dr Meinhard [RTS 6/4/2004].
Pitt Rivers Museum label - Wooden parrying shield. DINKA, WHITE NILE, A.-E. SUDAN. Coll. by Capt. L. Gorringe 1902-1912. d.d. Mrs L. Gorringe, 1944.10.20 [rectangular paper label, stuck to surface of object]; AFRICA, SUDAN; DINKA. Wooden parrying sield. Don. Mrs L. Gorringe. 1944.10.20 [plastic label with metal eyelet, tied to object; RTS 15/7/2005].
Additional Accession Book Entry [p. 376] - To 1944.10.20/21. The type is figured, e.g. in the Brit[ish] Mus[eum] Handbook of the Ethnogr[aphic] Coll[ection] (1910), on p. 194, Fig. 170, 2. The specimens are rather longer than the usual length which seems to be about 3 ft. or slightly more. According to Schweinfurth, this weapon is “quite peculiar to the Dinka”, but the type [p. 378] has more recently also been recorded from the Shilluk, in ambach (sic) wood, e.g. by Bernatzik: Zwischen Weissem Nil and Belgisch-Kongo, fig. 131, and by Domville-Five: Savage Life in the Black Sudan, p. 69 and fig. on p. 70. According to the latter, the ambach (sic) shield is used as an arm guard when lion hunting and also when fighting from canoes or rafts [however note that ambatch wood is considerably lighter than the wood used in this example; RTS 15/7/2005]. Schweinfurth gives the Dinka name as kuerr (or, in the English edition: The Heat of Africa, 1878, vol. 1, p. 54, in anglicised spelling as quayre ), another spelling is quer .
Card Catalogue Entry - The catalogue card repeats the information in the accession book, but adds that the note on the item's provenance on accessions book p. 376 is by Dr Meinhard [RTS 6/4/2004].
Pitt Rivers Museum label - Wooden parrying shield. DINKA, WHITE NILE, A.-E. SUDAN. Coll. by Capt. L. Gorringe 1902-1912. d.d. Mrs L. Gorringe, 1944.10.20 [rectangular paper label, stuck to surface of object]; AFRICA, SUDAN; DINKA. Wooden parrying sield. Don. Mrs L. Gorringe. 1944.10.20 [plastic label with metal eyelet, tied to object; RTS 15/7/2005].
