Zande feast medicines
104 x 78 mm | Print gelatin silver
Condition:
Residual chemical staining [EE 1987]
Date of Print:
Unknown
Previous PRM Number:
EP.A.324
Previous Other Number:
31 3
Accession Number:
1998.341.324
Description:
Some bundles of ngua or medicines hanging from beneath a household's granary, used to help ensure a prosperous and peaceful feast.
Since these medicines are hung beneath a granary, they may well be dakadiya and ngamu, medicines used on newly harvested crop piles to ensure increase.
Photographer:
Edward Evan Evans-Pritchard
Date of Photo:
1927 - 1930
Region:
[Southern Sudan] Western Equatoria Yambio
Group:
Zande
Publication History:
Contemporary Publication - Reproduced as Plate XXXIIb (facing page 460) in E.
E.
Evans-Pritchard's Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic Among the Azande (OUP 1937), with the caption "Medicines hanging from granary to ensure a prosperous and peaceful feast" [CM 11/8/2005]
PRM Source:
Edward Evan Evans-Pritchard
Acquired:
Donated 1966
Other Owners:
E. E. Evans-Pritchard Collection
Class:
Religion , Ritual , Social Life , Shelter
Keyword:
Building Storage , Storage Crop
Activity:
Ritual Activity
Event:
Feast
Documentation:
Original catalogue lists in Manuscript Collections. Additional material in related documents files. [CM 27/9/2005]
Primary Documentation:
PRM Accession Records - [1966.27.21] G PROFESSOR E.
E.
EVANS-PRITCHARD; INST.
OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY, 51 BANBURY RD.
OXFORD - S.
SUDAN, AZANDE TRIBE.
Box of negatives in envelopes.
Nos.
1 - 400
Added Accession Book Entry - [In pencil in column] Catalogue room.
[1966.27.23] G PROFESSOR E. E. EVANS-PRITCHARD; INST. OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY, 51 BANBURY RD. OXFORD - S. SUDAN, AZANDE TRIBE. Box of prints in envelopes, nos. 1 - 400 (prints of negatives in 1966.27.21)
Manual Catalogues [typewritten, entitled "Zande Photographs (E-P)"] - 324. Medicines hanging from granary at feast time. 31/3
Notes on card mount m/s pencil - "rcs 6/87"
Added Accession Book Entry - [In pencil in column] Catalogue room.
[1966.27.23] G PROFESSOR E. E. EVANS-PRITCHARD; INST. OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY, 51 BANBURY RD. OXFORD - S. SUDAN, AZANDE TRIBE. Box of prints in envelopes, nos. 1 - 400 (prints of negatives in 1966.27.21)
Manual Catalogues [typewritten, entitled "Zande Photographs (E-P)"] - 324. Medicines hanging from granary at feast time. 31/3
Notes on card mount m/s pencil - "rcs 6/87"
Other Information:
Ethnographic context - In Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic Among the Azande (OUP 1937, page 457) E.
E.
Evans-Pritchard describes a magical rite in which a man places dakadiya (a plant with sticky leaves) and ngamu (a feathery grass) with his harvested eleusine with the invocation "may eleusine stick together in the granary like leaves of dikadaya; may eleusine increase like ngamu." I think it is therefore a possibility that these medicines are also being used in this context of increasing the contents of the granary for a prosperous feast.
[CM 11/8/2005]
Recorder:
Christopher Morton 3/11/2003 [Southern Sudan Project]
