Nuer elephant butchery
35 mm | Negative film Kodak Panatonic
Same Image As:
2004.131.71.239
Previous PRM Number:
WT.Southern Sudan.1.28
Accession Number:
2004.130.32798.1
Description:
Nuer porters cutting up an elephant shot by Thesiger with their spearheads.
Big game hunting formed a significant element of Thesiger's activities in Western Nuerland, and he later acknowledged that it facilitated his acceptance by the Nuer, and provided nutrition for his porters, who called themselves 'Kwechuor's men' after his ox-name.
Photographer:
Wilfred Patrick Thesiger
Date of Photo:
1938
Region:
[Southern Sudan] Wahda
Group:
Nuer ?Western Jikany
PRM Source:
Wilfred Patrick Thesiger
Acquired:
Accepted as Art in Lieu of Inheritance Tax by H.M. Government and allocated to the Pitt Rivers Museum, March 2004
Other Owners:
n/a
Class:
Food and Drink , Hunting
Keyword:
Meat
Activity:
Butchery
Primary Documentation:
Manual Catalogue (Thesiger album card) - 'VOL E p.
28/Elephant shot by me./Nuer cutting up elephant.' [Elin Bornemann 24/5/2004]
Other Information:
In The Life of My Choice (Harper Collins 1987) Thesiger notes (page 275) that 'Although I never succeeded in shooting an elephant in the swamps, I was more successful when they moved into open country during the rains...Each time I shot an elephant the Nuer- men, women and children - appeared in large numbers and in a few hours the enormous mass of meat was cut up and carried away...It was extraordinary to see these naked men swarming all over the carcass and even inside it, most of them covered with blood, partly from the elephant and partly from cuts on their own bodies, as they hacked and slashed with their spearheads.' Chris Morton [15/9/2004]
Recorder:
Elin Bornemann [10/12/2003] Christopher Morton [15/9/2004] [Southern Sudan Project]
