Portrait of Mandari girls

56 x 56 mm | Negative film nitrate

There are records relating to alternative images that we do not have scans for in the database:
1998.97.55.2 - Print gelatin silver , (57 x 54 mm)
1998.97.55.3 - Print gelatin silver , (110 x 110 mm)

Date of Print:

Unknown

Previous PRM Number:

JB.2.37

Accession Number:

1998.97.55.1

Description:

An upper body portrait of two Mandari girls wearing waist-cloths and strings of beads around their necks, one leaning against the thatch of a hut. Beads worn by girls around the neck were often given by male admirers. They both have forehead scarification after the manner of the Dinka, and the girl in the foreground has a series of linear scar marks on her abdomen, although for the Mandari it does not denote any formal initiation (hence her use of it along with the youths), and was used instead for aesthetically pleasing effect.

Photographer:

Jean Carlile Buxton

Date of Photo:

1950 - 1952

Region:

[Southern Sudan] Bahr el Jebel Tali

Group:

Mandari Dari

Publication History:

Contemporary Publication - Reproduced as Plate III (facing page 80) in Jean Buxton's Chiefs and Strangers (Oxford, Clarendon Press 1963) with the caption 'Young girls'. [Chris Morton 17/1/2005]

PRM Source:

Ronald Carlile Buxton via Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology

Acquired:

Donated 1988

Other Owners:

Jean Buxton Collection

Class:

Ornament , Body Art , Textile

Keyword:

Ornament Neck , Ornament Arm , Textile

Documentation:

See Related Documents File. Buxton field notebooks in Tylor Library.

Other Information:

Ethnographic context - In Some Notes on the Mandari of Equatoria Province, A.E. Sudan, (typescript notebook of c.1951 in Tylor Library, Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Oxford), book I, page 30, Jean Buxton notes that 'Although they are naked, the wearing of beads is very popular. These are of two different types and mean different things. There are large strings of circular waist beads of different colours, which have a special significance and denote different age grades, and which can only be worn by an individual when he is in the appropriate age-grade. The other kind of beads is usually worn around the neck, and is purely ornamental. They can be worn by anyone, although there are usually set fashion trends which dictate which type of beads it is smart to wear to be up-to-date. These latter consist of small strings of beads, often worn the whole way up the throat...' [Chris Morton 26/11/2004]

Recorder:

Christopher Morton 17/1/2005 [Southern Sudan Project]