Dinka girls gaining scars
59 x 55 mm | Negative film nitrate
There are records relating to alternative images that we do not have scans for in the database:
2005.51.68.2 - Print gelatin silver , (56 x 54 mm)
2005.51.68.2 - Print gelatin silver , (56 x 54 mm)
Date of Print:
Unknown
Accession Number:
2005.51.68.1
Description:
A man cuts the forehead of a Dinka girl with a long knife, with two others awaiting the operation looking on.
Their heads have been prepared by being shaved and smeared with ash in two sections to guide the V-shaped cuts.
Lienhardt (whose Dinka ox-name was Thienydeng) describes having been taken to witness this event by a master of the fishing-spear, who after seeing the blood produced retired to a distance, claiming that the sight of blood weakened the Flesh divinity within him.
Photographer:
Godfrey Lienhardt
Date of Photo:
1947 - 1951
Region:
[Southern Sudan] Warab
Group:
Dinka
Notes:
In
Divinity and Experience: the Religion of the Dinka
(OUP 1961) p.145, Lienhardt notes that 'A master of the fishing-spear who took me to see the head-scarification of some girls - a very bloody operation - suddenly said that he was feeling faint, and must go and sit elsewhere: 'It is Flesh in my body, it hates to see blood.' [CM 18/7/2005]
PRM Source:
Estate of Ronald Godfrey Lienhardt, via Ahmed al-Shahi (literary executor)
Acquired:
Donated 2005
Other Owners:
Godfrey Lienhardt Collection
Class:
Body Art , Ritual
Keyword:
Body Art Head
Event:
Ceremony Initiation
Recorder:
Christopher Morton 21/7/2005 [Southern Sudan Project]
