Mandari youths wearing bead ornaments
115 x 115 mm | Print gelatin silver
Date of Print:
Unknown
Previous PRM Number:
JB.2.1
Accession Number:
1998.97.16.2
Description:
A group of six Mandari youths in a line wearing elaborate neck strings.
Such neck strings were worn by male youths for decorative purposes.
Another type, known as rem, were worn around the waist, which in their configuration show age-grade status.
The absence of such beads shows these boys to be adwek, the stage from ages roughly ten to fourteen before boys enter an age-set.
Age-grades among the western Mandari seem to have been a relatively recent, loosely defined or organized borrowing by youths from their Atuot neighbours, there being no memory of age-grades or even initiation in the past.
This is a significant distinction between the Tali district Mandari and the Riverine 'Mandari' groups who claim to have always had age-grade organization.
The youths hair shows a variety of Mandari styles - shaven temples, ostrich feather decoration and disc-ornamented material caps.
They also carry a variety of clubs.
Photographer:
Jean Carlile Buxton
Date of Photo:
1950 - 1952
Region:
[Southern Sudan] Bahr el Jebel Tali
Group:
Mandari
PRM Source:
Ronald Carlile Buxton via Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology
Acquired:
Donated 1988
Other Owners:
Jean Buxton Collection
Class:
Ornament , Clothing Headgear , Weapon
Keyword:
Ornament Neck , Club
Documentation:
See Related Documents File. Buxton field notebooks in Tylor Library.
Other Information:
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 2/11/2004]
Recorder:
Christopher Morton 2/11/2004 [Southern Sudan Project]
