Mandari girls wearing bead ornaments
56 x 56 mm | Negative film nitrate
Date of Print:
Unknown
Previous PRM Number:
JB.2.5
Accession Number:
1998.97.20
Description:
A portrait of three Mandari girls wearing strings of beads around their necks and waists above the waist cloth.
Girls wore a number of different ornaments for decorative purposes, often given to them by a favourite youth who was courting them.
There was reciprocity in matters of adornment, with girls likewise gifting youths with items for display.
A girl might wear the beads of a favourite youth around the waist, indicating the age set and status of her admirer, although girls had no age sets of their own.
Although it is unclear in this image, they have a number of V-shaped decorative scars on the forehead, a practice both sexes have adopted from the Dinka, although without the connotations or ritual of initiation which accompany such markings among that group.
They also display lines of dotted decorative scarification on their abdomen, and the girl to the left is holding a pipe in her mouth.
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 , Toilet , Body Art , Narcotic
Keyword:
Ornament Neck , Ornament Body , Body Art Head , Pipe
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, pages 32,33,35, Jean Buxton notes that 'The small cloths worn round the waist are often decorated withs beads, and several strings are often wound round the waist above the cloth.
These treasures are usually presents from male admirers, and although there are no beads for girls denoting age sets, it is usual to see a girl wearing round her waist the beads of the age set of her favourite young man, who has presented them to her...As with the youths, girls wear a large number of necklaces, bracelets, arm bands and ear rings.
There is a good deal of reciprocity between the sexes in matters of decorations; a girl will give small tokens to a lover or favourite.
In the same way a beautiful girl will always be well supplied with trinkets...The old Mandari marking was a triple row of small dots above the eyes and across the forehead, which was sometimes continued in a curve round the eye sockets and on the cheek bones...but which has been replaced among the younger Mandari by the long radiating cuts of the Dinka.
These marks are common to men and women, and, unlike those done in the Dinka tribes, have nothing to do with initiation, nor have they any ritual or social significance apart from decoration.' [Chris Morton 2/11/2004]
Recorder:
Christopher Morton 2/11/2004 [Southern Sudan Project]
