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:
2005.51.262.2 - Print gelatin silver , (56 x 54 mm)
2005.51.262.2 - Print gelatin silver , (56 x 54 mm)
Date of Print:
Unknown
Accession Number:
2005.51.262.1
Description:
A man cuts the forehead of a Dinka girl with a long knife, with another awaiting the operation looking on, and one who has already been cut bending forwards to allow the blood to drip off her forehead.
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
Activity:
Ritual Activity
Event:
Ceremony Initiation
Recorder:
Christopher Morton 21/7/2005 [Southern Sudan Project]
