Portrait of a Nuer youth
56 x 54 mm | Print gelatin silver
Condition:
staining right hand side 19/11/86 EE
Date of Print:
Unknown
Previous PRM Number:
EP.N.I.54
Previous Other Number:
83
Accession Number:
1998.355.27.2
Description:
A full length portrait of a young man wearing thiau arm-rings on the right arm, a practice which imitates or complements the practice of training a favourite ox's horn across the muzzle (ma gut), both of which are often done soon after initiation.
This binding is done for some months or even a year or two, and is accompanied by swelling, sores and pain, and renders the arm useless for the period.
During the elaborate telling of compliments to a woman during courtship or at dances, the youth ran a metal ring up and down the arm-rings to produce a sound.
He is also wearing a European comb as a neck ornament.
Evans-Pritchard stresses in his analysis of thiau as a left-horn imitation that the left arm is only ever used, but in this instance the right arm is bound.
Evans-Pritchard carried out fieldwork among the Eastern Jikany at the mouth of the Nyanding and on the Sobat River in 1935.
Photographer:
Edward Evan Evans-Pritchard
Date of Photo:
1935
Region:
[Southern Sudan] Upper Nile Nyanding River (mouth) Mancom
Group:
Nuer Eastern Jikany
PRM Source:
Edward Evan Evans-Pritchard
Acquired:
Donated 1966
Other Owners:
E. E. Evans-Pritchard Collection
Class:
Physical Anthropology , Ornament
Keyword:
Ornament Arm
Documentation:
Original catalogue lists in Manuscript Collections. Additional material in related documents files. [CM 27/9/2005]
Primary Documentation:
Accession Book Entry [p.
98] 1966.27 [1 - 24] G[ift] PROFESSOR E.
E.
EVANS-PRITCHARD; INST.
OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY, 51 BANBURY RD.
OXFORD 1966.27.1-16 S.
SUDAN.
NUER TRIBE.
Sixteen negative albums containing negatives
and
prints of photographs taken by donor during field-work.
All listed in albums.
Added Accession Book Entry - [p.
98 in right hand column, in pencil] Catalogue room.
Manual Catalogues [index taken from album book I, ms ink] - 54. Youth - Eastern Jikany
Note on print reverse ms pencil - "83" & print front border ms ink - "NUER I/54"
Manual Catalogues [index taken from album book I, ms ink] - 54. Youth - Eastern Jikany
Note on print reverse ms pencil - "83" & print front border ms ink - "NUER I/54"
Other Information:
The same youth is also shown tying a neck ornament on a friend.
[Chris Morton 26/5/2004]
Recorder:
Christopher Morton [20/5/2004] [Southern Sudan Project]
