Description (Physical description)
Catalogue card: 'Conical helmet made of closely woven grasswork and lined with hide, covered with string whitened with wood ash. Worn by warriors.'

Event Date
Author: maa

Description (Physical description)
Helmet. Comprised of woven grasswork with a wooden stem projecting from the top; interior of helmet is covered in hide. Hide is brittle and tearing away. Worn by warriors.
Event Date 24/1/2022
Author: Jazmin Hundal

Context (Amendments / updates)
Cultural group field has been updated to reflect that while 'Dinka' is a widely used ethnonym, the people themselves use the name 'Jieng'.

Event Date 23/3/2022
Author: Zoe Cormack

Context (Field collection)
Stevenson Lyle Cummins (Captain) was a physician in the Royal Army Medical Corps. He served in Egypt and Sudan between 1898 and 1904. In 1902, he travelled to Bahr el Ghazal Province and took part in a punitive expedition against the Agaar Dinka and subsequently spent several months in Wau doing administrative work. It is during this period that he assembled a collection of objects that were donated to MAA in 1903.

He accompanied the ‘Shambe Field Force’ as ‘Senior Medical Officer’. The report of the expedition in the Sudan Intelligence Report (May 1902, appendix c) states: ‘In consequence of the murder of Bimbashi Scott-Barbour by Agar Dinkas orders were issued on 9th February to organise a punitive force’. The force was led by El Kameiken Stack Bey. It left Khartoum on 16/02/1902, arrived in Shambe on 05/03/1902, reached the River Naam on 18/03/1902. On 20/03/1904 the force split and one part returned to Shambe. Cummins led another part west, to the Lau River and Wau. (Sudan Intelligence Report, May 1902, appendix C). The expedition passed through places named as ‘Finear’, ‘Atwat’ [?sic Atwot] and Rumbec [sic Rumbek] (Cummins memoir p.99). After Cummins reached Wau, the British Governor of the Province died and Cummins became acting Governor for ‘about 2 months’ until the successor arrived. (Cummins memoir p.102)

His memoir, in the Liddell Hart Military Archives at Kings College London (KCLMA Cummins) contains some details related to this trip, but it does not specify how or where he obtained particular objects. Cummins had the opportunity to assemble these objects in Wau. He may have obtained some during the punitive expedition. This object is attributed to Jieng [Dinka] people, so it should be considered possible that it was obtained during the punitive expedition.
Event Date 29/3/2022
Author: Zoe Cormack

Context (Related Documents)
A drawing by Cummins in the Royal Anthropological Institute (RAI 600_000685) depicts a man wearing a very similar head dress. The inscription on this drawing states 'No. 1. Old Dinka chief of the Gok sub-tribe, wearing grass woven helmet with ostrich plume, giraffe tail neck ornament, ivory armlets and earing with charms attached. Waw, Bahr-el-Ghazal, 1902'
Event Date 29/3/2022
Author: Zoe Cormack

Context (Related Documents)
Stevenson Lyle Cummins' memoir, which includes an account of his period in Bahr-el-Ghazal (South Sudan) in 1902 is stored at the Kings College London Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives (KLCMA Cummins).

Stevenson Lyle Cummins' drawings from Bahr-el-Ghazal (South Sudan) are stored in the archives of the Royal Anthropological Institute, London (Accession numbers 600_000683-600_000695).

Stevenson Lyle Cummins' medical report on the 'Shambe Field Force' is reproduced in the Sudan Intelligence Report, 1902, May in Appendix C.

Cummins, S. L (1904) 'Sub-tribes of the Bahr-el-Ghazal Dinkas' in Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland 34:149-166.
Event Date 31/3/2022
Author: Zoe Cormack