IDNO

P.9293.ACH1

Description

On Catalogue Card: “Group of Nonuya men and women”.

On Catalogue Card for duplicate image LS.26735.WHI: "N.W. Amazon. 175.50.
Nonuya - Group of men & women."

A group portrait of Nonuya men, women, and children standing in a line outdoors. The men, standing to the left and right, are wearing moh-hen (loin-cloths). The women, standing towards the centre, are wearing leg and ankle ligatures and some are wearing necklaces. Five children are standing in the centre.
The image has been heavily overdrawn to provide details to the group. [TC 01/06/1999, updated JD 02/10/2019]

Place

S America; Colombia; North West Amazon

Cultural Affliation

South American Indian; Witotoan; Nonuya [Achote; Achiote; Nanuya]

Named Person

Photographer

Whiffen, Thomas William

Collector / Expedition

Date

1908 - 1909

Collection Name

Mounted Haddon CollectionWhiffen Collection

Source

Format

Print Black & White

Primary Documentation

Other Information

Publication: Reproduced in Whiffen, T. W., 1915 as Pl. XLV with the caption “Group of Nonuya, men and women”.

Related Image: A duplicate print is at the RAI, reference 36140, and annotated by Whiffen in pencil on the reverse as "Nunya (enlargement)."
Photocopies of Whiffen prints at the RAI are now in the UCMAA archive, reference W19/1/3. See Whiffen Collection record for further details. [TC 09/06/1999, updated, JD 02/10/2019]

Context: Whiffen explains that "the men wear little or nothing but what the Witoto call a moh-hen, that is, a strip of beaten bark-cloth carried from front to rear between the legs and tucked in at either end over a string or strap of bark-cloth bound about the waist" (Whiffen, T. W., 1915: 72). He informs us that "the Amazonian boy is first provided with a breech-cloth when he is five years old. His earliest lesson is in its manufacture, for every Indian fashions his own clothing" (ibid: 73). He then describes how the loin-cloth is manufactured and notes that it is never removed "in the sight of man or woman" and is buried with a man when he dies (ibid: 74). Steward notes that boys and men "wear a bark-cloth breech-clout after the age of five or six years (1963: 753). [TC 01/06/1999]