IDNO

N.18890.ROS

Description

A medicine man from the Ankole region squats on the ground in an open landscape. He appears to wear a long-sleeved long robe and he holds a stick-like instrument over one shoulder. To the right, there is a large mat with two piles of herbs?.

Place

E Africa; Uganda; Ankole

Cultural Affliation

Bahima

Named Person

Photographer

?Roscoe, John R.

Collector / Expedition

Roscoe, John R. [Mackie Ethnological Expedition, Uganda, 1919 - 1920]

Date

1919 - 1920

Collection Name

Roscoe Collection

Source

Format

Film Negative Black & White

Primary Documentation

Other Information

This negative was kept in an envelope marked C29/48/ by the cataloguer. The envelope was kept in box marked C29/ by the cataloguer.
Previously stored on Shelf 4, in group of 4 wooden boxes numbered 180.

Publication: Similar images published in Roscoe, J., 1922. The Soul of Central Africa: An Account of the Mackie Ethnological Expedition. (London: Cassell and Co.) pp. Frontispiece, 86, 88, with the captions: "Ankole: medicine men ready for work,” "Ankole, the chief medicine man,” and "Ankole: medicine-men exorcising a ghost”. [ED 12/9/2007]

Context: "The people of this region enjoy good health and are quite free from the serious illnesses as other African tribes. They have many strange ideas as to the cause of illness, so that, when they have something wrong with them, they are subjected to a great amount of doctoring. The medicine man is called in not only to cure the patient, but also to decide whether the sickness is caused my magic, and if so, to discover who has been at work and why. As a cure he may order the patient to drink an infusion of herbs; or he may advise blistering, which is done by applying a hot iron to the skin over the painful place; at times he orders the application of a plaster of herbs ... Should he pronounce the illness to be the work of a ghost, he has to discover whether it is a ghost belonging to the clan or hostile ghost from another clan that is at work. A ghost belonging to the family may give trouble and cause epilepsy because the family as a whole has transgressed in some way, or because some member of it has committed an immoral act which the ghost resents” (Roscoe 1922, pp. 84 - 85). [ED 12/9/2007]

This catalogue record has been updated with the support of the Getty Grant Program Two. [Elisabeth Deane 11/1/2008]