IDNO

N.18915.ROS

Description

Two ‘typical’ Ankole huts of domed grass thatch situated in an open landscape with plantain? trees between the huts.

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 C29/74/ 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 image published in Roscoe, J. 1922. The Soul of Central Africa: A General Account of the Mackie Ethnological Expedition. (London: Cassell and Company, Limited) p. 59 with the caption "Ankole: A typical hut”. [ED 12/9/2007]

Context: "The Bahima are not a progressive tribe. Their huts are of the most primitive beehive, consisting of a framework of sticks, with a few stouter branches or saplings, the whole being covered with a rough layer of grass scarcely worthy the name of thatch” [Source: Roscoe, J., 1907. "The Bahima: a cow tribe from Enkole,” The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. 37, pp. 93 - 118.] [ED 13/9/2007]

Context: "The kraals are temporary huts built to screen the herdsmen from night dews and rainstorms. A few thorny bushes fill the spaces between huts, and with them form a circle to keep the cows together during the night and to prevent wild animals from invading the kraal. Wealthier owners and the better class people have more permanent kraals built somewhere near the king ... The better built dwellings are merely conical-shaped huts with their roofs supported by the smallest timbers that can be made to serve the purpose and thatched with grass gathered in the neighbourhood ... Each house has reed walls inside which divide the place into two or three tiny rooms, one being kept for the girls and one for the parents, while the boys lie about where they like in the main room. The entrance to the girl’s room is through the parents’ room, so that they are protected form any intrusion.
Some of the larger kraals of the more powerful chiefs are formed of several huts built at short distances from each other so as to enclose a circular space, in which the cows gather by night, and in which in the centre of which is the fire. The doorways all look towards the centre, and are usually open spaces, a door rarely being found” [Source: Roscoe, J., 1922. The Soul of Central Africa: An Account of the Mackie Ethnological Expedition. (London: Cassell and Co.] [ED 13/9/2007]

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