IDNO

N.18920.ROS

Description

Distant view of a Mission House in Busoga. The house is a large, oblong building with a thatched roof and verandah. A figure dressed in white is just visible by the steps near the doorway. In the foreground there are two rows of stones which curve around the front of the building and a circular piece of twine positioned in front of the building (possibly to indicate that it is a mission house?).

Place

E Africa; Uganda; Busoga District

Cultural Affliation

Basoga

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 C29/79/ 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.

Context: "On my return to Jinja I was rejoined by Mr. Eden at Kampala. We drove back to the Ripon Falls and crossed to Busoga, taking a little over five hours to accomplish a journey which in the old days meant a week’s marching along rough tracks with the baggage on the heads of porters.
Though on my departure from Jinja I realised that I had now no more difficult and arduous journey to make, yet it was with feelings of regret that I parted from Mr. and Mrs. Eden, who hospitality had been so pleasant, and entered the train which was to take me to Kamuli, in the heart of Busoga, where I intended to spend a week with an old friend, the Rev. H. Brewer, in order to inquire into various Busoga matters. At Kamuli there is, in addition to the Church Missionary Society station, a Roman Catholic mission, with English nuns, who kindly allowed me to see over their station and observe their methods of work. The nunnery is connected with Mill Hill, and has among its workers some enthusiastic young women, who assured me that they had made their minds to devote their lives to this work and did not expect ever to return to England. In Basoga girls and women do various types of needlework, and they also undertake as much medical work as they are able to deal with. I saw several branches of the Roman Catholic mission during the expedition, some of them controlled by fathers of the Algerian mission, and others by these workers from Mill Hill, and in each place there was evident the same marked devotion to the cause and the same desire to raise the natives from their state of barbarism. It is, I think, a matter for regret that the Church Missionary Society and the Roman Catholic Missions should thus have their stations in the same place, which separation would enable them to spread the work of evangelization over much wider areas of the country.” (Roscoe, J., 1922. The Soul of Central Africa: An Account of the Mackie Ethnological Expedition. (London: Cassell and Co.), p. 298 - 299.). [ED 13/12/2007]

This catalogue record has been updated with the support of the Getty Grant Program Two. [Elisabeth Deane 13/12/2007]