IDNO

N.19133.ROS

Description

A distant view of a group of Banyoro? potters? or carpenters? at work in amongst a number of trees, sitting and standing in small groups.

Place

E Africa; Uganda; Bunyoro

Cultural Affliation

Banyoro? (Bakitara)

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 C30/82/ by the cataloguer. The envelope was kept in box marked C30/ by the cataloguer.
Previously stored on Shelf 4, in group of 4 wooden boxes numbered 180.

Publication: Image published in Roscoe, J., 1922. The Soul of Central Africa: An Account of the Mackie Ethnological Expedition. (London: Cassell and Co.), p. 156, with the caption: Bunyoro: Potters at work”. [ED 2/10/2007]

Context: Please see Roscoe, J., 1923. The Bakitara (or Banyoro): The First Part of the Report of The Mackie Ethnological Expedition to Central Africa. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)., pp. 225 - 228 for a detailed description. [ED 5/10/2007]

Context: "Potters in Bunyoro are far more skilled than most of their craft in this part of Africa. The royal pots are made of clay, and are thinly worked as many vessels in England. They are always made by the spiral method; that is, the clay is worked into long thin rolls which the potter winds round and round , building up the walls of the pot, and smoothing them as they are built by rubbing them with small trowels of gourd. The pots are then very carefully dried, for exposure to the sun or rapid drying by any means will crack them. When the pot is dried and hard it is rubbed with a polished stone until perfectly smooth, and then polished. This is done with graphite, which is obtained by the potter by a mine in the hill. I saw this mine, and found it went quite twenty five feet into the hill. The potter takes the graphite to his home, where he grinds some of it to powder, and mixes it with water and the juice of a herb with glutinous properties. The sides of the pot are painted with this mixture and left to dry. The pot, before being baked, is again rubbed with the smooth stone before it attains a highly polished appearance. This polish gives it a silvery-grey tint, making it look as though it had been painted with silver paint. These pots are mainly for royal use, though the upper classes also seek to have them for milk-pots. Elegant shapes such as we find in Ankole are not made here; the pots are either all round or shaped like two gourds, one on the top of the other , and lack the long, slender neck which adds so much to the beauty of the Ankole ware. The shape of the latter is, however, its only point of superiority, for it is inferior to the Bunyoro pot both in material and lasting properties , the clay being thicker and neither so well mixed or so well baked.
The wooden vessels used for milk and also for vegetable dishes are more numerous than in any other part of Africa, and are made with a much neater finish. The chiefs use large wooden vessels for their meat and soups, and the smoothing and final polishing of the wood is done with the rough surface of a certain leaf. No saws or planes are known, and tools like chisels and adzes are the only instruments used. It requires years of training, in addition to natural aptitude, before these tools can be manipulated with the skill to which some of the carpenters have attained. These artisans are all men from the lower class who practise their trade from boyhood, and, as a rule, a son follows in his father’s footsteps.” (Roscoe, J., 1922. The Soul of Central Africa: An Account of the Mackie Ethnological Expedition. (London: Cassell and Co.), p. 168.) [ED 2/10/2007]

This catalogue record has been updated with the support of the Getty Grant Program Two. [Elisabeth Deane 2/10/2007]