IDNO

N.19395.ROS

Description

Out of focus ‘granaries’ in Sabei, on Mount Elgon. There are a number of Basabei? people in the foreground.

Place

E Africa; Uganda; Elgon; Mount Elgon; Sabei

Cultural Affliation

?Basabei

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 C31/26/ by the cataloguer. The envelope was kept in box marked C31/ 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: An Account of the Mackie Ethnological Expedition. (London: Cassell and Co.), p. 278 with the caption: "Sabei: Houses with a Granary in the Centre”.
Similar image published in Roscoe, J., 1924. The Bagesu and other tribes of the Uganda Protectorate: The Third Part of the Report of the Mackie Ethnological Expedition to Central Africa. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.), p. 62, Plate XII, with the caption: "Sabei Granaries”. [ED 23/10/2007]

Context: "Agriculture: When new land was being brought under cultivation, the men did the clearing; but they never used the hoe, and the preparation of the ground for sowing was left to the women. When her husband had cut down the trees, scrub and grass, the woman burned them on the ground, which was the only fertilising the soil ever got. When land was worn out and yielded poor crops it was left to lie fallow for two or three years, and the owner either broke up new ground or returned to a field which had been out of use for some time. There was no method known of fertilising such land, nature being left to restore it when it ceased to yield good crops.
They followed a certain rotation of crops, for millet was seldom grown on the same ground for two successive seasons. Other grains or potatoes were planted in the place where millet had been grown in the previous year.
While the millet is ripening, children were set to keep off the birds; and when it was ripe, husband and wife worked together at the harvest, gathering in the grain and bringing it back to the village for threshing. From the outset of harvest until it was all garnered, the women might not wash any part of her body except her hands. When the threshing was finished and the grain was ready to ground, the husband had to eat the first cooked meal of the new crop; then his family might eat and then anyone might partake.
As much grain as they thought to be necessary to keep the family in food until the next harvest season was stored away in granaries adjoining the house, and all that could be spared was set apart for making into beer” (Roscoe, J., 1924. The Bagesu and other tribes of the Uganda Protectorate: The Third Part of the Report of the Mackie Ethnological Expedition to Central Africa. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.), p. 62 - 63.). [ED 23/10/2007]

This catalogue record has been updated with the support of the Getty Grant Program Two. [Elisabeth Deane 4/2/2008]