IDNO

N.19398.ROS

Description

Distant view of a group of Basabei? people in a wedding dance in Sabei?. According to Roscoe, "men and women usually arranged their marriages at the dances after the initiation ceremonies” (Roscoe, 1924, p. 80). The group of Basabei? people wear traditional dress and stand in front of four "bee-hive” (Roscoe, 1924, pp. 64-65) huts.

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 C31/29/ 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 images 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. 79, Plate XIV, with the captions: "Sabei Marriage ceremony: Marriage Assembly” and "Marriage dance”. Similar image also 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: Marriage Dance”. [ED 23/10/2007]

Context: "MARRIAGE: This tribe differed considerably from their neighbours in their method of betrothal, for the couple concerned made their own engagement and asked the consent of the girl’s mother. It was the mother’s duty to consult her husband as to the amount of the marriage fee, and when it was paid, she had the disposal of it.
Men and women usually arranged marriages at the dances after the initiation ceremonies. If during a dance a man saw a girl he desired, he would offer her a cow, which she might accept or refuse. If she accepted she would go with the man to his house for the night, and in the morning he sent a hoe to her mother who, if she approved of the marriage, sent a messenger to inform him of the amount she required for the marriage fee. If the mother refused to accept the hoe, the man had to return to his bride to her home and seek another.
Sometimes, however, a young couple would simply agree at the dance to marry, and later the youth arranged for a number of his friends to go and seize the girl and bring her to him. They took her to the house of a clan relative of the bridegroom, and he joined her there. The boy’s father then went to the girl’s parents, told them where their daughter was, and arranged the amount of the marriage fee, first giving a goat, a hoe, and tobacco to the mother. If she refused to accept these, the girl had to return home; but if all went well, the boy paid the marriage fee, probably a cow or five goats, in addition to the present already given to the mother.
The bride’s parents might not go to the wedding feast which was made by the bridegroom’s parents, but three pots of beer were sent for them to drink with their relatives and friends at their own home. Members of both clans gathered at the bridegroom’s home, where feasting went on for two days. Each guest usually brought a fowl, and there might be as many as forty fowls for the feast. The girl’s parents made two pots of beer and sent it to the man’s parents, who might keep it for a few days or drink it at once. After it had been drunk, the bride came out of her seclusion, had her head shaved and took up her new duties. During the time of the bride’s seclusion neither she nor her husband might see her parents-in-law, but when the beer had been drunk and she came out, this taboo ended.
For a month from the time of her coming to her husband, the wife might eat no meat. When this time was over, the husband killed a bull and sent a leg with the entrails, liver and heart, to his wife’s mother as a token of her daughter’s happiness, and she was thus satisfied that her daughter was satisfactorily married. The bride’s father then killed a bull and sent the back with the loin and kidneys to his daughter. From this time whenever either family killed an animal a portion had to be sent to the other; and when either brewed beer one or more pots were set to the other household.
There was no restriction as to the number of wives a man might marry except his ability to pay the marriage-fee, and a wealthy man might have as many as ten wives. Each wife had her own house which her husband built for her either on his own or his father’s land.
A wife during menstruation might not touch her husband’s weapons or traps for game, but she might cook for him.
Fornication was at one time most uncommon, and if it existed at all was kept so secret that it was never heard of. Later, with tribal intercommunication, it became more common. Should a man have sexual relations with a girl who was still in her mother’s charge, and the girl conceived, the parents forced her to tell the name of her seducer. Her father and some relatives then went and plundered the man’s house and he had to come and plead his cause before them. They said, "You have dishonored our daughter and must marry her,” and the man was given no choice, but had to agree. He had to pay two cows for the marriage-price and a third for the wrong he had done, and ten pots of 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.), pp. 80 - 82). [ED 22/10/2007]

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