IDNO

N.19485.ROS

Description

A Bagesu woman with her three young children, one girl and two boys outside a cave on Mount Elgon. The woman and girl wear dark-coloured cloth tied at their right shoulder in the toga style and the woman also appears to wear earrings. The two young boys are wearing metal? bands around ankles, wrists and their necks. The youngest boy holds an unidentifiable object (a piece of grass?) in one hand.

Place

E Africa; Uganda; Elgon; Mount Elgon

Cultural Affliation

?Bagesu

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 C31/109/ 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., 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. 2, Plate II, with the captions "View of Caves” and "Entrance to Cave under the general caption: "Caves on Mount Elgon”. [ED 21/9/2007]

Context: "Among the Bagesu neither men nor women wear clothing until after the initiation ceremony by which they are admitted into full membership of their clan.” (Roscoe, J., 1922. The Soul of Central Africa: An Account of the Mackie Ethnological Expedition. (London: Cassell and Co.) p. 245)
"When these Bagesu first came to Mount Elgon they had to make their dwellings on the higher peaks of the mountain, and seldom dared venture down to the valleys, for there they were always in danger of attack of some foe, and defeat meant death or slavery. Ten or twenty families join together to form a village, building their homes in a small cluster on a fairly level spot some way up the mountain, where they dig their fields and plant their millet, sweet potatoes and other crops as near as possible to the village.” (Roscoe 1922, p. 246). [ED 21/9/2007]

This catalogue record has been updated with the support of the Getty Grant Program Two. [Elisabeth Deane 18/9/2007]