IDNO

N.19488.ROS

Description

Five sacred spears positioned upright on a piece of leopard skin and leaning against a white screen and frame, in an open landscape with trees in the distant background.

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 C31/112/ 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., 1922. The Soul of Central Africa: An Account of the Mackie Ethnological Expedition. (London: Cassell and Co.), p. 210 with the caption: "Bunyoro: New Moon Ceremonies. The King advancing along the Sacred Pathway, preceded by spear-bearers” and p. 212 with the caption: "New Moon Ceremonies: the sacred spears.” [ED 18/9/2007]

Ceremony: The New Moon Ceremony was a seven-day festival to celebrate the arrival of the New Moon. In Roscoe’s words: "for seven days the bands played, and dancing and rejoicing went on in the Royal enclosure; then everyone adjourned to the enclosure of the King’s mother for a day, and then to the chief medicine man for another day, making nine days in all” (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. 107 - 108). See Roscoe, 1923, pp. 107 - 110 for a full-description of the New Moon Ceremony. [ED 18/9/2007]

Context: "On one of the seven days there was usually a solemn procession to the courtyard of the seventh sacred hut, the courtyard where the King herded the cows. On this occasion the King gave his decision on any important matter, or pronounced judgment on any chief who had offended. The pronouncing of sentence on any member of the Sacred Guild was a most impressive act, surpassing in gravity any of the other ceremonies. Crowds gathered outside the throne room to see the king pass on his way to the place of judgment, and the royal-standard bearers awaited his appearance. The Royal standards were rather curious. Three of them were spears with long leaf shaped blades, and the fourth was an instrument rather like a two-pronged rake, on the prongs of which were hung a bag of seeds and a bundle of tinder for torch-making. These standards were held aloft until the King emerged from the throne-room, when the spear-bearers walked backwards before him to the door of the first hut, where they lined up to allow him to pass. A chief of the Guild preceded the King, also walking backwards” (Roscoe, J., 1922. The Soul of Central Africa: An Account of the Mackie Ethnological Expedition. (London: Cassell and Co.)).
Three men carried the Royal spears, called Mahere, Kaizireijo, and Mutasimbulwa (Roscoe, 1924, p.109). There was also a fourth man, named Olukandula, who carried a kind of ‘two-toothed rake’ (Roscoe 1923: 109). According to Roscoe, these emblems were especially significant to the Banyoro because ‘they were to show that the people were once in bondage in Bukedi on the east of the Nile and had to cultivate the earth’ (Roscoe 1923: 109). [ED 18/9/2007]

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