IDNO

N.19559.ROS

Description

Full length frontal portrait of a Bakonjo man seated on a wooden box with a metal clasp, wearing traditional dress; a piece of cloth tied in the toga-style.

Place

E Africa; Uganda; Luenzori

Cultural Affliation

Bakonjo

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 C31/178/ 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: 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. 137, Plate XXI with the caption "Man of the Bakonjo tribe”. [ED 16/10/2007]

Context: "The Bakonjo were a small tribe inhabiting the eastern slopes of Mount Ruwenzori, or, as the natives of the region frequently call it, Luenzori. The tribe seemed to be native to that region and numbered only a few hundreds. In appearance they were short and sturdy but of a low and degraded type of countenance. They were to be found generally on the upper plateaux of the mountain, where they made small clearings in the scrub, built huts, and grew their crops.
They were a totemic tribe, divided into a number of clans which followed the usual custom of clan exogamy. There is little doubt that each clan had a secondary as well as a primary totem, but during the short visit of the expedition to that region, it was not possible to discover it.” (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. 137). [ED 16/10/2007]

This catalogue record has been updated with the support of the Getty Grant Program Two. [Elisabeth Deane 16/10/2007]