IDNO

N.19586.ROS

Description

Half-length profile view of a Bahera man from the Bunyoro region wearing a kanzu (white tunic)? with a white European-style jacket? and a dark-coloured hat, seated on a wooden box. The background consists of a white wall or screen.

Place

E Africa; Uganda; Bunyoro

Cultural Affliation

Bahera

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 C31/195/ 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., 1923. The Bakitara (or Banyoro): The First Part of the Report of The Mackie Ethnological Expedition to Central Africa. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), p. 320, Plate XL with the caption: "Type of agricultural artisan”. [ED 17/10/2007]

Context: "Bunyoro, the country next Buganda, extending to Lake Albert. Banyoro-sing. Munyoro-the people of Bunyoro. N.B. Munyoro means freed man and was applied in scorn to the Banyoro by the Baganda. Lunyoro, the language of Bunyoro.” (Roscoe, J., 1922. The Soul of Central Africa: An Account of the Mackie Ethnological Expedition. (London: Cassell and Co.), p. xvi).

Context: "The people of Kitara belong to two distinct races, but by intermarriage an intermediate group was formed and the lines of demarcation between the three groups have become more and more vague and rapidly disappearing. This was a result of a policy, adopted, it is said, by a king who ruled not many generations ago, by which certain restrictions on intermarriage were removed, and some of the more progressive men of the agricultural class or serfs were raised to the rank of free-men and permitted to marry women of the pastoral clans.
The two classes of which the nation was originally composed were (a) the Bahuma, or pastoral cow-men, who invaded the country and conquered (c) the Bahera, agricultural people and artisans, who were regarded as serfs. The third group, which came into being later, was composed of (b) the Banyoro, or free-men, the wealthy and important members of class (c) who had been raised from serfdom and might marry women from (a), the pastoral people, (c), the serfs, or (b) their own class, so long as they did not marry women of their own totemic clans. The poorer members of the pastoral class, the herdsmen, allowed their daughters to marry these free-men, though they avoided intermarriage with members of class (c), the serfs. Thus members of pastoral clans (a) might marry women of their own class, observing the rules of clan exogamy, or women from class (b), the free-men. Men of class (c), the serfs, had to marry women from their own class, but again of different clans, unless they had been raised to class (b), the free-men, by the king, when they might marry from classes (a), (b), or (c), as they wished.
The pastoral people forming class (a) were not Negroes but of Negro-Hamitic stock, while class (c) was Negro, and the result of the introduction of Negro blood into (a) is evident, not only in its physical effect, but in the modifications introduced into their customs, which previously arose from and were solely concerned with the cows, while their food consisted of milk. The physical result has been to introduce a shorter and coarser type, possibly not less robust, but certainly less refined and, I imagine, less intelligent.” (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), p. 13). [ED 16/10/2007]

This catalogue record has been updated with the support of the Getty Grant Program Two. [Elisabeth Deane 6/2/2008]