IDNO

N.19605.ROS

Description

Full-length frontal view of a Basoga man, wearing a kanzu (white tunic) with a piece of dark cloth? tied over it in the toga-style. To the right, a section of a native-style hut with a thatched roof is just visible.

Place

E Africa; Uganda; Busoga

Cultural Affliation

Basoga

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 C31/215/ 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.

Clothing: "The national dress was either bark-cloth or goat-skin, but most of the people preferred skins either of domestic or wild animals because of their durability and freedom from vermin, which increased rapidly in bark-cloth.
Bark-cloths, however, were still largely used, and were taken from the same trees and prepared by the same methods as in Buganda. A description of these methods will be found in my book The Baganda. After the bark-cloth had been beaten and dried, it was dipped in the boiling juice of the root of the musasa tree and then in a pool of black mud in a swamp. When dry this barkcloth was quite black, which was a distinctive feature of the Busoga bark-cloths. Bark-cloth robes were worn by men like a mantle, tied up to a point at the back, while the women wrapped them round their bodies under their arms and wore a loin cloth as well. Bedding was always of bark-cloth.
Women wore necklets, bracelets, and anklets of brass, copper, or iron, which could be used for barter if necessary. They also sometimes cut scarifications, called njalo, on their bodies, but never did so.” (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. 113.). [ED 7/1/2008]

This catalogue record has been updated with the support of the Getty Grant Program Two. [Elisabeth Deane 7/1/2008]