IDNO

N.19613.ROS

Description

Six Banyoro princesses dressed in bark cloth? seated on a grass? mat in the Royal enclosure?. The princess in the centre holds an ‘ennanga zither’? The background consists of a landscape and a grass? mat held up behind the princesses.

Physical Condition: Film is a yellow/brown colour.

Place

E Africa; Uganda; western Uganda; Western District; Bunyoro

Cultural Affliation

Banyoro (Bakitara)

Named Person

Andereya Bisereko Duhaga II (b. 1882 - d. 1924)

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 C31/220/ 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.

Photograph taken on Rev. John Roscoe’s Mackie Ethnological Expedition to Central Africa, June 1919 to November 1920. See Roscoe.J. 1921.

Glass negative for this print likely to have been originally housed in ‘Box 5 Bunyoro’ (C32/4/).

Context: "After the evening milking the princesses, half-sisters of the king, might come and visit him privately. Should one of them be in the throne room before the milking, she, like the queen, retired to the dairy and then went outside, returning after the king had drunk his meal. The king talked with any of his half sisters in the throne room and sometimes he would give one an estate or slaves, which always meant he desired her to become one of his wives. Princesses whom he took to wife in this way did not necessarily come to live in the royal enclosure but were placed under special guards to prevent any of the princes from making love to them.” (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. 153). [ED 6/11/2007]

Musical Instrument: "Ennanga - Nanga - wooden zither - string instrument.
This instrument was brought to Uganda by the Hamites and is common among the Bakiga and Acholi tribes.
African zithers have a boat-shaped sound box with a fairly long wooden neck, which enters the resonator. Ancient painting depict these instruments, often in the hands of women.
The ennanga is strictly a solo instrument and has eight strings, which run above a wooden trough. A zither is an instrument in which the strings run parallel to the resonator, which extends the entire length of the strings.” [Source: www.face-music.ch/instrum/ uganda_instrumen.html] [ED 6/11/2007]

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