IDNO

N.19721.ROS

Description

Seven Banyoro princesses wearing bark cloth? and simple necklaces, standing on a grass? mat in a line facing forward. Placed in the centre, in front of three of the princesses, there is a rectangular string instrument, perhaps an ‘ennanga harp’?
Another grass mat appears to be held up in the background.

Physical Condition: The corner of the negative is broken. Piece missing. February 1999.

Place

E Africa; Uganda; western Uganda; Western District; 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

Glass Negative Halfplate

Primary Documentation

Other Information

This negative was kept in glass negative box marked C32/4/ by the cataloguer. The glass negative box was kept in box marked C32/ by the cataloguer.
Previously stored on Shelf 4, in group of 4 wooden boxes numbered 180.

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: "The Bahima are not a musical people, they have few songs, though the young men frequently congregate in the evenings round the fires with their beer pots, and sing; at such times the music is vocal, no instruments accompany them. For public dances drums are beaten; these drums however are not original, they have been introduced into the country from neighbouring tribes. The only instrument which can be called peculiar to the tribe is a harp used by women: this instrument is played in private, and is seldom seen out of the house; the women use it to accompany the love songs which they sing to their husbands.” (Roscoe, J., 1907. ‘The Bahima: a Cow Tribe of Enkole,’ The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. 37. pp. 93 - 118.). [ED 7/11/2007]

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 7/2/2008]