IDNO

P.39218.ROS

Description

Semi-profile view of adorned Basabei? woman (‘type’) with braided hair and stretched ear lobes with plugs standing in front of a white screen attached to a metal? frame. She is wearing traditional dress and metal? jewelry including anklets, metal bands below each knee, a belt of cowrie shells, numerous metal bracelets and necklaces and bands made from beads? around her head and one around her forehead. The screen is positioned in front of a thatched native-style house. [ED 2/11/2007]

Place

E Africa; Uganda; eastern Uganda; Eastern District; near Mount Elgon; Sabei

Cultural Affliation

?Basabei

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

Print Black & White

Primary Documentation

Other Information

This print was found in an envelope marked C130/89/ by the cataloguer. The envelope was kept in box marked C130/ by the cataloguer. Previously stored in Large Wooden Drawer VI in Photo Archive Room.

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 9 Elgon’ (C32/8/).

Context: “After a good deal of climbing we reached the next camp, where I meant to make my headquarters during my stay, and from there work up and down the mountain, visiting both the people and places of interest. This camp was a fairly level plateau in Sabei where the height registered by my aneroid was 8. 550 feet above sea level. In this part of the country I found greater difficulty in getting men who were willing and able to tell me about their customs. I questioned and talked to quite a number before I got hold of the right kind for my purpose. Fortunately, I soon found one man who was able to speak a language I knew and who was willing to be retained as an interpreter. Then, after two or three days’ general talk with the natives, I found three old men who by degrees became communicative and told me a good deal about their customs. By drawing comparisons between their stories and what I knew of other places I roused their interest, and they became quite anxious to prove how much more careful they were to adhere closely in all things to their tribal customs than were, for instance, the Bagesu.
The Basabei, as they call themselves, are an off-shoot of the Nandi and Turkana tribes, who do not follow milk customs entirely, though their ancestors were pastoral people.” (Roscoe, J., 1922. The Soul of Central Africa: An Account of the Mackie Ethnological Expedition. (London: Cassell and Co.), p. 268.). [ED 9/10/2007]

Context: “On the north and north-eastern slopes of Mount Elgon there is to be found a semi-pastoral tribe, divided into two sections, the Basabei and the Bambei. Though not so fine either in feature or physique as the pastoral people of Ankole, they ressembled the Negro-hamitic tribes of the Lake Region in appearance, but differed entirely from them in their mode of life. ... Much of their general behavior, however, seemed to connect them with the pastoral groups of the north-east, the Masai, the Nandi, the Wahumba of the Usagara hills, and the Wakikuyu, rather than with those of the south-west. Both men and women of the Basabei had to undergo initiation ceremonies before they were recognised as full members of the clan; until these rights were performed they might not enter into the council of the adults, nor might they marry.” (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. 51). [ED 9/10/2007]

This catalogue record has been updated with the support of the Getty Grant Program Two. [Elisabeth Deane 2/11/2007]