IDNO

P.46074.SKT

Description

An open-air pre-circumcision procession at the mouth of the Pattani River. Six adolescent boys, wearing richly decorated gold breastplates, jackets and headgear over their shaven heads are borne on the shoulders of men (their "elephants") and sheltered by umbrellas.
In front of the youths are two men carrying probably a betel-leaf stand on their shoulders, sheltered by a parasol.
Walking alongside the men at the front of the procession are several women wearing check sarongs and carrying "long spirally decorated tapers" (Skeat 1901, p. 180) or "sham" krisses. [LC 23/4/2007]

Place

SE Asia; Malaysia; East Coast; Pattani; Pattani River [Malaya; Patani]

Cultural Affliation

Malay

Named Person

Photographer

?Skeat, Walter William

Collector / Expedition

Skeat, Walter William [from Cambridge Expedition to the North-eastern Malay States and Upper Perak, 1899 - 1900]

Date

1899

Collection Name

Skeat Collection

Source

Skeat, Walter William

Format

Print Black & White

Primary Documentation

Other Information

Bibliographical Reference: This is probably the circumcision ceremony recounted in Skeat, W.W., 1901. Notes on the Ethnography of the Malay Peninsula. Man No. 142, pp. 179-180, and Skeat, W.W. 1953. Reminiscences of the Cambridge University Expedition to the North-Eastern Malay States, 1899-1900. Journal of the Malayan Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society Vol. 26, Part 4, pp.79-82.

This print was kept in a box now numbered C153/ by the cataloguer. This box was formerly numbered 160.

P.46000.SKT-P.46074.SKT were found in the envelope now numbered C153/1/.
Taken during the Cambridge-sponsored expedition to the (north east) Malay peninsula in 1899.

This catalogue record has been updated with the support of the Getty Grant Program Two. [Liana Chua 23/4/2007]