IDNO

N.102195.MF

Description

A group of Tallensi men seated on the ground (one man is wearing a wide-brimmed straw? hat). Standing in the centre of the group is a man wearing a loin cloth; he is only visible from the back and it is not clear what he is doing.

Physical Condition: Light leak affecting right half of the negative. [JD 24/08/2017]

Place

W Africa; Ghana; Upper East Region [Gold Coast; Northern Territories]

Cultural Affliation

Tallensi

Named Person

Photographer

?Fortes, Meyer

Collector / Expedition

Fortes, Meyer

Date

?May - ?June 1934

Collection Name

Fortes Collection

Source

Drucker-Brown, Susan

Format

Glass Negative Halfplate

Primary Documentation

Other Information

N.102188.MF - N.102198.MF were kept in the box now numbered C552/.

Context: The fishing practices among the Tallensi are described by Fortes. He notes, “Among the Tallensi, a tribe of the Northern Territories of the Gold Coast, the communal fishing expeditions which take place every year are events of this kind. They extend over a period of about a month, between the close of the dry season and the commencement of the heavy rains. ... Fishing therefore is not an activity of an economic off-season. Its calendrical incidence depends primarily on the technique employed, which is suitable only for shallow pool; and the pools are shallowest at the end of the dry season. It is, also, only indirectly correlated with with the dimunition in food supplies which becomes general during the “dry rains,” since fish, like meat is valued as a delicacy and never as a substitute for the staple cereal foods. In any case, the catch is usually too small to influence the economy of food supplies materially. Nevertheless, the luxury value of fish furnishes one of the main inducements to join the fishing expeditions. But the greatest attraction of these fishing expeditions to young and old, men and women, is the excitement and thrill they provide, the immediate pleasure of participation in communal enterprise with the possibility, however remote, of some gain” (Fortes, 1937, p.132).

Bibliographical Reference: Fortes, M. and Fortes, S., 1936, ‘Food in the Domestic Economy of the Tallensi,’ Africa: Journal of the International African Institute, Vol. 9, No. 2, Problems of African Native Diet, pp, 237-276.

Fortes, M. 1937. “Communal Fishing and Fishing Magic in the Northern Territories of the Gold Coast,” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Vo. 67, pp.131-142.

This catalogue record has been updated with the support of the Getty Grant Program Two. [Elisabeth Deane 19/3/2008] [Alicia Fentiman, 30/4/2008]