photograph scan of PRM number 1998.349.61.1

1998.349.61.1 (Film negative)

Key Information

Photographer

Edward Evan Evans-Pritchard

Description

Women dancing at a funeral ceremony called tero buru (driving death away). This is usually a ceremony after burial where people shout and curse death, rigorously running and dancing to drive away bad spirits from the home of a deceased person. Although women are dancing here and one would ordinarily say that this may be a woman's funeral, in related images to this one a large number of cattle can seen being driven beyond the women by men with shields, and it would seem therefore that this is the tero buru of a respectable elder. The homestead can be seen beyond with grass thatch houses. The big thatch house is probably that of the deceased, and these dancers will run into it to continue performing inside. They have been dancing outside the homestead but are now approaching the home with a large crowd (mainly women) waiting to welcome them with a lot of dancing. The dancers are all women clad in headdresses and woven dancing tails (chieno) made of vegetable fibre. Their bodies are meticulously decorated with smears of soil or ochre of varying colours. [Gilbert Oteyo 9/9/2004]

Cultural Group

Luo

Region

Nyanza

Pitt Rivers Source

Edward Evan Evans-Pritchard

Date of Photograph

1936

Accession number

1998.349.61.1

Further Information

Photographic Process

Negative film nitrate

Date Acquired

Donated 1988

Activity

Dancing, Burial

For citation use:
Pitt Rivers Museum Luo Visual History "1998.349.61.1" 6 Jun. 2008. Pitt Rivers Museum. Accessed 19 Nov. 2015 <http://photos.prm.ox.ac.uk/luo/photo/1998.349.61.1/>.