Ingessana ritual dress

103 x 76 mm | Print gelatin silver

There are records relating to alternative images that we do not have scans for in the database:
1998.344.86.1 - Negative film nitrate , (103 x 76 mm)

Date of Print:

Unknown

Previous PRM Number:

EP.D.86

Previous Other Number:

DD 1

Accession Number:

1998.344.86.2

Description:

A calk player in dance dress, consisting of goat skins around the waist and on the head, and a withy for whipping bystanders. This community group led by a hereditary female ritual expert (tau:n) are primarily concerned with the promotion of life forces in the community, hence their ribaldry and disorganisation, and are specifically involved with marriages, ceremonies for sick children and twins. The male players often wore wooden phalli for dances.

Photographer:

Edward Evan Evans-Pritchard

Date of Photo:

1926 November - December

Region:

Blue Nile Tabi Hills ?Soda

Group:

Ingessana (Gaam)

PRM Source:

Edward Evan Evans-Pritchard

Acquired:

Donated 1966

Other Owners:

E. E. Evans-Pritchard Collection

Class:

Religion , Ritual , Dance , Clothing Ritual

Keyword:

Dance Accessory , Headdress

Documentation:

Original catalogue lists in Manuscript Collections. Additional material in related documents files. [CM 27/9/2005]

Primary Documentation:

PRM Accession Records - Accession Book Entry [p. 98] 1966.27 [1 - 24] G[ift] PROFESSOR E. E. EVANS-PRITCHARD; INST. OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY, 51 BANBURY RD. OXFORD - 1966.27.19 - S. SUDAN, DARFUNG. VARIOUS TRIBES. Box of negatives in envelopes, [1 - 242] & 1966.27.20 - Box of prints of these negatives [refers to object 1966.27.19] [1 - 242], in envelopes.

Manual Catalogues [typewritten, entitled "Ingassana"] - 86. The ceremonial dancer. D.D. 1

Note on print reverse ms pencil - "tsalk in ceremonial dress (unfortunately decapitated) DD1"

Other Information:

In A Preliminary Account of the Ingassana Tribe in Fung Province, Sudan Notes and Records X, 1927, page 74, E. E. Evans-Pritchard notes 'Chalk. These are players who function at marriage, the birth of twins and the illness of children. The head of these players possesses a wooden figure of a man or of a woman, or both, and also a wooden phallus with which he plays. The office is generally hereditary, but anyone who learns the dances may play.' The calk institution is also discussed in detail in chapter 8 (pp.65-77) of M.C. Jedrej's Ingessana: The Religious Institutions of a People of the Sudan-Ethiopia Borderland (E.J.Brill, The Netherlands 1995)[Chris Morton 4/2/2004]

Recorder:

Christopher Morton 5/2/2004 [Southern Sudan Project]