Munyat al-muṣallī

Portrait of a woman

Item

Collection: pittriversmuseum.richardbutcha

Description: A full face studio portrait of a seated woman wearing numerous pendant ornaments from her braided hair and around her neck.

Kadi of Khartoum

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Collection: pittriversmuseum.richardbutcha

Description: A formal portrait of a member of the Khartoum elite, named as Kadi of Khartoum, holding a rosary.

Burnt Shilluk houses

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Collection: pittriversmuseum.lebennelsonmoro

Description: Burnt huts at Bur village in the Shilluk kingdom. The destruction was carried out by pro-government Nuer militia under Gabriel Tany-Giny in 2005 after the local leader Cam Ocol transferred his allegiance from the Sudanese government to the SPLA under John Garang. This incident demonstrates the difficulty of representing the conflict in Sudan in simple north/south terms, since the reality on the ground has often been far more complex.

Nuer welfare meeting

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Collection: pittriversmuseum.lebennelsonmoro

Description: People meeting to discuss local welfare issues with a local government official (blue shirt in centre) in Zurzur village, Melut County. In particular there were issues sounding the quantities of food delivered by the World Food Program.

Garang anniversary in Malakal

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Collection: pittriversmuseum.lebennelsonmoro

Description: Soldiers of the Sudan Peoples Liberation Army marching at Malakal football stadium during the ceremonies held there in July 2006 to mark the first anniversary of the death of John Garang.

Avokaya man

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Collection: pittriversmuseum.richardbutcha

Description: An upper body profile portrait of an Avokaya man with feather ornamented hair pin and bead strings around the neck. His upper lip is pierced by a thin metal ring ornament.

Mandari women

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Collection: pittriversmuseum.jeanbuxton

Description: A portrait of two Mandari women (probably married women) sitting in the shade of a large tree, wearing textile body cloths and a string of large beads around their necks.

Mandari man

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Collection: pittriversmuseum.jeanbuxton

Description: An upper body portrait of a Mandari man wearing an animal hair fringed headdress.

Nuer fishermen

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Collection: pittriversmuseum.lebennelsonmoro

Description: Local Nuer fishermen at Zurzur village.

Beja Bisharin man

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Collection: pittriversmuseum.richardbutcha

Description: A vignette profile head-and-shoulders portrait of a man.

Beja Bisharin man

Item

Collection: pittriversmuseum.richardbutcha

Description: A vignette profile head-and-shoulders portrait of a man.

Nuer scarification marks

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Collection: pittriversmuseum.edwardevanevanspritchard

Description: A head and shoulders profile portrait of an initiated man with heavy lines of scarification on the forehead. The operation (gar) is a severe one which causes much blood loss, across the forehead from ear to ear. Boys were normally initiated between the ages of 14-16, and a group initiated during a number of successive years belong to an age-set. After initiation a youth is prohibited from milking, able to marry, gains a spear and an ox from which he takes his ox-name, and was able to go on cattle raids against the Dinka.

Portrait of a Mandari man

Item

Collection: pittriversmuseum.jeanbuxton

Description: A three-quarter length portrait of a Mandari man wearing an arabic-style tunic and red, yellow and green beads around the neck. He has a number of radiating decorative scars on the forehead, which both sexes adopted from the Dinka, although without the connotations or ritual of initiation which accompany such markings among that group.

Mandari youth

Item

Collection: pittriversmuseum.jeanbuxton

Description: An upper body full face portrait of a Mandari youth wearing neck ornaments, including a bone or tooth half-moon shaped pendant. He also has several radiating lines of scarification on his forehead with a central vertical line. These marks were made by the Mandari for aesthetic effect only, and were particularly favoured by the Mandari around Tali.

Group of women

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Collection: pittriversmuseum.richardbutcha

Description: A posed group of seven women wearing textile body cloths. It is unclear where this photograph was taken, but these women may well be slave women living in Khartoum or another large settlement. Their description as 'African' women is meant to suggest their non-Arab ethnicity, and hence suggests that Buchta came into contact with them in a mostly Arabised settlement.

Ingessana hide tanning

Item

Collection: pittriversmuseum.edwardevanevanspritchard

Description: A man scraping the meat off a skin suspended by a rope from a pole next to a hut, with a tethered donkey beyond. The skin is first washed in a liquid prepared from the mudus tree, which grows locally. Much of the leather produced was sold to merchants and was traded in Omdurman where it was rated highly.

Zande boy playing monochord instrument

Item

Collection: pittriversmuseum.edwardevanevanspritchard

Description: A boy (identified as Bisa) sitting on the ground playing an improvised single stringed instrument, consisting of a long stick bent over with a string attached, which is fastened to the ground.

Zande man playing kundi instrument

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Collection: pittriversmuseum.edwardevanevanspritchard

Description: A portrait of a seated man (identified as a subject of Badinda, probably a local governor) playing a thumb-piano instrument known as a kundi.

Nile fishermen in Mandari

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Collection: pittriversmuseum.jeanbuxton

Description: A group of men working inside a boat moored at the riverbank. Other images show that these men are part of a group of fishermen on the Nile.

SPLA entry into Juba

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Collection: pittriversmuseum.lebennelsonmoro

Description: A Sudan Peoples Liberation Army tank entering Juba in December 2005.

Jean Buxton at a picnic table

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Collection: pittriversmuseum.godfreylienhardt

Description: A portrait of Oxford anthropologist Jean Buxton sitting at a picnic table set up by herself and her supervisor Godfrey Lienhardt in the shade of a large tree at Gogrial. Lienhardt and Buxton visited each other during fieldwork in 1950 whilst he was working with the Dinka around Gogrial and she with the Mandari around Terakeka and Tali.

Nuer elephant butchery

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Collection: pittriversmuseum.wilfredpatrickthesiger

Description: Nuer porters cutting up an elephant shot by Thesiger with their spearheads. Big game hunting formed a significant element of Thesiger's activities in Western Nuerland, and he later acknowledged that it facilitated his acceptance by the Nuer, and provided nutrition for his porters, who called themselves 'Kwechuor's men' after his ox-name.

Portrait of a Shilluk youth

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Collection: pittriversmuseum.wilfredpatrickthesiger

Description: A profile portrait of a seated Shilluk youth wearing feather hair ornaments, ear and arm ornaments. The characteristic initiation dots along the youths forehead are visible reaching across to the ear.

Fur men with a dead lion

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Collection: pittriversmuseum.wilfredpatrickthesiger

Description: Group portrait of Fur men, standing, several of whom are holding spears, gathered around a dead lion shot by Wilfred Thesiger to spare them from losing further livestock.