1940.12.620.1

Collection type

Object

Description

Spear with ebony point set into a broken wooden shaft, with the junction covered by a double hide sheath [RTS 26/7/2005]

Long description

Spear consisting of a narrow, straight point made from polished dark brown ebony with an oval section (Pantone Black 4C). This joins at its base with a long narrow wooden shaft, slightly irregular in form and more circular in section, tapering in to a flat base and stained a orangey brown colour (Pantone 730C). The junction between these two parts is covered with a brown cylindrical sheath, cut from a section of animal tail with the hair removed (Pantone 7505C). This had been stretched over the body whilst wet and then shrunken in place, obscuring the exact manner by which the spearhead meets the shaft. There are faint lentoid-shaped impressions on the surface, where it has been tooled in rows, now barely visible. The spear is complete, but has been deliberately cut into two parts, mid-way along the shaft, with the two joining parts sheared off at an oblique angle so that they overlap when joined. This was probably done by the collector to facilitate transportation. The spear has a weight of 741.2 grams, and when the two parts are fitted together, a total length of 2210 mm. The visible part of the spearhead is 415 mm long, with a maximum diameter of 31.5 by 29 mm, while the sheath covers a length of 172 mm. The shaft has an upper diameter of 22.5 by 21 mm, and a diameter of 12.8 mm at its base. 1940.12.620.1 has an individual length, as cut, of 1125 mm, while the 1940.12.620.2 has a length of 1152 mm [RTS 26/7/2005].

Geographical reference

South Sudan

Africa > Eastern Africa > South Sudan

Cultural groups

Nuer

Dinka

Person

Field collector Charles Gabriel Seligman

Field collector Brenda Zara Seligman

PRM source Charles Gabriel Seligman

PRM source Brenda Zara Seligman

Date / Period

Date made: Before 1940

Date collected

By 1940

Acquisition information

Donated: 1940

Materials and processes

Material Wood Plant, Material Ebony Wood Plant, Material Animal Hide Skin, Process Carved, Process Polished, Process Stained, Process Covered, Process Decorated, Process Impressed, Process Tooled

Dimensions

Length: max 415 mm spearhead, visible, Length: max 2120 mm total, Length: max 1125 mm, Diameter: max 32 mm, Weight 741.2 g

Object numbers

Accession number: 1940.12.620.1

Research and responses

For an essay on the variety and cultural significance of spears in South Sudan, particularly among the Dinka and Nuer, see ‘“Spears” that are not Spears’, by Jok Madut Jok, in Pieces of a Nation: South Sudanese Heritage and Museum Collections, edited by Zoe Cormack and Cherry Leonardi (Leiden: Sidestone Press, 2021), pp. 110–114.

Evans-Pritchard, writing in 1940, said of the Nuer: 'Till recently they possessed very few iron spears, cherished as heirlooms, but used instead the straightened horns of antelope and buck, ebony wood, and the rib-bones of giraffe, all of which are still used to-day, though almost entirely in dances ...’ (E.E. Evans-Pritchard, 1940, The Nuer, p. 86). Howell gives the Nuer term for these spears as giit, while the iron headed spears were known as mur. He states that the giit were regarded 'with considerable amusement' by younger Nuer, but that a few were retained as they were 'considered particularly effective in war, and the Nuer hope they may one day be able to use them ... although it required greater skill and strength to inflict a wound with a giit, the wounds once inflicted are more severe'. He goes on to describe the method of hafting them: 'The giit ... is fixed at the joint with an unsewn leather collar made from the tail skin of an ox. This is soaked and stretched round the haft, where it shrinks as it dries' (P.P. Howell, 1947, "On the Value of Iron Among the Nuer", Man 47, p. 132-3). [RTS 3/3/2004].

Search terms: Weapon, Spear, Spear-head