Fishing spear with long multi-barbed socketed iron point [.1] on a wooden haft [.2] [RTS 13/1/2005].

Collection type: Object
Description: Fishing spear with long multi-barbed socketed iron point [.1] on a wooden haft [.2] [RTS 13/1/2005].
Long description: Fishing spear consisting of an iron spearhead on a wooden haft, currently detachable. The spearhead, 1936.10.6.1, has a plain, round sectioned point that is damaged at its tip, widening into a narrow elongated body with rectangular section. This has been worked down the sides to create a series of barbed and roughened surfaces. The top third of this area has been chiselled into a series of jagged, downward pointing barbs along one side of the upper surface, and the opposite edge of the underside. The other edges have been more lightly worked with shallow oblique incisions cut in the opposing direction. The central part of the point is more plain, with these lightly incised cuts continuing down the sides, and the opposite edges left plain, while the last section has a series of more densely spaced cuts made into each edge, roughening the surface. Below this, the body turns into a socketed base that expands towards is lower edge, with an open seam running up one side; the surface is covered with a series of fine tool marks, perhaps from using a file. The spearhead is complete, and a dark, non-reflective gray colour (Pantone 425C). This has been fitted onto a wooden haft with oval section, cut from a branch with numerous knots down its length where side branches have been trimmed off, and a slightly irregular body. The upper end has been shaved to a point, while the base has been cut flat; the surface has been polished. The shaft is complete; a broad groove has been cut around half the circumference near the upper part, and there are some shallow, narrow cuts around the body below whose function is also unclear. It is a yellowish to orange brown colour throughout (Pantone 730C). The spear has a weight of 509.5 grams, and has a total length of 2197 mm. The shaft itself is 1872 mm long, with a maximum diameter of 22.5 mm; the spearhead is 396 mm long, with a point diameter of 5 mm, an upper body width of 10.5 and thickness of 9.8, and a socket width of 22.8 mm [RTS 13/1/2005].
Geographical reference: South Sudan
Africa > Eastern Africa > South Sudan
Cultural groups: Nuer
Person: Field collector Edward Evan Evans-Pritchard; PRM source Edward Evan Evans-Pritchard
Date / Period: Date made: Before 1936
Date collected: 1935 - 1936
Acquisition information: Donated: 1936
Materials and processes: Material Iron Metal, Material Wood Plant, Process Forged (Metal), Process Hammered, Process Socketed, Process Carved, Process Polished
Dimensions: Diameter: max 22 mm, Diameter: max 22.8 mm, Length 396 mm, Length 1872 mm, Length 2197 mm total, Weight 509.5 g
Object numbers: Accession number: 1936.10.6.1 Accession number: 1936.10.6.2
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 did his fieldwork amongst the Nuer in four expeditions, which took place in 1930, 1931, 1935 and 1936. This object was probably collected in 1935 or 1936, when he held a research fellowship from the Leverhulme Trust (see E.E. Evans-Pritchard, 1940, The Nuer).
Evans-Pritchard describes the Nuer use of fish to supplement to their diet, including various methods of catching them (E.E. Evans-Pritchard, 1940, The Nuer, pp 70-72, pls IX-X, and XXIIa-b). Another source from the same period gives the Lak Nuer term for a fishing spear as bith, which is the same term as that used by the Dinka (Nebel 1979, Dinka-English Dictionary, p. 16); these are said to have been of universally high value amongst different Nuer groups, who always made the points out of iron, as other materials were difficult to haft successfully on an object that would frequently get wet (P.P. Howell, 1947, "On the Value of Iron Among the Nuer", Man 47, p. 133). For photographs of the Dinka using this type of spear, see J. Ryle, 1982, Warriors of the White Nile: The Dinka, pp 106-109.
For fishing spears of similar design, see 1936.10.7 (slightly different barbs, Nuer), 1942.8.61 (unattributed), 1961.9.8 (Shilluk) and 1979.20.109 (Dinka Tuich). [RTS 13/1/2005].

Search terms: Fishing, Tool, Weapon, Fishing Accessory, Spear, Spear-head