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Pitt Rivers Museum

1936.16.108

Wooden headrest carved from a single piece of wood, with concavely curved head support, two vertical pillars and an oval base. There are incised lines in the shape of concentric triangles on one side of one of the pillars. [EH [OPS move] 20/3/2017]


1936.16.108

Digital asset copyright: Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford

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Collection type
Object
Description
Wooden headrest carved from a single piece of wood, with concavely curved head support, two vertical pillars and an oval base. There are incised lines in the shape of concentric triangles on one side of one of the pillars. [EH [OPS move] 20/3/2017]
Geographical reference
Afmadow
Cultural groups
Somali
Daarood
Person
Field collector Diana Powell-Cotton
PRM source Diana Powell-Cotton
Date / Period
Date made: Before 1935
Date collected
1934 - 1935
Acquisition information
Donated: 1936
Materials and processes
Material Wood Plant, Process Carved, Process Incised
Dimensions
Height: max 185 mm, Width: max 175 mm
Object numbers
Accession number: 1936.16.108 Other numbers: 365
Research and responses

Related Documents File - Note by donor: 'NAMES OF SOME TRIBES COMPRISING THE WAGOSHA OR MAHAWAI also called OJI on the river GIUBA. [insert] From personal observation - details obtained directly in Swahili [end insert]MAHAWAI Is the name usually used by the people themselves. WAGOSHA is also used by them and by the Arabs and Somali. Gosha was I think the name of the tract of country. Oji is used for them too. I only heard this name given them by the Somali. The liberated slaves of the Somali, these people came for the most part from further South, from tanganika and Kenya, and the Zanzibar slave market. Some were settled on the Giuba by the British Government, many others moved there when liberated. They are now living on both banks of the river Giuba, South of Gelib, but most of the villages are on the right bank, (facing the mouth of the river). N.B. Wightwick Heywood in "Mysterious Lorian Swamp" says many of them came from the Congo and West Africa, I have never heard this corroborated or seen any proof of it. Some Tribes settled in Gosha country on Giuba.: Miau. Magnasa. M'Lima (I never met these). M'Jindu. Makùa. M'Werra. M'Nindi. Magnamesi. Mukomanga. Magnika. (sp?) For some years utnil Scek Murian, (date?) the Miau, like the Mashan Gubi did not practice cliterodectomy, and therefore did not intermarry with the Somali. (see notes Mashan Guli people) Though Miau and Mashan Guli intermarried.' [MOB 5/12/2001]

According to the Ethnologue Online, Daarood is a large clan family in northeast Somalia

and the Ogaadeen region of Ethiopia, extreme southern Somalia and northeast Kenya which speaks several different dialects. [CW 11/5/2000]

Search terms: Furniture Dwelling, Headrest