1930.86.19.3

Collection type

Object

Description

Arrow with short triangular iron blade on elongated tang, set into a wooden shaft with bound and nocked end [RTS 23/5/2005].

Long description

Arrow consisting of an iron arrowhead with a short triangular blade with angular midrib down the centre of both sides and rounded shoulders, on a long square sectioned tang, with the sharp angular edges positioned to continue the line of the midrib. This has been fitted into the socketed top of the shaft, carved from a lightweight yellow coloured wood (Pantone 7508C) with circular section, smoothed across its surface and bound round with strips of a fine plant fibre at the top of the shaft and then again just above its butt, which has been nocked with 2 rectangular notches cut into opposite sides. A small section of similar fibre has also been bound around the base of the metal tang. These appear to have been smeared with red pigment, staining both the binding and wood beneath a reddish brown colour (Pantone 7405C), perhaps as a fixative. There are some blackened areas on the butt end and inside of the notches, perhaps indicating that the cut was made using a heated tool. The arrow is complete and intact. It has a weight of 54.6 grams and a total length of 809 mm; the visible area of the arrowhead has a length of 170 mm, with the blade being 55 mm long, 18.7 mm wide across its shoulder and 3 mm thick at the centre, and the tang having a width of 5 mm and thickness of 4.8 mm. The shaft is 639 mm long, with a body diameter of 10 mm and a nock length of 12 mm; the upper binding (including that at the base of the tang) is 45 mm long, while the lower binding is 29 mm in length [RTS 23/5/2005].

Geographical reference

Sudan, Republic of

Africa > Northern Africa > Sudan, Republic of

Cultural groups

Moru

Person

Field collector Edward Evan Evans-Pritchard

PRM source Edward Evan Evans-Pritchard

Date / Period

Date made: Before 1930

Date collected

By 1930

Acquisition information

Purchased: 31/12/1930

Materials and processes

Material Iron Metal, Material Wood Plant, Material Plant Fibre, Material Resin Plant, Material Pigment, Process Forged (Metal), Process Hammered, Process Carved, Process Socketed, Process Notched, Process Bound

Dimensions

Length 639 mm shaft, Diameter 10 mm shaft, Length 170 mm arrowhead, Length: max 809 mm, Width: max 18.7 mm, Length 55 mm blade, Weight 54.6 g

Object numbers

Accession number: 1930.86.19.3

Research and responses

RDF 1930.86 contains a letter from Evans-Pritchard to Mr. Malcolm dated 12 December 1930, offering him some 81 Zande and Nuer objects. As Malcolm was curator of the Wellcome Historical Medical Museum, it seems unlikely that these objects were ever sent to the Pitt Rivers Museum and this letter is only useful as background for Evans-Pritchard's attritudes to the intended future use of his material, and as evidence for the temporary storage of these objects in Professor Seligman's office in the London School of Economics at the time. The file also contains an undated list of 48 objects, which does not seem to match accessioned material and could be the list of rejected items that Balfour mentions in another letter on file, dated 31 December 1930.

This object was collected by Edward Evan Evans-Pritchard in the Southern Sudan sometime before December 1930, as part of a group of 12 arrows; for the other examples, see 1930.86.19.1 (wooden arrowhead), and 1930.86.19.2-12 (iron arrowheads). The arrowheads in this group share a number of features, including the type of wood; the butt nocking, the use of fibre binding around areas vulnerable to splitting on use (butt and where point is hafted in place) and with some kind of red adhesive coating, and the presence of binding at the base of the tang, probably to prevent impact forcing the arrowhead too deeply into the shaft socket. For a similar arrowhead, see 1930.86.19.4, which differs in having barbs at the base of the blade, and in the positioning of the tang, which presents a flat surface on the front and back faces, not a sharp angle, as in this example.

Powell-Cotton also collected a number of Moru archer's items, including a bow (kusu), arrow (atu) and hide ring for drawing back the bow string (driba) - see 1934.8.33-35. [RTS 23/5/2005].

Search terms: Archery Weapon, Hunting, Arrow, Arrow-head, Arrow Shaft, Weapon