- Collection type
- Object
- Description
- Arrow with triangular iron barbed blade on tang with single barb, set into a wooden shaft with bound and nocked end [RTS 23/5/2005].
- Long description
- Arrow consisting of an iron arrowhead with short triangular blade, thickened down the middle of both sides, with shoulders that extend to form 2 pointed barbs at the base on a long rectangular sectioned tang, with a further barb partway down its length. This has been fitted into the socketed top of a shaft, carved from a lightweight yellow wood (Pantone 7508C) with slightly oval section. The body has some irregularities along its length, reflecting the shape of the original branch. It has been smoothed across the surface, and the shaft bound round with strips of plant fibre at its top, and just above the butt, which has been nocked with 2 notches cut into opposite sides. There is also a short band of binding around the lower part of the metal tang. All the bound areas appear to have been smeared with a reddish brown pigment that has partially stained some of the wood (Pantone 490C), perhaps as a fixative. The arrow is complete and intact. It has a weight of 38.8 grams and a total length of 801 mm. The visible area of the arrowhead has a length of 131 mm, with the blade being 48 mm long, 20.5 mm wide across its shoulders and 3.1 mm thick at the centre, and the tang having a width of 4.8 mm and thickness of 4.4 mm. The shaft is 670 mm long, with a body diameter of 9.8 by 9 mm and a nock length of 10 mm; the bound area of the tang is 6 mm long in total, the upper binding is 34 mm long, and the lower binding is 32 mm long [RTS 23/5/2005].
- Geographical reference
- Cultural groups
- Moru
- 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 Pigment, Process Forged (Metal), Process Hammered, Process Carved, Process Socketed, Process Notched, Process Bound
- Dimensions
- Width: max 20.5 mm blade, Length: max 801 mm, Length: max 131 mm arrowhead, Length: max 48 mm blade, Length: max 670 mm shaft, Diameter: max 9.8 mm shaft, Weight 38.8 g
- Object numbers
- Accession number: 1930.86.19.5
- 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 arrow, collected by Patti Langton in 1979, see 1979.20.18. 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 6/6/2005].
Search terms: Archery Weapon, Hunting, Arrow, Arrow-head, Arrow Shaft, Weapon