- Collection type
- Object
- Description
- Arrow with narrow barbed iron point set into a wooden shaft with bound and nocked end [RTS 24/5/2005].
- Long description
- Arrow consisting of an iron arrowhead with pointed tip and narrow elongated blade ending in two sharp barbs at the base. 2 long grooves have been cut into the surface near the edges on opposite faces of the blade; these extend from halfway down the body to the base of the blade, and widen towards their lower part. This is also decorated between the barbs on both sides, with a motif made of 2 incised lines crossing over at the top, above a vertical line. The blade is set on a long round sectioned tang with a single barb on one side of the body, and 2 further barbs on the opposite side below. The central part of the tang has also been chiselled with a series of oblique cuts running in 3 rows down the surface; the lower part is plain, and has been bound round with strips of a fine plant fibre. This has been fitted into the top of a wooden shaft, carved from a lightweight yellow material (Pantone 7510C) and slightly oval in section. The surface of the shaft has been smoothed, and it has also been bound in fibre strips to prevent it splitting, at the top of the shaft, and again at the base, just above the nocked butt, which has 2 notches cut into opposite sides. The binding has a reddish brown colour (Pantone 4625C), which appears to have stained the lower part of the wooden shaft as well, and may represent some kind of fixative. The arrow is complete and intact, but has no flights. It has a weight of 32.6 grams and a total length of 805 mm. The visible area of the arrowhead has a length of 192 mm, a blade length of 97 mm, shoulder width of 8.5 mm and thickness of 3 mm, and a tang diameter of 4 mm. The wooden shaft is 613 mm long, with a diameter of 8.7 mm and a nock length of 7 mm; the binding around the lower tang is 18 mm long, the upper binding of the shaft is 48 mm and the lower binding is 37 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, Process Incised
- Dimensions
- Length 97 mm blade, Length 613 mm shaft, Diameter 8.7 mm shaft, Length 192 mm arrowhead, Length: max 805 mm, Weight 32.6 g
- Object numbers
- Accession number: 1930.86.19.10
- 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.
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.
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