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1978.20.198

Toy clay ox's head [El.B 'DCF 2004-2006 What's Upstairs?' 8/3/2005]

1978.20.198

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Collection type
Object
Description
Toy clay ox's head [El.B 'DCF 2004-2006 What's Upstairs?' 8/3/2005]
Geographical reference
Kenya
Africa > Eastern Africa > Kenya
East of Mount Elgon
Cultural groups
Tiati
Person
Field collector Jean Brown Sassoon
PRM source Jean Brown Sassoon
Date / Period
Date made: Before 1978
Date collected
By 1978
Acquisition information
Purchased: 1978
Materials and processes
Material Clay, Process Dried
Dimensions
Height: max 115 mm, Width: max 70 mm
Object numbers
Accession number: 1978.20.198 Other numbers: JB25
Research and responses

For further information on the significance of cattle amongst the Pokot see: Jean Brown 'Horn-shaping Ground-stone Axe-hammers' in Azania XXV (1990), pp.57-67. This article features illustrations of 'children's clay toy oxen sporting the most admired kamar horn style' (p.66). For further discussion and a picture of these five figures see: Jeremy Coote, 'Marvels of Everyday Vision': The Anthropology of Aesthetics and the Cattle-Keeping Nilotes' in Jeremy Coote and Anthony Shelton (eds.) Anthropology, Art and Aesthetics (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), p.262 and p.264 Fig. 10.8. [OD 23/1/2001].

Associated publications
Illustrated in black and white (using PRM Neg. A16.F19.1) in Figure 10.8 on page 264 of '"Marvels of Everyday Vision': The Anthropology of Aesthetics and the Cattle-Keeping Nilotes', by Jeremy Coote, in Anthropology, Art, and Aesthetics (Oxford Studies in the Anthropology of Cultural Forms), edited by Jeremy Coote and Anthony Shelton (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), pp. 245-73; also in Figure 16.8 on page 294 of '"Marvels of Everyday Vision': The Anthropology of Aesthetics and the Cattle-Keeping Nilotes', by Jeremy Coote, in The Anthropology of Art: A Reader (Blackwell Anthologies in Social and Cultural Anthropology), edited by Howard Morphy and Morgan Perkins (Malden, Mass.: Blackwell Publishing), pp. 281-301. [OD 23 1 2001; JC 11 1 2006]

Search terms: Toy and Game, Status, Figure, Pottery, Toy, Animal Figure