1886.1.638.2

Collection type

Object

Description

Plant fibre skirt of numerous closely knotted threads, and then coated with some brown dirty looking substance, and attached at top to a narrow strip of leather. [FB 19/02/2015]

Geographical reference

Africa

Africa

Person

Field collector Unknown Collector

PRM source Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford

Date / Period

Date made: Before 1878

Date collected

By 1878

Acquisition information

Transferred: 09/02/1886

Materials and processes

Material Plant Fibre, Material Animal Leather Skin, Process Knotted, Process Tied

Dimensions

Depth: max 23 mm, Width: max 210 mm, Length: max 100 mm

Object numbers

Accession number: 1886.1.638.2

Research and responses

Other 'rahat' entries in the Ashmolean collection are from the Sudan as is one from the founding collection to which the following reference has been attached: JG Wood 1870 Natural History of Man: Africa p750 'The women are dressed after the usual African manner. As girls they wear nothing but a little apron of leathern thongs called a râhat. This apron is about nine inches or a foot in width, and perhaps six or seven in depth, and in general appearance resembles that of the Kaffir girl. Instead of being cut from one piece of leather, each thong is a separate strip of hide, scarcely thicker than packthread, and knotted by the middle to the thong which passes round the waist. The apron is dyed of a brick-red colour, and after it has been in use for any time, becomes so saturated with the castor-oil which stands these primitive belles in lieu of clothing, that the smell is unendurable ...' See 1884.87.19 [AP 20/1/99] This object is not mentioned in Collectors Miscellaneous XI Accession Book entry - Ramsden coll pages 223 - 255 nor in Collectors VII Ramsden [AP 21/7/99]

Search terms: Clothing, Ornament, Skirt, Waist Ornament, Apron, Groin-cover