Pot containing seeds? for fumigating milk pots

Collection type: Object
Description: Pot containing seeds? for fumigating milk pots
Geographical reference: Uganda
Africa > Eastern Africa > Uganda; Western Region [Hoima, Kibale, Masindi districts] / Bunyoro-Kitara
Cultural groups: Nyoro
Person: Field collector John Roscoe; Field collector Mackie Ethnological Expedition; PRM source John Roscoe
Date / Period: Date made: Before 1920
Date collected: circa 1919
Acquisition information: Donated: 1921
Materials and processes: Material Pottery, Material Plant Seed, Material Animal Dung
Object numbers: Accession number: 1921.9.77
Research and responses: John Roscoe describes the royal milk ritual on pp.97-99 of 'The Bakitara', including the fumigation of milk-pots: '[The dairy-maid] had complete charge of the milk-pots of the king, and no one but she might handle them. She had to wash and dry them before the morning milking; and after the morning milk had been drunk she had to wash them, dry them in the sun, and later fumigate them, a process which was called Kuwitira and was performed over a pottery furnace in which a particular kind of grass was burned.'
Roscoe, J. (1923) The Bakitara or Banyoro; the first part of the report to the Mackie ethnological expedition to Central Africa. England: The University press, 1923, p.98.