- Collection type
- Photograph
- Description
- Circumcision initiate boys or agangasi (some wearing fringed circumcision skirts) washing in a pool as part of ritual activity. A woman and man are also present, apparently cleansing items of clothing, possibly barkcloth waist-coverings.
- Cultural groups
- Zande
- Date / Period
- Date of photograph: 1927 - 1930
- Acquisition information
- Donated: 1966
- Photographic process
- Print gelatin silver
- Dimensions
- Length x Width 104 x 78 mm
- Object numbers
- Accession number: 1998.341.6.2 Previous PRM number: EP.A.6 Previous other number: 92 5 (58) [frame 4]
- Research and responses
In The Azande (OUP, 1971) p.113 E. E. Evans-Pritchard notes that 'when Czekanowski carried out his researches in the years 1907-8 circumcision was in process of being introduced and had indeed become so much the fashion that adults were undergoing the operation... It is remarkable that in so short a time the practice had come to be regarded as so much a Zande custom that aboro pito 'the uncircumcised', had become a scornful epithet used in reference to other peoples.... My informants said that it [circumcision] came to them from the Amadi... Mgr Lagae says that the Azande of the south were initiated into the practice by the Mangbetu and the Abarambo, those of the north by the Amadi.'
P. Baxter & A. Butt (London AIA, 1953 pages 73-4) discuss C.R. Lagae's published accounts of circumcision among the Azande, noting that it takes place near a stream and away from settlement, the period of seclusion being about two months and the boys residing in specially made huts there. The period is brought to a close with a feast and dancing, after which the boy takes a new name and social position. [Chris Morton 16/10/2003]
Search terms: Religion, Ritual and Ceremonial, Clothing, Toilet, Circumcision