Sleeveless priest's coat made from sacking material with charms stitched on to it.

Collection type: Object
Description: Sleeveless priest's coat made from sacking material with charms stitched on to it.
Long description: Sleeveless garment with a round neck decorated with horizontal rows of paired skin covered wood amulets (?) that are secured to the garment with skin thongs, the long ends of which form decorative elements. Additional rectangular sections of red wool (microscopically identified) indicate a number of wool covered amulets although in most cases the wood is missing. The neck edge has been turned back and hemmed while the armholes are unhemmed, showing the selvedge edge. The opening at the neck is 170mm wide. The armholes are 290mm long. It is not evident which side is the front or back, therefore the sides are called side A and side B for the purposes of this description. The body of the garment is constructed from bands of plain weave brown coloured cotton fabric stitched together at the abutted selvedge edges to form vertical stripes. Each band is 65mm wide, the warp and weft are both cotton (microscopically identified) yarn spun in a “z” direction. There are 11 warps x 8 wefts per cm. There is a blue stripe on either side of each band near the selvedge edge – one stripe 9mm from selvedge edge is made up of 3 blue dyed threads, while the other stripe 3mm from the selvedge edge is 2 threads wide. Each side of the garment is made from10 pieces of the cotton fabric whip stitched together using cotton (microscopically identified) 3 ply thread twisted in “s” direction, each ply spun in “z” direction. 2 extra bands are incorporated at the centre of both side A and side B to form a gusset extending from the waist widening to the unfinished hem. A horizontal seam is located across the garment at waist height on side A. The brown colour of the fabric and stitching thread that secures the fabric panels together indicates the body of the garment was constructed before it was dyed. The amulets were attached after the garment was dyed. The hem at the neck edge is stitched using a “z” spun plant material. The same material is used to secure the amulet coverings. The red plain weave wool fabric has 13 warps x 9 wefts per cm. The warp and weft yarns are both spun in a “z” direction. Side A has 3 wool elements, while side B has 2 wool elements. There is one wool element that is longer attached to the garment. The skin type and the wood incorporated are currently unidentified although side B has 3 snake or lizard skin covered wooden amulets. The skins are arranged in alternating light and dark sequence, though this is inconsistent in places. The skin covering the wood is secured in two ways: 1) the skin is folded around the wood and held back using plant material thread in a zig zag lacing. Each end is turned towards the back and secured in position using most commonly 3 stitches with the same plant material thread creating a sleeve through which the skin thing is threaded and secured to the garment by threading through the fabric and tying in a knot on the front of the fabric. 2) The skin is folded around the wood and held at the back using plant material thread in a zigzag lacing. Each end is turned towards the back and stitched to the zigzag lacing. The skin thong is threaded through this end flap before it is secured in the same manner to the body of the garment.
Geographical reference: Sierra Leone
Africa > Western Africa > Sierra Leone
Cultural groups: Mandinka
Person: Field collector Henry Mangles Denham; Field collector HMS Avon; PRM source Sarah Constance Silver; PRM source Oxford University Museum of Natural History
Date / Period: Date made: Before 1846
Date collected: 1845 / 1846
Acquisition information: Donated: 03/1906
Materials and processes: Material Textile, Process Recycled, Process Stitched, Process Woven
Dimensions: Height: max 890 mm, Width: max 720 mm
Object numbers: Accession number: 1906.20.162
Research and responses: An announcement in the 'Sales by Auction' section of The Times (no. 27,942, Thursday 5 May 1874, p. 16, col. a) of the sale of Admiral Denham's 'ethnographic' collection reads: 'The Collection of Natural History Specimens and Native Weapons, &c., of Vice-Admiral Sir Henry Denham, formed during the voyage of H.M.S. Herald. Mr J. C. STEVENS will SELL by AUCTION, at his great Rooms, 33, King-street, Covent-garden, W.C., on Friday, March 6th at half-past 12 precisely, the MUSEUM of NATURAL HISTORY SPECIMENS and NATIVE WEAPONS and ORNAMENTS, collected by Vice-Admiral Sir Henry Denham in the South Sea Islands, consisting of rare birds, shells, minerals, insects, &c., carved wood spears, clubs, bowls, ivory ornaments, musical instruments, native dresses, &c. Also some stuffed birds in cases, heads and horns, minerals and fossils, &c. On view the morning of sale, and catalogues had.' [JC 20 2 2015]
Associated publications: Presumably the item listed as 'P 21. African fetish dress [and cap]' in 'Section X' on page 92 of Catalogue of the Nature and Art Collection, Letcombe Regis, Wantage, Berks, Formed by S. W. Silver, F.L.S. (London: Office of 'the Colonies', 1876). [JC 6 7 2011] Discussed in 'Recollecting General Pitt-Rivers's Collections of Collections', by Jeremy Coote, in Edgar Wind Journal, Vol. 5 (Trinity Term 2012, 'Collecting'), unpaginated (loose leaf): 'Intriguingly, a piece in another collection given to the Museum by the widow of Stephen William Silver in March 1906, may also be from the Denham collection. This is a sleeveless garment covered with small wooden blocks reminiscent of amulets, originally catalogued as a "priest's coat' and "fetish robe". This also bears a label, reading "Priest's dress (1846)", which - along with other evidence there isn't room here to discuss - strongly suggests it was collected on the Avon and was part of Denham's collection.' (Copy of article in RDF: Biographies, H. M. Denham.) [JC 18 10 2012] For the history of the collection of which this is probably part, see '"African Curiosities" from the Voyage of HMS Avon, 1845–1846: Historiographical Notes on a Forgotten Collection', by Jeremy Coote, in Journal of the History of Collections, Vol. 31, no. 2 (2019), pp. 221–237 [published online on 14 June 2018 at https://doi.org/10.1093/jhc/fhy010 ]. This object is illustrated in colour as Figure 8 on page 228. Caption (same page) reads: ‘Sleeveless shirt, of sacking embellished with skin-covered wooden blocks; 890 mm long, 720 mm wide; made by 1845–6. Probably acquired in West Africa during the voyage of HMS Avon in 1845–6; probably part of the collection of Henry Mangles Denham; probably acquired by Stephen William Silver at the sale of Denham’s collections held at Stevens, London, on 6 March 1874; donated by Silver’s widow to the University of Oxford’s Pitt Rivers Museum in 1906 (1906.20.162). From a photograph taken for the Museum by Malcolm Osman in 2013. Courtesy and copyright, Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford.' Also listed as number 8 on page 223 in the Appendix: 'Sleeveless gown (Fig. 8). Not figured or mentioned in the article in the ILN. Labelled as “Priest’s dress (1846)”. Inv. no. 1906.20.162.’ See also note 32 on page 236: ‘In a personal communication, Chris Spring of the British Museum suggests that this may be an example of a ronko, a type of protective gown worn by Mende hunters in Sierra Leone; see, for example, the example in the collections of the British Museum (Af1904,0415.21; illustrated in Chris Spring, African Textiles Today (London, 2012), p. 64) with its regularly spaced leather amuletic packages or “gris gris”. In the PRM example the “packages” are in fact solid wooden blocks, suggesting that this is perhaps some sort of replica or imitation, though the type of wood may in itself have “amuletic” properties. It is the item listed under “p 21. African Fetish dress and cap”, in Catalogue of the Nature and Art Collection, Letcombe Regis, Wantage, Berks, Formed by S. W. Silver, F.L.S. (London, 1876), p. 92. The later history and current whereabouts of the “cap” are not known. Silver may well have purchased other items from the Avon at the sale, but likely candidates in the Silver collection at the PRM have yet to be identified. Though it seems probable that Silver acquired the shirt at the sale of Denham’s collection, it is also worth considering whether “1846” might refer to the date Silver acquired it. According to his own account, from the 1830s Silver made regular visits to the London docks acquiring specimens “from time to time”, so it is possible that he acquired the shirt from someone from the Avon in November 1846, or from some other source that year; see S. W. S[ilver]., “Introductory remarks”, in Catalogue (op. cit., p. 1). Silver’s extensive “nature and art” collections (preserved in part at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History and the PRM, respectively) have yet to receive significant scholarly attention. He also had an extensive library, which was acquired in 1905 by the South Australian Branch of the Royal Geographical Society of Australasia (now the Royal Geographical Society of South Australia) and has been held since 1908 in the State Library of South Australia in Adelaide; see Edward Augustus Petherick, Catalogue of the York Gate Library formed by Mr S. William Silver: An index to the literature of geography, maritime and inland discovery, commerce and colonisation (2nd edn, London, 1886), and Valmai Hankel, “Not Silver but Gold: S. W. Silver and the York Gate Library”, South Australian Geographical Journal 104 (2005), pp. 76–92.’ Printout of whole article in RDF: Biographies: Denham (Avon). [JC 15 6 2018, 6 9 2019]

Search terms: Religion, Clothing, Ritual and Ceremonial, Coat, Religious Object, Amulet, Ceremonial Object