- Collection type
- Object
- Description
- Spear with antelope horn point set into a long wooden shaft, with a tooled hide sheath covering the junction [RTS 5/8/2005].
- Long description
- Spear consisting of a narrow, straight point made from dark brown antelope horn with very little ridging and an oval section (Pantone 440C). The base of this rests against the top of a long narrow shaft of yellowish brown wood (Pantone 7509C), also slightly oval in section, cut from a branch with the outer bark removed. This has a slightly irregular form, with a few knots running down its length and a slight curvature; it has been shaved to a point at the butt. Both point and haft have been polished, and the junction between them covered with a dark brown cylindrical sheath (Pantone 440C), cut from a section of animal's tail with the hair removed. This was stretched over the body whilst wet and then shrunken in place, with the surface tooled all over, leaving a series of lentoid-shaped impressions in horizontal rows around the circumference. This decoration has been rubbed smooth in a few places through use. The spear is complete and intact, with a weight of 637.6 grams. It has a total length of 2227 mm, with an upper shaft diameter of 22 by 21 mm; the point measures 458 mm from its tip to the top of the sheath, and has a diameter of 40 by 38 mm; the sheath below is 223 mm long with an upper diameter of 42 by 40 mm [RTS 5/8/2005].
- Geographical reference
- Cultural groups
- Shilluk
- Date / Period
- Date made: Before 1919
- Date collected
- By 1919
- Acquisition information
- Donated: 1919
- Materials and processes
- Material Wood Plant, Material Antelope Horn Animal, Material Animal Hide Skin, Process Carved, Process Polished, Process Covered, Process Tooled, Process Decorated, Process Impressed
- Dimensions
- Depth: max 43 mm, Width: max 41 mm, Length: max 2249 mm, Length: max 458 mm spearhead, visible, Weight 637.6 g
- Object numbers
- Accession number: 1919.13.18
- Research and responses
For an essay on the variety and cultural significance of spears in South Sudan, particularly among the Dinka and Nuer, see ‘“Spears” that are not Spears’, by Jok Madut Jok, in Pieces of a Nation: South Sudanese Heritage and Museum Collections, edited by Zoe Cormack and Cherry Leonardi (Leiden: Sidestone Press, 2021), pp. 110–114.
It is clear from information added to some other objects in this accession group that Clarke purchased the items himself at auction, and then donated them to the museum (see for example, the entry for 1919.13.2). The original collector is not recorded.
Throughout the twentieth century the term ‘White Nile’ has been used to denote an administrative district immediately south of Khartoum. However at the time this object was collected, the term was also used more loosely to refer to the Bahr el Abiad and Bahr el Jebel rivers, or the areas immediately around them. It is not clear in which sense it is being used here, although association with the Shilluk might indicate the river is being referred to rather than the administrative district.
For other Shilluk spears with horn points, see 1919.13.17 and 1929.58.1. Spears tipped with straight, or straightened animal horn are also used by the Nuer (see 1931.66.9 and 1936.10.1), Dinka (1913.15.5) and Mandari (1973.16.2), usually using materials such as antelope or onyx. The Nuer hafted these points as follows: 'The giit ... is fixed at the joint with an unsewn leather collar made from the tail skin of an ox. This is soaked and stretched round the haft, where it shrinks as it dries' (P.P. Howell, 1947, "On the Value of Iron Among the Nuer", Man 47, p. 132-3).
Domville Fife discusses Shilluk weaponry, as he saw it in the 1920's: ""The Shilluk warrior is never seen outside his tukl without a long spear, having a broad, leaf-shaped blade, and an ostrich feather tuft near the butt end. These spears are always kept scrupulously clean… In addition to this long, stabbing weapon, two small throwing spears are usually carried..." (C.W. Domville Fife, 1927, Savage Life in the Black Sudan, p. 69 and sketch on p. 68). This may be an example of the throwing spear type [RTS 15/8/2005].
Search terms: Weapon, Spear, Spear-head