1934.8.2

Collection type

Object

Description

Spear with iron leaf-shaped spearhead, square shank and socketed base on a long wooden shaft with a socketed iron butt [RTS 8/7/2005].

Long description

Spear consisting of an iron spearhead with a leaf-shaped blade, thickened to form a midrib down the centre of each side, with rounded shoulders that curve in to a solid, round sectioned shank with 2 anguar wings projecting from either side as a decorative detail. Almost immediately below, this widens and has been hammered flat to create a rectangular sectioned segment, before reverted to a round sectioned base, slightly swollen at the top, then expanding to form a socket with an open seam running up the front. The spearhead is currently a pale metallic gray colour (Pantone 400C). The socket has been fitted onto a wooden shaft, carved from a tree branch with some surface irregularities and a circular section, stained a reddish brown colour across the surface (Pantone 469C). A section of this is a lighter orangey brown colour, where there may have originally been some binding that protected this part of the shaft from darkening, now missing. An iron spear-butt has been fitted onto the base of this, with socketed top and a slightly open seam running down the side; as the seam closes, the body becomes solid and narrows to a flat tipped end. The spear is complete. There is considerable surface rust on the iron elements. The spear has a weight of 434.7 grams, and a total length of 1734 mm. The spearhead is 471 mm long, of which the blade part is 228 mm in length, with a maximum width of 40 mm and thickness of 4.3 mm; the centre shank is 10.5 mm wide and 7.3 mm thick, while the socket base is 18 mm wide and 17.2 mm thick. The shaft measures 16 by 15.6 mm in diameter, while the butt is 175 mm long, with a top diameter of 13.2 by 12.8 mm and a diameter at its tip of 7.5 mm [RTS 11/7/2005]

Geographical reference

South Sudan

Africa > Eastern Africa > South Sudan

Warab Kornuk

Cultural groups

Dinka

Person

Field collector Percy Horace Gordon Powell-Cotton

Field collector Hannah Powell-Cotton

PRM source Percy Horace Gordon Powell-Cotton

Date / Period

Date made: Before 25/05/1933?, uncertain

Date collected

25th May 1933?

Acquisition information

Donated: 1934

Materials and processes

Material Iron Metal, Material Wood Plant, Process Forged (Metal), Process Hammered, Process Socketed, Process Carved, Process Stained

Dimensions

Width: max 41 mm, Diameter: max 19 mm, Length: max 1738 mm, Weight 434.7 g

Object numbers

Accession number: 1934.8.2 Other numbers: 2597

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.

The way in which 'White Nile' has been used has changed since this object was collected, and the term is probably used here in its broader sense. Although the exact provenance is not given in the original list, the sequence of Powell-Cotton numbers suggests that this object came from Kornuk, rather than Fanamweir; if so, it may have been acquired on 25th May 1933. Kornuk is probably located in the modern administrative district of Warab. Powell-Cotton made ethnographic films of the Dinka during his 1932-3 shooting expedition to southern Sudan (see the description in Mrs Powell Cotton, "Village Handicrafts in the Sudan", Man 34 (112), pp 90-91).

Langton comments on the accession book entry for 1979.20.76 that the spears used by the Dinka Tuich were obtained in trade, with the better-made more traditional examples produced by the 'Jur Lao', and usually inferior 'copies' made by Arab smiths at Omdurman. Nebel defines the term Tòng, plural tòòng, as ‘spear, war, fight’ (Nebel 1979, Dinka-English Dictionary, p. 84). The Dinka often modify the term tong by a second word that describes the appearance of the spear, such as tong alol, tong anerich, tong magang or tong achokwe (see 1979.20.76-79, 1979.20.94, 96-97, 107-108, 110) [RTS 12/1/2005]

Search terms: Weapon, Hunting, Spear, Spear-head