- Collection type
- Object
- Description
- Hoe with iron blade with socketed base, fitted onto a wooden shaft with angled handle at the end [RTS 1/7/2005].
- Long description
- Hoe made in 2 joining parts. The blade consists of a flat piece of iron with lentoid plan view, consisting of a shallow, curving working edge that has a slight bevel on one side representing use wear, and steeper, convex shoulders. This has been attached to a second piece of iron, bent round to form a cylindrical socket that gradually expands towards its base, with a broad open seam running down the front. The junction of these 2 pieces is marked by a tapering ridge that runs across the face of the blade. The socketed base was then fitted onto a wooden shaft. This has a tapering end, where it slots into the socket, then a short cylindrical shaft that widens and becomes almost semi circular in section at its base, where a short cylindrical handle with flat-cut end extends out at an acute angle. This is an example of 'found form', as the wooden part of the object has been selected from a tree branch that has naturally developed a shape suitable for this particular function. Tool marks are visible across this part of the wood especially, and the surface has been polished; it is currently a orange brown colour (Pantone 730C). The object appears complete, although there is a concave edge on the end of the blade that may be the result of edge damage, since worn smooth through use. 2 small holes have been drilled into the socket on either side, and a small european screw fitted into one of these, to secure the socket to the wood, while a split down the back of the socket has been partially filled with an unknown glossy black material. These measures look like modern repairs, and probably post-dates the purchase of the object. There is also a long crack running down the length of the wooden shaft, in line with that down the iron socket, and a further crack along the handle section, while the iron is suffering from some surface rust. The object has a weight of 482.2 grams, and a total length of 480 mm. The hoe blade is 166 mm long, with a blade length of 52 mm, width of 103 mm and thickness of 3.2 mm, and socket diameter at the top of 29.7 mm. The wooden shaft has a diameter of 26.5 by 26.2 mm midway down the shaft, while the angled handle is 186 mm long, 38 mm wide and 37.2 mm thick at its end [RTS 1/7/2005].
- 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 1933
- Date collected
- 25th May 1933
- Acquisition information
- Donated: 1934
- Materials and processes
- Material Iron Metal, Material Wood Plant, Process Carved, Process Polished, Process Forged (Metal), Process Hammered, Process Socketed
- Dimensions
- Width: max 103 mm blade, Length: max 116 mm blade and socket, Length: max 186 mm handle, Diameter: max 26 mm shaft, Length: max 52 mm blade, Length: max 480 mm, Weight 482.2 g
- Object numbers
- Accession number: 1934.8.15 Other numbers: 2650
- Research and responses
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; Kornuk is probably located in the 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).
Nebel gives the Dinka term for a hoe as pur, and a hoe of the Jur as pur abat, or a European hoe as malol (Nebel 1979, Dinka-English Dictionary, p. 149). It is not clear where the term yai fits in; Nebel defines it as ‘sacrifice, feast meeting’, and Yai, rap yai, ‘durra not yet threshed’ - so there may be some agricultural relevance to the term here (op. cit. p. 95).
Search terms: Agriculture and Horticulture, Tool, Hoe, Agricultural Tool