- Collection type
- Object
- Description
- Necklet of blue and red glass trade beads with subrectangular ivory pendant [RTS 29/6/2004].
- Long description
- Light brown twisted plant fibre cord onto which have been strung just over 1200 small glass ring shaped beads with convex sides, with the cord tied at the top with a small knot. The majority of beads are a light blue colour (Pantone 304C), but there is also a small group of 3 slightly translucent red glass beads (Pantone 1807C). The cord has been doubled over and worn as two loops, with an ivory pendant suspended from the centre of the base (Pantone 155C). The pendant has an irregularly flat back and a convex upper face, and is subrectangular in plan view. It has been pierced with a small circular hole near the centre of the top edge; a small plant fibre loop fastened through this hole attaches the pendant to the beaded string. The surface of the pendant is highly polished. The necklet is complete and intact. It has a total length (as strung) of 416 mm including the pendant, and 388 mm without. The pendant is 27 mm long, 21.8 mm wide and 5.2 mm thick; the hole through its top has a diameter of 1.5 mm. The beads are of similar dimensions, with a typical example measuring 2 mm in diameter and being 1 mm thick; the cord is around 0.5 mm in diameter. The necklet has a weight of 17.3 grams [RTS 29/6/2004].
- 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
- 3rd May 1933
- Acquisition information
- Donated: 1934
- Materials and processes
- Material Glass, Material Animal Ivory Tooth, Material Plant Fibre, Process Carved, Process Polished, Process Perforated, Process Twisted, Process Strung
- Dimensions
- Width 21.8 mm pendant, Length 416 mm, Length 27 mm pendant, Depth 5.2 mm pendant, Weight 17.3 g
- Object numbers
- Accession number: 1934.8.25 Other numbers: 2233
- Research and responses
The way in which the term 'White Nile' has been used has changed over the years, and is used here in its more generic sense; Fanamweir appears to be located in the modern administrative district of Warab in the Southern Sudan. Powell-Cotton made ethnographic films during his 1932-3 shooting expedition to southern Sudan; footage included a Dinka hunter setting a trap, a staged fight between a Dinka and Jur and a female Dinka potter at work (see the description in Mrs Powell Cotton, "Village Handicrafts in the Sudan", Man 34 (112), pp 90-91).
According to Domville Fife, writing in the 1920's, amongst the Agar Dinka the manufacture of bead necklaces was done by women: "bead necklace making is also a profession which is represented in almost every large village, but as this requires the outlay of cattle or other native produce in order to obtain the beads from the few Arab traders who penetrate into these regions, it is often the occupation of the daughter of a chief" (C.W. Domville Fife, 1927, Savage Life in the Black Sudan, p. 137) [RTS 16/8/2005].
Search terms: Ornament, Bead, Neck Ornament, Pendant