- Collection type
- Object
- Description
- Narrow wooden staff with ball of ostrich feathers decorating the top [RTS 28/9/2005].
- Long description
- Long staff carved from an oval-sectioned branch, its bark removed and the surface stained an orangey brown colour (Pantone 730C) and then polished. The lower end has been shaved to a point, and is quite worn at the butt. The upper end of the shaft is obscured by a spherical ball of black ostrich feathers (Pantone 440C), tied onto the top as an ornament. This appears to be attached to the shaft using some kind of plant fibre cord, but the details are not clear. The staff is complete, but has several splits along the shaft body, with a weight of 212 grams. It has a total length of 1810 mm; the feathered ball has a diameter of 101 mm and height of 109 mm, the shaft has a diameter near the top of 9.5 by 9 mm, and at its base of 15.5 by 14.2 mm [RTS 28/9/2005].
- 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
- 13th April 1933
- Acquisition information
- Donated: 1934
- Materials and processes
- Material Wood Plant, Material Ostrich Feather Bird, Process Carved, Process Stained, Process Polished, Process Tied
- Dimensions
- Length: max 1808 mm, Width: max 126 mm, Depth: max 125 mm, Weight 212 g
- Object numbers
- Accession number: 1934.8.57 Other numbers: 618
- Research and responses
According to “African ethnonyms: index to art-producing peoples of Africa” by Daniel P. Biebuyck, Susan Kelliher and Linda McRae (G.K. Hall & Co.: New York, 1996), the Latuka should be known as Lotuko [CW 23/3/2000]. Lotuko appears to be an alternative name for the Otuho, while the modern spelling of Laronyo is Loronyo. Powell-Cotton made ethnographic films during his 1932-3 shooting expedition to southern Sudan; footage included a Lotuko blacksmith and his forge and a female Lotuko potter at work (see the description in Mrs Powell Cotton, "Village Handicrafts in the Sudan", Man 34 (112), pp 90-91).
This staff is known to the Lotuko as eteri. Ostrich feather balls are also used as decoration on Lotuko helmets (1940.7.092.3-4), shields belonging to the Toposa (1939.7.120) and Acholi (1952.5.10), and as part of a headdress and flywhisk belonging to the Lau Nuer prophet Car Koryom (1928.67.1-2) [RTS 28/9/2005].
Search terms: Weapon, Status, Staff, Status Object