- Collection type
- Object
- Description
- Annular necklet made from several strands of black giraffe hair with four sliding cylindrical grips [RTS 23/6/2004]
- Long description
- Annular necklet, made from around 23 strands of wiry black giraffe hair (Pantone black 7C), bent into a roughly circular loop. In four places around the body, loose hair ends have been folded over to form a thick bundle, with another strand of giraffe hair wound tightly around them to form a cylinder. The sides of each of these grips is further decorated with a double strand of hair; on the third grip, an extra strand has been loosely wound around these side pieces, while on the fourth grip they are tightly bound, forming a neat oval frame around the cylinder. These grips compress the giraffe hairs of the body as they pass through, and helps keep the shape of the necklet. They were probably designed to slide along the hair strands, allowing the wearer to adjust its diameter to fit. At present, only one of these slides still moves, the others being encrusted with red ochre. The necklet is complete, but several of the hairs have broken; it weighs 3.5 grams. The necklet measures 170 by 153 mm across its outside edges, and 158 by 144 across its inside; the cylindrical grips are 13 mm long, 6.8 mm wide and 5.8 mm thick. Each individual hair strand is less than 1 mm in diameter [RTS 23/6/2004].
- 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
- 4th April 1933
- Acquisition information
- Donated: 1934
- Materials and processes
- Material Giraffe Hair Animal, Process Wound, Process Tied
- Dimensions
- Width 144 mm internal, Length 13 mm grips, Length 158 mm internal, Thick 5.8 mm grips, Width: max 153 mm, Width 6.8 mm grips, Length: max 170 mm, Weight 3.5 g
- Object numbers
- Accession number: 1934.8.72 Other numbers: 428
- 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. 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) [RTS 12/12/2003].
A similar necklet was collected by Patti Langton amongst the Southern Larim (see 1979.20. 191); this was made of four groups of strands and had more complex grips, although of comparable style. See also Zande bracelet 1934.8.141 which is of similar design, and Kuku necklet 1940.7.0107.2 [RTS 23/6/2004].
Search terms: Ornament, Neck Ornament