1934.8.90

Collection type

Object

Description

Sheep skin back apron, worn by men for dancing [RTS 22/6/2004].

Long description

Piece of lamb skin with yellow hide on the inside face (Pantone 7407C), and largely white to buff coloured hair on the outer face (Pantone 7506C), with a few patches of black hair along the edges of the legs and down the spine/tail (Pantone black 6C). The hair has worn away in patches. The skin has been cut, using the original tapering shape of one front and one hind leg to form the two long arms of the apron. The ends of each arm have been pinched together, causing the hide to form folds, and have cords made of twisted plant fibre tied around them; these cords would then have been used to fasten the apron in place around the waist. The body of the apron has been cut to a roughly trapezoidal shape, with two short taps of skin left at the centre of either side representing the neck and tail of the original animal; two longer tapering flaps of skin continue from the base of the apron, which runs in a straight line between them. The object is complete and intact, although the ends of the cords are frayed and some surface hair has been lost. The apron measures 635 from arm to arm, not including the cords, and is 357 mm long, including the base flaps; the apron body is 212 mm long and 235 mm wide at its centre, while the cord has a diameter of 1 mm [RTS 22/6/2004].

Geographical reference

South Sudan

Africa > Eastern Africa > South Sudan

Eastern Equatoria Logoforok

Cultural groups

Lango

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

16th February 1933

Acquisition information

Donated: 1934

Materials and processes

Material Sheep Skin Animal, Material Plant Fibre, Process Twisted, Process Tied

Dimensions

Length 357 mm, Width 635 mm across top

Object numbers

Accession number: 1934.8.90 Other numbers: 310

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), there are two different groups known as Lango, one from Sudan who speak an Eastern Nilotic language, and one from Kenya and Uganda who speak a Western Nilotic language. According to the catalogue cards, it is the Sudanese (Eastern Nilotic speaking) group which is referred to here [CW 23/3/2000]. Powell-Cotton made ethnographic films during his 1932-3 shooting expedition to southern Sudan; footage included Lango men cutting and making spear shafts, and a Lango 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].

Search terms: Clothing, Dance, Ornament, Cordage, Apron, Dance Accessory, Waist Ornament, Groin-cover