Pitt Rivers Museum Luo Visual History
1998.349.42.1 (Film Negative 120mm)
Key Information
Photographer
Edward Evan Evans-Pritchard
Description
Women dancing at a funeral ceremony called tero buru (driving death away). This is usually a ceremony after burial where people shout and curse death, rigorously running and dancing to drive away bad spirits from the home of a deceased person. Although women are dancing here and one would ordinarily say that this may be a woman's funeral, in related images to this one a large number of cattle can seen being driven beyond the women by men with shields, and it would seem therefore that this is the tero buru of a respectable elder. The homestead can be seen beyond with grass thatch houses and a grain storage granary to the right. The big thatch house is probably that of the deceased, and these dancers will run into it to continue performing inside. They have been dancing outside the homestead but are now approaching the home with a large crowd (mainly women) waiting to welcome them with a lot of dancing. The dancers are all women clad in headdresses and woven dancing tails (chieno) made of vegetable fibre. Their bodies are meticulously decorated with smears of soil or ochre of varying colours. [Gilbert Oteyo 9/9/2004]
Cultural Group
Luo
Region
Nyanza
Pitt Rivers Source
Edward Evan Evans-Pritchard
Research Notes
See similar ceremonies in 1998.349.59, 61, 65 and 66 for women, and 1998.349.102 and 105 for men. [Gilbert Oteyo 9/9/2004]
Date of Photograph
1936
Accession number
1998.349.42.1
Further Information
Photographic Process
Negative film nitrate
Date Acquired
Donated 1988
Activity
Dancing
For citation use:
Pitt Rivers Museum Luo Visual History
"1998.349.42.1"
6 Jun. 2008. Pitt Rivers Museum.
Accessed 19 Nov. 2015
<http://photos.prm.ox.ac.uk/luo/photo/1998.349.42.1/>.
© Pitt Rivers Museum