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The Department for Africa, Oceania and the Americas at the British Museum cares for around 200 objects associated with Nuba people. Most were given to the Museum by two donors, both connected to the British government in Sudan (1898-1956). They were Norman Corkill – a medical doctor who worked in Kadugli between 1931 and 1937 and Seigfried Nadel – who worked as government anthropologist and wrote the book ‘The Nuba, an Anthropological Study of the Hill Tribes in Kordofan’ based on field research in 1938 and 1939.
This short essay gives a brief introduction to these collections. The information given here is sparse and incomplete, it is based entirely on short descriptions provided by each donor and the descriptions fail to capture the rich cultures and knowledge systems of which these objects were part. However, we hope that by sharing this information more widely, it may be possible to start conversations that will enhance the ways the objects are presented in the Museum and raise awareness of the collections more widely.
The first group of objects was assembled by medical doctor Norman Corkill from the area around Kadugli. An article he published on Kambala festivals in 1939, shows that Corkill saw Nuba societies of Kadugli and Miri hills as being in a state of change due to the spread of urban, Islamic and colonial cultures. Corkill saw transformations to the Kambala festival as a key example of these changes.
It is no coincidence that he assembled and donated to the British Museum the full ensemble worn by Kambala initiates in the early 1930s (a similar outfit is in the collection of the Ethnographic Museum in Khartoum). This includes leg rattles, made from dried palm leaves and with small stones, elbow ornaments, a grass skirt and bull’s tail girdle worn by initiates and even the iconic headdress and examples of a palm whip and cowtail ‘wand’ that was ‘waved by initiates in the Kambala ceremony’.
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The collection also includes three wrestler’s belts. This one is made from a root that has been wrapped in reptile skin and sealed with gum Arabic. Nuba wrestling has become a famous activity in Khartoum, and it is exciting to see the wrestlers’ costumes of the past.
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Many other aspects of creative cultural life are captured in the collection. For example, eleven body stamps made from pieces of gourd are a record of body art designs and how these were made in the 1930s. At least some of these do appear to have been used, because traces of a paint or dye can be seen.
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A further collection was donated by the anthropologist and colonial administrator Siegfried Frederick Nadel. It was mainly assembled in the context of anthropological research between 1938 and 1940. This research was commissioned by the Government of Sudan with the explicit purpose of informing the colonial administration on economic and political life in the Nuba Mountains. Nadel studied ten different Nuba groups and collected objects from each: Tira, Otoro, Mesakin, Tulishi, Moro, Heiban, Dilling, Kadaru, Korongo and Koalib, as well as from Kao and Daju people. The objects came to the Museum in two groups – a larger group in 1939, and subsequently in 1948.
Because the focus of his research was on political relations and changes, he wrote very little about the objects that were donated to the Museum leaving only a few reflections on material culture. Still, they also comprise a valuable record of Nuba art and everyday life in the 1930s.
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The Department for Africa, Oceania and the Americas at the British Museum cares for around 200 objects associated with Nuba people. Most were given to the Museum by two donors, both connected to the British government in Sudan (1898-1956). They were Norman Corkill – a medical doctor who worked in Kadugli between 1931 and 1937 and Seigfried Nadel – who worked as government anthropologist and wrote the book ‘The Nuba, an Anthropological Study of the Hill Tribes in Kordofan’ based on field research in 1938 and 1939.
This short essay gives a brief introduction to these collections. The information given here is sparse and incomplete, it is based entirely on short descriptions provided by each donor and the descriptions fail to capture the rich cultures and knowledge systems of which these objects were part. However, we hope that by sharing this information more widely, it may be possible to start conversations that will enhance the ways the objects are presented in the Museum and raise awareness of the collections more widely.
The first group of objects was assembled by medical doctor Norman Corkill from the area around Kadugli. An article he published on Kambala festivals in 1939, shows that Corkill saw Nuba societies of Kadugli and Miri hills as being in a state of change due to the spread of urban, Islamic and colonial cultures. Corkill saw transformations to the Kambala festival as a key example of these changes.
It is no coincidence that he assembled and donated to the British Museum the full ensemble worn by Kambala initiates in the early 1930s (a similar outfit is in the collection of the Ethnographic Museum in Khartoum). This includes leg rattles, made from dried palm leaves and with small stones, elbow ornaments, a grass skirt and bull’s tail girdle worn by initiates and even the iconic headdress and examples of a palm whip and cowtail ‘wand’ that was ‘waved by initiates in the Kambala ceremony’.
The collection also includes three wrestler’s belts. This one is made from a root that has been wrapped in reptile skin and sealed with gum Arabic. Nuba wrestling has become a famous activity in Khartoum, and it is exciting to see the wrestlers’ costumes of the past.
Many other aspects of creative cultural life are captured in the collection. For example, eleven body stamps made from pieces of gourd are a record of body art designs and how these were made in the 1930s. At least some of these do appear to have been used, because traces of a paint or dye can be seen.
A further collection was donated by the anthropologist and colonial administrator Siegfried Frederick Nadel. It was mainly assembled in the context of anthropological research between 1938 and 1940. This research was commissioned by the Government of Sudan with the explicit purpose of informing the colonial administration on economic and political life in the Nuba Mountains. Nadel studied ten different Nuba groups and collected objects from each: Tira, Otoro, Mesakin, Tulishi, Moro, Heiban, Dilling, Kadaru, Korongo and Koalib, as well as from Kao and Daju people. The objects came to the Museum in two groups – a larger group in 1939, and subsequently in 1948.
Because the focus of his research was on political relations and changes, he wrote very little about the objects that were donated to the Museum leaving only a few reflections on material culture. Still, they also comprise a valuable record of Nuba art and everyday life in the 1930s.
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