Funeral figure (Image number E.028, J.P. Mills Photographic Collection)
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Material Information

Title:
Funeral figure (Image number E.028, J.P. Mills Photographic Collection)
Series Title:
J.P. Mills Photographic Collection
Creator:
Mills, J. P. (James Philip), 1890-1960.
Hobson, Geraldine ( contributor )
Publication Date:
Materials:
B&W photographic print 9.5x7 cm ( medium )

Notes

Abstract:
This wooden effigy of a warrior is in a little shelter near the platform on which the corpse has been placed, and friends can come to mourn in front of the effigy, which is thought to act as a channel for the deceased's fertility to pass back into the earth for the benefit of the village. The figure is dressed as the man would have been in life, with a feathered head-dress, necklaces, a head-taker's basket and three model spears. (It has to be noted that the fertility concept is not necessarily indigenous but rather an anthropological theory of the time). ( en )
General Note:
Date of photograph: 1923 October 19
General Note:
Copyright held by the Estate of J.P. Mills. The Estate is currently (2015) represented by Geraldine Hobson.
General Note:
This item may be used under license: Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial (CC BY-NC)
General Note:
This photograph is part of album E. Like the albums A to D, this album contains photographs taken in the Konyak country in 1923. J.P. Mills was travelling with J.H. Hutton in April and October, but probably without him in August. This album mainly contains photographs taken during a punitive expedition in April 1923 to the Konyak village of Yungya, certain inhabitants of which had carried out a head-hunting raid on Kamahu. J.P. Mills was Assistant Commissioner, Mokokchung at this time. He accompanied J.H. Hutton, Deputy Commissioner, Kohima, who was his superior and therefore wrote the official Tour Diary for the expedition. The military escort ot Gurkhas was commanded by Captain W.B.S. Shakespear. The Konyak tribe lived in the northern part of the Naga Hills. To the west the Konyaks bordered the Assam plains and the Ao Nagas; on the south-east were the Phoms, and on the east the Singphos of Burma. At the time of these photographs much of their country was unadministered and little known and some of the villages visited during this expedition had never before been seen by Europeans.
General Note:
Originally collected in Album E of the "J.P. Mills Photographic Collection". (Held in the SOAS, University of London, Archives and Special Collections.)
General Note:
Jacobs, Julian. The Nagas : hill peoples of Northeast India : society, culture, and the colonial encounter. London : Thames and Hudson, 1990.
General Note:
Hutton, John Henry. Tour Diary [manuscript]. 1923 April. (Held by the Pitt Rivers Museum archives, University of Oxford)
General Note:
Mills, J. P. (James Philip), 1890-1960. [Letters to Henry Balfour.] (Held by the Pitt Rivers Museum archives, University of Oxford)
General Note:
VIAF ID: 2475026 (name authority) : Mills, J.P. (James Philip), 1890-1960
General Note:
VIAF ID: 24095368 (name authority) : Hobson, Geraldine
General Note:
Ethnologue reference: http://www.ethnologue.com/language/nbe

Record Information

Source Institution:
SOAS, University of London
Holding Location:
Archives and Special Collections
Rights Management:
Image: © 1923, The Estate of J.P. Mills. Text: © 1996, Geraldine Hobson.
Resource Identifier:
PP MS 58/02/E/28 ( calm reference )