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Megalithic Grave-Monuments in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan and other parts of East Africa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

E. E. Evans-Pritchard
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Extract

This note describes megalithic grave-monuments among the Mise tribe to the west of the Nile in Amadi District of Mongalla Province, Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. I visited this tribe in the early part of 1927.

The megalithic monuments described are typical of Mise country. They may be found occasionally among other members of the southern group, the Oggi and Endri, but there possibl they mark the graves of Mise who have died out of their count . The Kederu have probably adopted the heaps of stones and carveTwooden posts which they and their neighbours set up over graves.

Type
Research Article
Information
Antiquity , Volume 9 , Issue 34 , June 1935 , pp. 151 - 160
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 1935

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References

* The Mise are generally known as Moro but this term has really a geographical rather than an ethnological significance and, as is so often the case in Africa, has been applied to several tribes speaking unrelated languages and with distinct cultures. Of the tribes commonly referred to as Moro the northern group (Moro Kodo, Nyamusa, Biti, and Wira) speak dialects belonging to the Bongo-Mittu group of languages, while the southern group (Moro Mise, Moro Kederu, Moro Endri, and Moro Oggi) speak a dialect of the Moro-Madi group of languages which includes also the Madi, the Kaliko, the Abukaya, the Logo, the Lendu, and the Lugbwara. I may refer the reader to Professor and Mrs Seligman’s Pagan Tribes of the Nilotic Sudan for further information about the ethnology of this area.

1 Seligman, C.G. Ency. Brit., 14th ed., article ‘ Africa: Archaeology and Antiquities ’, and C.G. and Seligman, B.Z. Seligman, Pagan Tribes of the Nilotic Sudan, 1932.Google Scholar

2 ‘ The Bongo ’, Sudan Notes and Records, 1929 ;Google Scholar ‘ The Mberidi and Mbegumba of the Bahr-el-Ghazel ’, Sudan Notes and Records, 1931 ;Google Scholar and ‘ Notes on the Eongo-Mittu group of peoples ’ (to appear in the same journal).

3 Wilson, C.T. and Felkin, R.W. Uganda and the Egyptian Soudan, 1882, vol. 2, p. 123.Google Scholar

4 Id. vol. I, pp. 352-4 and ‘ Notes on the Madi and Mom Tribe of Central Africa ’, by Robert Felkin, W. and Felkin, R.W. Proc. of the Royal Soc. of Edinburgh, 1883–84, 12, 303–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 Proc. of the Royal Soc. of Edinburgh, 1883–84, p. 327.Google Scholar

6 Emin Pasha in Central Africa, 1885 pp. 356–7.Google Scholar

7 Major Stigand, C.H. o.B.E., Equatok, the Lado Enclave, 1923, pp. 51–2.Google Scholar

8 Op. cit. p. 260.

9 Op. cit. p. 261.

10 Rogers, F.H. ‘ Notes on some Madi Rain-stones ’, Man, 1927, no. 58.Google Scholar

11 Seligman,op. cit.p. 353. Two photographs and a drawing are shown.

12 Id. p. 354.

13 Seligman,op. cit. p. 354.

14 Id. p. 307.

15 Roe, M. ‘ Ndwika Stones ’. Central Africa, May 1930, p. 93 Google Scholar

16 Mr Webb informs me that authorities at South Kensington and elsewhere, whom he has consulted, do not favour the supposition that the stone rests on top of a termite mound.

17 Azaïs, R.P. et Chambard, R. Cinq Années de Recherches archkologiques en Ethwpie, 1931.Google Scholar See also Kammerer, A. Essai sur I’Histoire antique d’Abyssinie, 1926, and Le Mer Rouge 1’Abyssinie et 1’Arabe depuis I’Antiquité, 1929.Google Scholar Some of Father Azaïs’ results were previously published in La Géographie, July-Aug. 1927, pp. 1-39 under the title of ‘Exploration archéologique en Ethiopie méridionale, Mai-Novembre 1926 ’. See also article by M.E. Pottier in L’Illustration, 30 May 1925 and 16 April I927 and an article of M. Ravaise in La France Illustrée, 27 October 1923.

18 Azaïs, R.P. et Chambard, R. op. cit. pp. 172–3.Google Scholar

19 Amongst the many megalithic monuments of Abyssinia are some phallic menhirs(see Azaïs, plates 69-80). It may be worth recording that phallic menhirs have also been reported from the western (French) Sudan, on the plateau of Tondidaro, region of Niafunke (see Octobon, Statue-Menhirs, p. 558). EDITOR.

20 P. M. Küsters, ‘Das Grab der Afrikaner’, Anthropos, XIV–XV, 1919–20.