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/ Patient with tribal marks, Nigeria, 1934

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Title
Patient with tribal marks, Nigeria, 1934
Creator
Emily Godfrey
Date Created and/or Issued
1929/1939
Publication Information
University of Southern California. Libraries
Contributing Institution
University of Southern California Digital Library
Collection
International Mission Photography Archive, ca.1860-ca.1960
Rights Information
Centre for the Study of World Christianity
Contact the repository for details.
The University of Edinburgh School of Divinity, New College, Mound Place, Edinburgh EH1 2LX, United Kingdom
divinity-CSWC@ed.ac.uk
http://www.cswc.div.ed.ac.uk/collections/
Description
Black and white photograph featuring a young Nigerian woman, a patient at the general hospital at Ituk Mbam in east Nigeria run by the Methodist Missionary Society. The woman is pictured near the gate to the hospital, and wears a patterned dress and a head-scarf. She shows raised marks on her arms that symbolise her tribal background. This scarification was common in Nigeria, involving cuts to the skin, the healing of which is controlled to form patterns that make meaning to symbolise cultural identity, bravery or to symbolise life stages. This photograph was pasted into one of a series of exercise book albums created by Emily Godfrey, Matron of the Ama Achara Methodist Hospital, also run by the Methodist Missionary Society.
Format
black-and-white photographs
Identifier
IMP-CSCNWW20-1-1-155.tif
http://doi.org/10.25549/impa-c123-77787
http://thumbnails.digitallibrary.usc.edu/IMP-CSCNWW20-1-1-155.jpg
Subject
Customs and traditions
Hospitals
Scarification
Women
Primitive Methodist Missionary Society
Methodist Missionary Society
Portraits
Time Period
1929/1939
Place
Africa
Ituk Mbam
Nigeria
Uyo
medical facilities: Ituk Mbam Hospital
Source
CSCNWW20/1/1/155 [File]
Relation
Emily Godfrey collection; Box 1; First book of photographs (CSCNWW20-1-1)
International Mission Photography Archive, ca.1860-ca.1960
Photographs from the Centre for the Study of World Christianity, University of Edinburgh, U.K., ca.1900-ca.1940s

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