Lou Nuer headdress, Jonglei, South Sudan, 1928
Made from Cat Skin, Ostrich Feather Bird, Animal Hide Skin, Animal Hair, Cowrie Shell , Bast Fibre Bark Plant , Cotton Yarn Plant
"Captured from the Lou Nuer prophet Car Koryom sometime between 11th and 19th February 1928 by Percy Coriat, possibly at a place called Pading located in Jonglei district, just north east of Mogogh. It was subsequently lent to the Pitt Rivers Museum by Charles Armine Willis in November 1928.
Johnson provides further information on the career of Char Koryom and his eventual capture by the British authorities (see D.H. Johnson, 1994, Nuer Prophets, pp 167-169). He was known as the prophet of Deng, a divinity which was not in favour of warfare. After 1917, Car Koryom dealt directly with the administrators of Mongalla province, and according to Johnson, was 'considered harmless' by the government prior to 1928. From that time, he was seen as a supporter of Guek Ngundeng, another Lau prophet who had come into conflict with the government and whom they were trying to suppress. Car Koryom surrendered to mounted troops that had been sent to his camp on 11th February 1928, and he presented himself to Percy Coriat carrying an ostrich plume fly whisk; Johnson illustrates a photograph of Car under arrest, with his fly whisk, in his figure 7. He escaped from custody at a place called Fadding (probably Pading) around midnight on the 19th February, but the fan appears to have been left behind, along with some other objects, including this headdress, and a staff known as a dang (see 1928.67.2-3). Car Koryom remained active until the middle of 1930, when he yielded to family pressure to give himself up to the authorities; he was imprisoned briefly in Malakal, then released, to return to his home where he lived until his death in 1948 (Johnson 1994; P. Coriat, 1993, Governing the Nuer, pp 119-120. See also the papers of Percy Coriot, who was involved in this brief capture, in Rhodes House, Oxford (MSS Afr.s.1684)."
