Cornell University Library Digital Collections

Householder holding purple faced langur skins

Title:
Householder holding purple faced langur skins
Collection:
Depicting the Sri Lankan Vernacular
Set:
Dwelling #39
Mimure
Creator:
MacDougall, Robert D. (Robert Duncan), 1940-1987
Date:
1965
Location:
Mimure, Kandy District, Central Province, Sri Lanka
Country:
Sri Lanka
Identifier:
MCD2_0048
Culture:
Sinhala
Work Type:
photograph
Subject:
forest life
purple-faced langur
Trachypithecus vetulus
endangered species
Description:
Householder of Dwelling #39 holding skins of Sri Lanka purple faced langur (Trahypithecus vetulus), an endemic Old World monkey. The habitat of the langur has been sharply reduced in Sri Lanka by deforestation. Householders regarded them as pests in highland cultivation areas and killed them.
Rights:
The images in the Sri Lankan Vernacular are protected by copyright, and the copyright holder is the Estate of their creator/photographer, Bonnie MacDougall. Images in the Sri Lankan Vernacular collection were created between roughly 1960-2012, and were digitized by Cornell University Library from a variety of negatives, positives, and slides retained by the Estate of the photographer. Cornell is providing access to the materials for research and personal use. The written permission of any copyright and other rights holders is required for distribution, reproduction, or other use that extends beyond what is authorized by fair use and other statutory exemptions. Responsibility for making an independent legal assessment of an item and securing any necessary permissions ultimately rests with persons desiring to use the item.

About the collection

This collection of original photographs and drawings is drawn from ethnographic research on architecture and traditional domestic life in Sri Lanka, conducted in various periods between 1965 and 2012, by Bonnie and Robert MacDougall. These original images, as well as other visual records, pertain to lifeways and hereditary practices in the Central Highlands, and more particularly to a single remote Sinhala community, Mimure,* in the hinterlands of the Kandy District. Although the collection is focused primarily on images, it also includes information on additional publications (under Resources as addenda) pertaining to the community. In this way, it joins a vigorous twentieth-century ethnographic record to the little Sri Lankan community, which is otherwise regrettably without a significant visual dimension.