Diana and Antoinette Powell-Cotton

Diana Powell-Cotton (1908–1986) and Antoinette Powell-Cotton (1915–1997) were English sisters who worked together as anthropologists.

Diana was born in 1908 and Antoinette in 1913.

They were two of the four children of Percy Powell-Cotton and his wife Hannah Powell-Cotton, along with Mary (1910–1998) and Christopher (1918–2006).

Diana studied at the Royal College of Art, where she gained valuable skills in drawing, watercolour and sketching.

Antoinette did not undertake any formal training, but showed an interest in anthropology in her teens.

This led her to volunteer in the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford in the early 1930s, under the direction of Henry Balfour, who was the curator of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the time.

Diana travelled with her father to the Sudan in 1933 and then organised her own expedition to the Italian Somiliand in 1934–1935.

She kept precise field notes and also filmed domestic activities such as Butter-making.

She also used the artistic skills to make fine pen drawings of everyday objects she collected.

In addition to volunteering with the Pitt Rivers Museum, Antoinette also helped at the Powell-Cotton Museum at her home.

In 1935 she took her first trip to Africa with her father.

During this trip to Zululand she developed an interest in women's activities, and much of what she recorded related to practices such as hairdressing and jewellery.

In March 1936 the sisters started their first trip to Angola.

The aim of the trip was to document the lives, traditions and customs of indigenous peoples.

They were concerned about the impact of European colonisation and wanted to record customs and traditions before they were lost.

They undertook much preparation for their trip.

Before their trip started, Diana undertook several months of work in a hospital in Margate, so that she could treat any possible injuries and bouts of illness.

When they arrived in Africa they bought a truck, which they used for getting around between areas of interest.

For example, in preparation for their 1937 trip they purchased a number of books which included maps, dictionaries and copies of the New Testament in native languages.

They also took several anthropological books.

To gain permission for the trip they had to justify their costs.

The trips were expensive and had to cover the purchase of a truck, buying native objects, petrol and food.

In total the cost of each trip, excluding return trips came to four hundred pounds.

The majority of the natives they worked with belonged to the Kwanayma group in southern Angola and the Ovambo group in Namibia.

At this time, Namibia was under control of the South African government and Angola belonged to Portugal.

In preparation for their work in Angola the sisters familiarised themselves with Portuguese.

Their final collection of objects shows a particular preference for Ovambo artefacts, which is high compared to the other objects collected from other groups.

They both wrote field notes on their expedition as a way of recording their work and observations.

These included detailed descriptions of objects, as well as traditions and rituals they observed.

As part of their work they also collected objects of interest.

Often these objects had been in use already.

They made precise lists of the objects they collected.

One example was their observations of plans used in medical practice.

For every plant they recorded what its purpose was, the location it was found and who it was used by.

The sisters bought most of their objects when they visited villages and communities.

Often the natives lacked experience of selling objects and putting a price on possessions.

The sisters did not always find it easy to buy things from the locals, who sometimes did not want to sell.

Altogether their final collection of artefacts totalled almost 2000 on their first trip and 1000 on their second.

The sisters used film as a means of documenting family life and traditional customs of the people they were observing.

In total they shot over four hours of film on a Kodak camera.