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1941.2.85

Burial bird figure. [MJD 04/07/2014]

1941.2.85

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Collection type
Object
Description
Burial bird figure. [MJD 04/07/2014]
Long description
Burial bird figure of volcanic stone. The creature is seated - with its limbs folded to the sides. The figure's head and neck are raised. The figure has a short tail pointing in the air. The figure has a hole through the middle of its back, drilled from both sides. [MJD 04/07/2014]
Person
Field collector Paul Isaac Nordmann
PRM source Irene Marguerite Beasley
Date / Period
Date made: Before 1935
Date collected
By 1935
Acquisition information
Donated: 1941
Materials and processes
Material Stone, Material Lava Stone, Process Carved, Process Drilled
Dimensions
Height: max 185 mm, Length: max 283 mm, Width: max 112 mm
Object numbers
Accession number: 1941.2.85 Other numbers: 3560
Associated publications
Illustrated as a drawing as Plate 5C on page 124 of The Art Forms of Polynesia, by Gilbert Archey (Bulletin of the Auckland Institute and Museum, No. 4), (Auckland: Whitcombe and Tombs Limited, 1965). Listed on page 71 in Archey's 'Appendix: Record of Society and Austral Islands images preserved in collections of illustrated in early voyages...'. [JC 27 8 2000] Referred to on page 529 of 'Australia and Oceania', by Dan Hicks, in World Archaeology at the Pitt Rivers Museum: A Characterization, edited by Dan Hicks and Alice Stevenson (Oxford: Archaeopress, 2013), pp. 525-553. Hicks writes: 'The final object from the Society Islands is a carved stone figure of a bird, recorded as recovered from a ‘cave burial’ on Tahiti before 1935 (1941.2.85; cf. Grüning 1937 [Grüning E.L. 1937. Notes on burial caves in the Cook Group, South Pacific. Ethnologia Cranmorensis 1: 21–25.]), from the collection of Harry Geoffrey Beasley, which was known as the Cranmore Ethnographical Museum (Waterfield and King 2006 [Waterfield, H. and J.C.H. King 2006. Provenance: twelve collectors of ethnographic art in England 1760–1990. Paris: Somogy Art Publishers.]).' [MJD (Verve) 7/1/2016]

Search terms: Figure, Death, Religion, Bird Figure, Grave Good, Animal Figure

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