1897.62.1.2

Collection type

Object

Description

Model sternpost [ZM 13/11/2014]

Long description

Model sternpost (taurapa). Carved from a single piece of wood with a pattern used on the sternpost of a Maori war canoe (waka taua). The pattern features two vertical ribs with a beaked guardian figure (manaia) at both ends, enclosed with openwork spirals (pitau), and a human face looking in the direction of travel at the lower end. Painted red over the entire surface. [ZM 13/11/2014]

Geographical reference

New Zealand

Oceania > Australia and New Zealand > New Zealand

Cultural groups

Māori

Person

Field collector Unknown Collector

PRM source Mr Bateman

PRM source J. Bateman

Date / Period

Date made: Before 1897

Date collected

By 1897

Acquisition information

Purchased: 1897

Materials and processes

Material Pigment, Material Wood Plant, Process Carved, Process Openwork, Process Painted

Dimensions

Length: max 352 mm, Width: max 127 mm

Object numbers

Accession number: 1897.62.1.2

Research and responses

This appears to be a model of a canoe sternpost due to the small size. Research and examination of the object suggests the carved pattern is the same as the sternposts used on Maori war canoes (having two vertical ribs with a beaked guardian figure (manaia) at both ends, openwork spirals (pitau), and a human face looking in the direction of travel at the lower end). See the description of the typical composition of a Maori war canoe sternpost on page 98 of 'Wood Carving' by Roger Neich in D.C. Starzecka (ed), 1996, Maori Art and Culture, London: British Museum Press. [ZM 13/11/2014]

In 1978, David Simmons recorded the holdings of Māori material in a number of museums in Europe and North America including, in May 1978, the Pitt Rivers Museum. (For copies of his notes and related correspondence, see RDF: Researchers: Simmons.) In 1996, Simmons put together the ‘draft catalogues’ he had prepared, depositing copies in, at least, the National Library of New Zealand / Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa and the British Museum. The ‘draft catalogue’ of the Māori material in the PRM, which includes photocopies of some of the relevant catalogue index cards and annotations supplied by PRM assistant curator Lynne Williamson in 1982, was included in ‘Draft Catalogues of Maori Material in English Museums II. Prepared by David Simmons from records made in 1978… Compiled in Auckland in 1996’. It is now widely accepted that Simmons’s assertions about the provenance and history of individual Māori objects are not to be trusted without further evidence and/or documentation. Nevertheless, as the entries in this document have been referred in the literature, in July 2016 I obtained from the British Museum scans of the pages devoted to the PRM’s collections (numbered by hand as pages 43 to 62), printing out a copy for the RDF. For the entry for this object, see page 55 (page 11 of Simmons's original list). [JC 28 7 2016]

Search terms: Navigation, Figure, Model, Canoe Part