Large, round wooden bowl with four legs and coconut fibre rope. Five notches on the rim denoting passing of the bowl from one generation to another.

Collection type: Object
Description: Large, round wooden bowl with four legs and coconut fibre rope. Five notches on the rim denoting passing of the bowl from one generation to another.
Geographical reference: Fiji
Oceania > Melanesia > Fiji
Person: Field collector Unknown Collector; PRM source Stevens Auction Rooms
Date / Period: Date made: Before 1925
Date collected: By 1925
Acquisition information: Purchased: 1925
Materials and processes: Material Wood Plant, Material Coconut Fibre Plant, Material Rope, Process Carved, Process Plaited
Dimensions: Diameter: max 716 mm, Height: max 213 mm
Object numbers: Accession number: 1925.63.6
Research and responses: Examined on 14 June 2012 by Fergus Clunie who noted the local name for this is a tanoa bowl with a box-chain hanging cord. Fergus dated this as mid-nineteenth century as there are five generational notches that are carved around the rim. Three of the notches denoting generational change of the bowl's keeper are in the rim overhanging the suspension lug, the other two on the opposite side of the rim. When passed to a new generation a new notch would then be carved. A change of generation can be from brother to brother and is not necessarily father to son. Nevertheless the five notches indicate the bowl was at least several decades old when collected. [ZM 14/06/2012]

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