- Collection type
- Object
- Description
- Scraper: A strip of the thorny stem of the rattan used as a grater in preparing coconut kernel.
- Geographical reference
- Nicobar Islands
- Person
- Maker Unknown Maker
- Field collector Edward Horace Man
- PRM source Augustus Henry Lane Fox Pitt Rivers founding collection
- Date / Period
- Date made: Possibly before 1881
- Date collected
- ?Prior to 1881 or 1886
- Acquisition information
- Donated: 1884
- Materials and processes
- Material Rattan Fibre Plant, Material Rattan Plant
- Dimensions
- Length: max 940 mm
- Object numbers
- Accession number: 1884.10.5 PR no.: 50/ 11935
- Research and responses
Note that there is a joint entry for objects 1884.10.5 - 7 and that two of these objects are given a fraction number 50/ 11935 or 50a/ 11935 and the other is dated 21.1.78 and has the four figure number 3638. The green book entry matches the 21.1.78 entry. NB This is not no. 82 in JAI, 1878: 459 but 13. JAI 1878: 466 'Kanshait Used as a scraper in preparing the kernel of the cocoa nut and Cycas Rumphii for use' [Taken from the 'List of Andamanese and Nicobarese implements ornaments etc presented to Major General Lane Fox by EH Man esq and thus described by Mr Man 18th September 1877']. Note that there is some discrepancy between the match to the delivery catalogue which would suggest a collection date prior to 1884 and the Accession book VII entry which has the number in black ink which according to the following letter suggests that the item was obhtained in 1886. The fraction number would suggest that the item was collected in 1881:
PRM Tylor papers B 13
27.10.86
EH Man to EB Tylor
...
With reference to the correspondence which took place between us a few months ago on the subject of a further collection of Nicobarese objects in order as far as possible to complete the set commenced by me a few years ago and now transferred from Sth Kensington to Oxford I beg to inform you that I am now despatching to your address a case measuring about 7 feet by 4 ft by 1 3/4 ft containing the objects numbered in black ink in the accompanying Catalogue (Column 1) which I am sending with a packet of photographs under registered cover. ....
As I thought you wd prefer that the Catalogue I have prepared on this occasion shd contain all the objects previously supplied I have adopted this plan and have also included mention of several other objects wh are either too bulky to send or wh can be sufficiently illustrated by means of photographs or a written description.
...
This would suggest that the Nicobar catalogue lists all Nicobar items from Man including the 1886 ones which are numbered in black. The Nicobar entries in the PR computerised catalogue now reflect this. [AP Leverhulme project on founding collection 1995-1998]
Search terms: Tool, Food and Drink, Scraper, Grater, Food Accessory