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1884.62.33

Base of carved wooden papahou, or 'feather box'.

On display

1884.62.33

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Collection type
Object
Description
Base of carved wooden papahou, or 'feather box'.
Long description
Rectangular-shaped wooden base decoratively carved in relief over the entire outer surface with a geometric design with a pair of figures with haliotis shell eyes at either end that are subtly intertwined into the overall pattern. Painted with black/ brown pigments on the outer surface. Generally known as a feather box, as this style of vessel was designed to contain treasured personal possessions including the feathers of the now extinct huia bird. This style of rectangular-shaped feather box in Maori is called a papahou. [ZM 15/08/2014]
Cultural groups
Māori
Date / Period
Date made: 1775-1825
Date collected
By 1874
Acquisition information
Donated: 1884
Materials and processes
Material Wood Plant, Material Haliotis Shell, Material Pigment, Process Carved, Process Inlaid, Process Painted
Dimensions
Length: max 488 mm, Width: max 211 mm, Depth: max 60 mm
Object numbers
Accession number: 1884.62.33 PR Cat other PR nos: 1696
Research and responses

In November 2014 Professor Ngahuia Te Awekotuku identified the carved surface decoration on this treasure box as kiri kiore or rat skin pattern. [ZM 26/11/2014]

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 52 (page 8 on Simmons's original list). [JC 28 7 2016]

Search terms: Box, Figure, Carving

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