- Collection type
- Object
- Description
- End-blown trumpet/flute, putorino, carved from wood, which is of two pieces bound together with plant fibre.
- Long description
- End-blown trumpet/flute, putorino, carved from wood, which is of two pieces bound together with plant fibre in seven places.The flute is carved at either end with stylised human heads with protruding tongues with inlaid haliotis shell eyes.
- Geographical reference
- Cultural groups
- Māori
- Person
- Maker Unknown Maker
- Field collector Unknown Collector
- PRM source Augustus Henry Lane Fox Pitt Rivers founding collection
- Date / Period
- Date made: Before 1874
- Date collected
- Prior to 1874
- Acquisition information
- Donated: 1884
- Materials and processes
- Material Wood Plant, Material Haliotis Shell, Material Plant Fibre, Material String, Process Bound, Process Carved, Process Decorated, Process Inlaid
- Dimensions
- Diameter: max 60 mm, Length: max 675 mm
- Object numbers
- Accession number: 1884.112.10 PR Cat other PR nos: 2982
- Research and responses
Studied by Alistair Fraser (http://www.maoriart.org.nz/al-fraser-p-567.html musician) on the 29 April 2015. He made the following observations: Putorino. Proximal mangai 17 mm x 16 mm. Muka binding - unusual continuous string runs down side of instrument interconnecting narrow binding. Discolouration on binding sites. Evidence of gum/resin when looking through central mangai. Central mangai 22 mm x 18 mm. Distal wenewene 1mm diamond shaped. 8-9 binding sites. Oval shaped eyes - pana shell. [FB 01/05/2015]
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 53 (page 9 of Simmons's original list). [JC 28 7 2016]
Search terms: Music, Figure, Musical Instrument, Trumpet