String covered with short downy white and dyed red feathers with occasional larger white feathers [EC 'DCF 2004-2006 What's Upstairs?' 15/9/2005]

Collection type: Object
Description: String covered with short downy white and dyed red feathers with occasional larger white feathers [EC 'DCF 2004-2006 What's Upstairs?' 15/9/2005]
Geographical reference: Vanuatu
Oceania > Melanesia > Vanuatu; Banks Islands
Person: Field collector Robert Henry Codrington; Field collector Melanesian Mission; PRM source Robert Henry Codrington
Date / Period: Date made: Before 1888
Date collected: By 1888
Acquisition information: Donated: 1920
Materials and processes: Material Bird Feather, Material Pigment, Process Dyed
Dimensions: Diameter: max 390 mm feathers
Object numbers: Accession number: 1920.100.376
Research and responses: Related Documents File - Letter from Codrington to Balfour, dated 13 July 1916 giving information regarding objects from San Cristoval, the Torres Islands and the Banks Islands, as well as plans for setting up a Museum at his former school. [See file for full text.] [MOB 15/11/2001]
Associated publications: This object was featured in the Museum’s ‘web gallery’ (‘Selected Objects from the Lower Gallery’) produced during the DCF-funded ‘What’s Upstairs?’ project, 2004–2006, with the following caption: ‘This red and white feather string, or wetapup, was collected in Vanuatu in the late nineteenth century. Strings such as these were worn by males on the neck or ankle as a sign of social status. The strings were also used as a form of currency.

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