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Pitt Rivers Museum

1934.81.98

Skirt of split plant fibre fringing bound and stitched around a twisted plant fibre cord at the top, tied together at either end. This skirt is folded in half. [MOBB [OPS move] 27/1/2017]


1934.81.98

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Collection type
Object
Description
Skirt of split plant fibre fringing bound and stitched around a twisted plant fibre cord at the top, tied together at either end. This skirt is folded in half. [MOBB [OPS move] 27/1/2017]
Geographical reference
Chin State Chin Hills Tiddim district
Cultural groups
Ngoru Chin
Ngorn
Thado
Person
Field collector W. Biber
Field collector James Henry Green
PRM source James Henry Green
Date / Period
Date made: Before 1934
Date collected
By 1934 [By 1931 ?*]
Acquisition information
Donated: 1934
Materials and processes
Material Plant Fibre, Material String, Process Split, Process Twisted, Process Stitched
Dimensions
Width: max 675 mm folded, Length: max 385 mm
Object numbers
Accession number: 1934.81.98
Research and responses

Ngoru Chin may be synonymous with the Ngorn Chin, a Kuki-Chin group mentioned in the 1931 Census of Burma (the same census does not mention the Ngoru - I can only find references to them in the Green collection documentation and in Green's dissertation). [SHD 31/1/2001]

It is not clear whether the Ngorn Chin items in the Green collection (1934.81.1 - .2) were collected at source by Green. He did not visit all Chin areas and did not work closely with Chin peoples (he did make one tour to the Upper Chindwin area [which does not include the Tiddim district], but c.f. items in this collection collected by Biber from Chin areas it seems were not visited by Green). [SHD 31/1/2001]

At first it seemed to SHD that this collection may have some to Oxford as early as the end of 1930, and thus have been collected in Burma before that time. One suspected this because of it originally having been listed with the G D Walker collection (see comment at the beginning of the accession book entry, above). The Walker collection (1931.87) was accessioned in 1931 but sent from Assam, India by Walker before 11 November 1930 (see his letter to this effect in Related Documents File). Included in this Green collection (1934.81) however, are items indicated by a related document to have been collected in 1931 by Green from W. ?Biber (1934.81.9, 12, 31-51 & 82). In practice, the Green collection may simply have been entered in the same notebook as the Walker collection because there remained pages to be filled in that book - i.e. there may or may not be a substantive connection between the two collections. [SHD 30/1/2001]

The objects referred to by the single entry in accession book IX were given the retrospective number 1934.55 in that accession book. Those objects are entered individually in the Green collection catalogue. In this volume, the collection had been given the retrospective accession number 1934.81, and this is the number used. [CW 6/4/2000]

Search terms: Clothing, Cordage, Skirt