1919.58.119

Collection type

Object

Description

Fishing-kite with winder and cobweb tangle lure. In a glass-fronted frame. [El.B 26/3/2008]

Geographical reference

Papua New Guinea

Oceania > Melanesia > Papua New Guinea

Massim D'Entrecasteaux Islands Dobu Island

Person

Field collector Diamond Jenness

PRM source Committee for Anthropology, University of Oxford

Date / Period

Date made: Before 1913

Date collected

By 1913

Acquisition information

Donated: 1913

Materials and processes

Material Plant Leaf, Material Wood Plant, Material Spider Web, Process Stitched, Process Twisted, Process Wound, Process Framed

Dimensions

Depth: max 25 mm frame, Width: max 405 mm frame, Length: max 835 mm frame

Object numbers

Accession number: 1919.58.119

Research and responses

For an account of the technology and distribution of kite-fishing, see 'Kite-Fishing', by Henry Balfour, in Essays and Studies Presented to William Ridgeway ... On His Sixtieth Birthday, 6 August 1913, edited by E. C. Quiggin (Cambridge: at the University Press, 1913), pp. 583-608. [JC 12 6 2008]

Presumably this is one of the kites referred to on page 590 of 'Kite-Fishing', by Henry Balfour, in Essays and Studies Presented to William Ridgeway ... On His Sixtieth Birthday, 6 August 1913, edited by E. C. Quiggin (Cambridge: at the University Press, 1913), pp. 583-608. Balfour writes, 'In 1909 the Hon. J. H. P. Murray kindly procured for me one of the Dobu fishing-kites..., and ascertained that the local name for it is dauni. I have lately also received several examples of this apparatus from Mr D. Jenness, who recently spent nearly a year in the D'Entrecasteaux Islands. He also sent me two of the frames upon which the spider's web is collected.' He goes on to say that 'one of the cobweb lures is shown in Figure 10' [on page 591], while the caption for Figure 10 (on page 607) reads: 'Fig. 10. - Spider's web lure used with the fishing-kite, Dobu Island. Collected by D. Jenness. Pitt Rivers Museum.' NB For eleven fishing-kites from Dobu in the collections of the PRM associated with Jenness, see 1909.3.1, 1913.88.280, 1913.88.281, 1919.58.118, 1919.58.119, 1919.58.120, 1919.58.121, 1919.58.122, 1919.58.123, 1919.58.124. It is not known how Jenness acquired 1909.3.1, but the nine others were acquired by him during his field research and donated to the PRM by the Committee for Anthropology in 1913 (those with 1919 accession numbers apparently not being entered until six years after they had been donated). Balfour's account may be taken as referring to all eleven kites; while the lure illustrated in his Figure 10 could be from any one of them. The Museum has no record of the kite from Dobu procured for Balfour by Murray (illustrated in Figure 7 on page 588) and captioned (on page 607) as: 'Fig. 7. - Fishing-kite, daune, of Morinda leaves with lure of spider's web, Dobu Island, British New Guinea. Given by the Hon. J. H. P. Murray to the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, 1909.' It is, however, unclear how Jenness acquired the collection 1909.3, of which a fishing-kite from Dobu forms a part (1909.3.1), so it seems at least possible that that collection actually came from Murray, though it is difficult to see how the confusion could have arisen. [JC 13 6 2008]

For a comprehensive account of kite-fishing, see This Ingenious and Singular Apparatus: Fishing Kites of the Indo-Pacific - Illustrated with Figures of the Things Describ'd, by Gerry Barton and Stefan Dietrich (Norderstedt: Books on Demand, in association with the Völkerkundemuseum vPST, Heidelberg, 2009). [JC 10 10 2019]

Associated publications

Listed as number 40 on page 275 of 'Appendix I: Collection Locations' in This Ingenious and Singular Apparatus: Fishing Kites of the Indo-Pacific - Illustrated with Figures of the Things Describ'd, by Gerry Barton and Stefan Dietrich (Norderstedt: Books on Demand, in association with the Völkerkundemuseum vPST, Heidelberg, 2009). [JC 10 10 2019]

Search terms: Fishing, Kite, Fishing Accessory, Lure