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1911.32.1.2

Bow. Made from two feathers. The two quills are socketed into each other and bound with ?sinew. The feathers are bent to form the bow with a string stretched across. [AB [OPS move] 13/12/2017]

1911.32.1.2

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Collection type
Object
Description
Bow. Made from two feathers. The two quills are socketed into each other and bound with ?sinew. The feathers are bent to form the bow with a string stretched across. [AB [OPS move] 13/12/2017]
Long description
Bow. Made from two feathers. The two quills are socketed into each other and bound with ?sinew. The feathers are bent to form the bow with a string stretched across. Associated with a Zuni 'war god' or ahayu'da figure [1911.32.1 .1]. [AB [OPS move] 13/12/2017]
Cultural groups
Zuni
Date / Period
Date made: 1885
Date collected
By 1911
Acquisition information
Donated: 1911
Materials and processes
Material Bird Feather, Material String, Material Sinew, Process Bound, Process Knotted, Process Socketed
Dimensions
Depth: max 48 mm, Width: max 218 mm, Length: max 461 mm
Object numbers
Accession number: 1911.32.1.2
Research and responses

In 1993, this object was the subject of a repatriation claim by the Zuni Tribal Council. The claim was turned down by the Committee for the Pitt Rivers Museum at its meeting on 26 October 1993. For an account of the claim, see 'The Zuni War God at the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford and its Contested Status', a paper presented by Jeremy Coote at 'Point of No Return? Museums and Repatriation', a Museums Association seminar, held at the Museum of London on Tuesday 4 November 1997. A copy of this paper is held in the RDF and another copy is available for consultation at the Balfour Library, Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford. For a published account of the case, see “Whose Idea Was This? Museums, Replicas, and the Reproduction of Knowledge’, by Gwyneira Isaac, in Current Anthropology, Vol. 52, no. 2 (April 2011), pp. 211–33; copy in RDF and online at http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/659141. [JC 11 8 2010, 8 8 2011]

Associated publications
A photograph of the set-up ahayu'da on display in the Museum was reproduced in black and white to illustrate 'Travellers' Trophies', by Guy Brett, in The Times (12 January 1971). [JC 26 6 1998]

Search terms: Religion, Ritual and Ceremonial, Archery Weapon, Religious Object, Figure, Bow, Ceremonial Object

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