1913.77.14

Collection type

Object

Description

Rice spoon with a large ovate bowl and a handle carved in human form. [EC 'DCF 2004-2006 What's Upstairs?' 8/3/2006]

Geographical reference

Philippines

Asia > South-eastern Asia > Philippines

Northern Luzon [Nueva Viscaya]

Cultural groups

Ifugao

Person

Field collector William Arthur Wilfred Turnbull

PRM source Mrs Turnbull

Date / Period

Date made: Before 1913

Date collected

By 1913

Acquisition information

Purchased: 1913

Materials and processes

Material Wood Plant, Process Carved

Dimensions

Length: max 210 mm, Width: max 66 mm

Object numbers

Accession number: 1913.77.14

Research and responses

There are also some Mrs Turnbull pieces which came in via Henry Balfour in 1939 see 1938.34.509 and 1938.34.510 [AP 23/6/2000]

Related Documents File - A list of publications discovered by Jeremy Coote in 1994 "In an attempt to find something out about the son of Mrs Turnbull from whom collection 1913.77 was bought I looked up the name 'Turnbull' in Shiro Saito's Philippine Ethnography: A Critically Annotated and Selected Bibliography (East - West Bibliographic Series 2), Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1972. The only Turnbull indexed is one Wilfred, whose publications, all of which are in the Philippine Magazine, are listed below. I was unable to locate any library in the UK that holds the Philippine Magazine." The list of publications are: The Dumgats of North - East Luzon: Part I and II, Vol. XXVI, no. 3 and 4, Among the Ilongots Twenty Years Ago: Parts I - III, Vol. XXVI, nos. 5, 6 and 7, Bringing a Wild Tribe Under Government Control: Parts I - III, Vols. XXVI, XXVII and XVII respectively, nos. 12, 1 and 2 respectively, Early Days in Constabulary: Parts I - XIV, Vols. XXIX and XXX. [EB 6/11/2001]

In 1913 the Pitt Rivers Museum purchased objects from one Mrs Turnbull, who also sold material to the British Museum and the Horniman in 1914. It is thought that the field collector – actually her son – was William Arthur Wilfred (“Wilfrid”) Turnbull, an American lieutenant in the Philippine Constabulary in the first decade of the twentieth century, and who spent time among the Ilongot people, notably from 1909-1910 during the William Jones Affair. He died in 1944, possibly from myocarditis while interned in a Japanese camp. Information provided by Samantha Chen as part of her SOAS Education Co-creator Internship, during which she researched the Philippine collections at the Pitt Rivers Museum and added data to the SOAS Mapping Philippine Material Culture project (https://philippinestudies.uk/mapping/collections/show/275).

Search terms: Food and Drink, Figure, Spoon, Food Accessory