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1906.58.83

Eye-shade made from plant fibres woven in a criss-cross design. [ZM 14/3/2005]

1906.58.83

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Collection type
Object
Description
Eye-shade made from plant fibres woven in a criss-cross design. [ZM 14/3/2005]
Long description
Description taken from Conservation Card by Birgitte Speake 03/02/1997 - Eye-shade made from plant fibres woven in a criss-cross design. Sown shade made from broad, flat leaves (?palm grass). See previous Conservation Card (1977) for a B/W photograph. (Emma Hook 03/02/1997) [LKG 03/04/2009]
Geographical reference
Tuvalu
Oceania > Polynesia > Tuvalu
Funafuti
Person
Field collector William Johnson Sollas
PRM source William Johnson Sollas
Date / Period
Date made: Before 1896
Date collected
1896
Acquisition information
Donated: 1906
Materials and processes
Material Plant Fibre, Process Woven, Process Basketry
Dimensions
Length: max 360 mm
Object numbers
Accession number: 1906.58.83
Research and responses

Such shades are made by men only when fishing, and are thrown away once the day's work is finished. They are usually made from either coconut palm frond or pandanus leaf, and extra leaves may be tucked in to protect the head. Shades are often used to store and carry small items, such as sticks of tobacco and fish hooks. [CW 17 9 1997]

Associated publications
Published (detail only, with 1886.1.1410 and 1926.23.14) as a PRM postcard in 1997. [JC 16 3 2011] Published (detail only, with 1886.1.1410 and 1926.23.14) as Plate 3 on page 23 of 'The Importance of Materials', by Stephanie Bunn, in Journal of Museum Ethnography, no. 11 (1999), pp, 15-28. Caption (same page) reads: 'Details of eye-shades. From top: knotted coconut fibre, Tahiti, 1886.1.1410; palm-leaf, Solomon Islands, 1926.23.14; palm-leaf, Tuvalu, 1906.58.83.' [JC 16 3 2011] Published (detail only, with 1886.1.1410 and 1906.58.83) as Figure 2.3 on page 00 of 'Materials in Making', by Stephanie Bunn, in Tim Ingold (ed.), Redrawing Anthropology: Materials, Movements, Lines (Anthropological Studies of Creativity and Perception series), (Farnham: Ashgate, 2011), pp. 00-00. Caption (same page) reads: 'Details of eye-shades. From top: knotted coconut fibre, Tahiti, 1886.1.1410; palm-leaf, Solomon Islands, 1926.23.14; palm-leaf, Tuvalu, 1906.58.83. Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford. Reproduced with permission.' [JC 15 11 2019]

Search terms: Clothing Headgear, Fishing, Eye-shade, Fishing Accessory