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1886.1.1164

Pestle of lava stone.

On display

1886.1.1164

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Collection type
Object
Description
Pestle of lava stone.
Long description
Pestle of lava stone. It flares out at the bottom to a convex base. The handle has two projecting, upright sides and a small nodule in the middle. [JFK 25/2/2009]
Date / Period
Date made: Before 04/06/1774?, uncertain
Date collected
Between 17 August and 18 September 1773, or between 22 April and 4 June 1774?
Acquisition information
Transferred: 19/04/1886
Materials and processes
Material Lava Stone, Process Carved
Dimensions
Width: max 125 mm, Height: max 186 mm
Object numbers
Accession number: 1886.1.1164 Other numbers: Forster 28
Associated publications
Listed according to the 'Forster list' numbering system in 'From the Islands of the South Seas 1773–4: An Exhibition of a Collection Made on Capn. Cook's Second Voyage of Discovery by J. R. Forster—A Short Guide (Oxford: Pitt Rivers Museum, no date [1970]): '28. the paste-beater, of Lava. Basalt, for preparing breadfruit, etc. Height: 16cm.' [NMM?; JC 19 5 2011] Listed as number 7 under ‘Tahiti...Food Pounders’ on page 148 of 'Artificial Curiosities': Being an Exposition of Native Manufactures Collected on the Three Pacific Voyages of Captain James Cook, R.N. at the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum, January 18, 1978 – August 31, 1978 on the Occasion of the Bicentennial of the European Discovery of the Hawaiian Islands by Captain Cook – January 18, 1778 (Bernice P. Bishop Museum Special Publication 65), by Adrienne L. Kaeppler (Honolulu: Bishop Museum Press, 1978): '7. Food pounder (forked top) Oxford (28). Evidence: Forster collection. Second voyage. Literature: Gathercole, n.d. (1970) [see above]'. [JP 22/7/2002] Listed on page 603 of 'Appendix A: Catalogue of Society Island Objects with Secure Eighteenth-Century Provenance' in 'Shaping the Body Politic: Gender, Status, and Power in the Art of Eighteenth-Century Tahiti and the Society Islands', by Anne Elizabeth D'Alleva (New York: Columbia University, Ph.D. thesis, 1997). She describes it as follows: 'Black basalt pounder, with forked cross-bar of triangular cross-section. Each fork grooved. Median ridge (1.1 cm W.).' [JP 1/8/2002] Published as part of the Forster Collection on a dedicated website at www.prm.ox.ac.uk/forster (from February 2001). [JC 7 7 2005] Illustrated in colour on page 59 of Fish and Ships! Food on the Voyages of Captain Cook—Catalogue to the Exhibitions 2011–2012 in the Captain Cook Memorial Museum, Whitby (Whitby: Captain Cook Memorial Museum, no date [2012]. Caption (same page) reads: 'Food pounder or pestle, Tahiti / Black basalt with forked cross-bar. Pounders were used to prepare poi and other vegetables, by mashing them on a wooden board or tray. Poi was a paste of breadfruit or taro, plantain and coconut milk, said by George Forster to make a "delicious pudding". Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford 1886.1.1605.' (For details of Eating the Exotic!, the exhibition in which this object featured, see under 'Display History'.) [JC 6 9 2013] For an account of the history of the collection of which this is part, see 'The Cook-Voyage Collections at Oxford, 1772–1775', by Jeremy Coote, in Jeremy Coote (ed.), Cook-Voyage Collections of 'Artificial Curiosities' in Britain and Ireland, 1771–2015 (MEG Occasional Paper No. 5), Oxford: Museum Ethnographers Group (2015), pp. 74–122. (Copy in RDF: Researchers: Jeremy Coote (Cook-Voyage Collections).) [JC 9 6 2016] Referred to on page 1 of 'The Past, Present and Future Values of the Polynesian Stone Adzes and Pounders Collected on the Pandora', by Michelle J. Richards and Jasmin Gunther, in Bulletin of the History of Archaeology, Vol. 29, no. 1, article 4 (pp. 1–15) (online at <https://www.archaeologybulletin.org/articles/10.5334/bha-622/>): 'During the Cook Voyages, adzes and pounders were collected and are now held in several European museum collections. Those at the Pitt Rivers Museum, for instance, include two Tahitian pounders (PRM Banks 1887.1.391 and PRM Forster 28; 1888.1.1164 [sic; 1886.1.1164]) and two adzes (PRM Banks 1887.1.10 and Forster 23; 1886.1.1334) collected by Sir Joseph Banks (1743–1820) on Captain James's Cook's (1728–1779) first voyage aboard the HMS Endeavour (1769–71) and by Johann Reinhold Forster (1729–1798) and Georg Forster (1754–1794) on Cook's second voyage aboard HMS Resolution (1772–1775).' [JC 8 10 2019]

Search terms: Food and Drink, Tool, Beater, Grinder, Food Accessory