1886.1.1186

Collection type

Object

Description

Arrow with shaft of reed with dark wooden arrow head tapering to a point. The shaft has two bands of grass fibre binding. [MJD 20/2/2009]

Long description

Composite arrow with reed shaft and palm wood or tree fern head held with a binding of plant fibre, possibly hibiscus bast fibre. The end of the arrow is notched, and the reed bound with plant fibre below the notch to prevent splitting. [JU 13/06/2013]

Geographical reference

Vanuatu

Oceania > Melanesia > Vanuatu

Person

Field collector Johann Reinhold Forster

Field collector Georg Forster

PRM source Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford

Date / Period

Date made: Before 1774

Date collected

1773-1774 ?

Acquisition information

Transferred: 19/04/1886

Materials and processes

Material Reed Plant, Material Wood Plant, Material Grass Fibre Plant, Process Carved, Process Bound, Process Notched

Dimensions

Length: max 960 mm, Length: max 330 mm arrow head

Object numbers

Accession number: 1886.1.1186 Other numbers: Forster 152 ?

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]). The text from the 'Forster' manuscript is followed by the following notes: '152. A bundle of arrows. Three are similar to those from Malekula (No.144). The fourth [1886.1.1197?] is three pronged, used for fishing (the normal method) or bird-catching. Lengths: from 96cm. to 122cm.' Listed under numbers 1-11 under ‘New Hebrides...Bows and Arrows’ on page 249 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): '1-11. Two bows (missing), and nine arrows, Oxford (143, 144, 151, 152). Evidence: Forster collection. Probably includes the bow and arrow depicted in official accounts of the second voyage (Cook 1777, Plate 18 [Fig. 535]). Literature: Gathercole, n.d. (1970) [see above]'. [JP 23/7/2002] 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] 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]

Search terms: Archery Weapon, Hunting, Arrow