Mat. Made of plaited plant fibre (olonga) with an unplaited fringe border. [JU 04/06/2013]

Collection type: Object
Description: Mat. Made of plaited plant fibre (olonga) with an unplaited fringe border. [JU 04/06/2013]
Long description: Plaited mat made of olonga (Pipturus argenteus). Lengths of plant material have been left unplaited at the edges of the mat, and the fibres processed to form a fringe. [JU 04/06/2013]
Geographical reference: Tonga
Oceania > Polynesia > Tonga
Person: Field collector Johann Reinhold Forster; Field collector Georg Forster; PRM source Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
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 Plant Fibre, Process Plaited
Dimensions: Length x Width: max 1520 x 910 mm
Object numbers: Accession number: 1886.1.1257 Other numbers: Forster 22
Research and responses: Peter Gathercole examined this mat (17/4/97) and stated that it could not be from New Zealand due to the weaving technique and that the mat was clearly from Tahiti. [NM 18/4/97]
Swabs were taken from the surface of this mat and sent to Andrew Charlton at FERA for analysis of pesticide residues [JU 24/04/2013]
A sample of the fibre from the mat was mounted on a microscope slide using Numount mounting medium. Examined under crossed polars, the fibres appeared very similar to sample fibres taken from 1886.1.1246, a Tongan fishing net, and from several Tongan fish hooks. It is possible that these fibres are olonga (Pipturus argenteus). [JU 04/06/2013].
William Marriner, in 'An Account of the Natives of the Tonga Islands' Vol. 2 p294 writes that 'Gie, stronger mats made of the bark of the fow or olonga, worn chiefly by people in canoes to keep out the wet, as the water does not damage them: they appear as if they were made of horse-hair. Laballardiere mentions that he saw a woman of rank with a sort of mat made of the white hair of a horse's tail. He supposed that it must have been procured from some horses that Cook had left there.'
Samples of the fringe of the mat were taken and sent to Caroline Cartwright at the British Museum for identification. She confirmed that the mat is made from olonga (Pipturus argenteus) [JU 18/06/2013] See RDF for her report [JU 13/12/2013]
The surface of the mat was analysed by Kelly Domoney, Research Fellow at Cranfield Forensic Institute, using an Oxford Instruments XMET-500 handheld XRF. [JU 08/08/2013]
Listed, as a comparable example to mats in the collections of the National Museum of Ireland, on page 157 of '"A Number of Highly Interesting Objects": The Cook-Voyage Collections of Trinity College Dublin', by Rachel Hand, 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 (2016), pp. 123–90. [JC 9 6 2016]
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]): 'Otaheitee and the Society isles...21. 22. Two Otaheitee Matts. One of hibiscus, the other of pandanus leaf. Dimensions (excluding fringe): 202 cm. x 154 cm.; 152 cm. x 91 cm.' [unsigned, undated; JC 14 8 2015] Listed under numbers 3-4 under ‘Tahiti...Mats’ on page 131 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): '3-4. Two plaited mats, Oxford (21-22). Dimensions 202 cm x 154 cm, 152 cm x 91 cm. Evidence: Forster collection. Second voyage. Literature: Gathercole, n.d. (1970) [see above]'. [JP 23/7/2002] Listed on page 550 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: 'Plaited mat with fringed edge. 6 plats/cm.' [JP 31/7/2002] 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]

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