1886.1.1323

Collection type

Object

Description

Flat basket of palm leaf strip or grass, shiny yellow, with fibre cord handle.

Long description

Flat plaited basket of pandanus leaf, with a coconut fibre cord handle. The basket was plaited from the bottom up, the initiation of the plait forming the inside of the bottom of the basket. The top and bottom epidermis are present on the leaves, suggesting that minimal processing of the leaf has occurred. [JU 31/01/2013]

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 29/06/1774

Date collected

Between 2 and 7 October 1773 or between 26 and 29 June 1774

Acquisition information

Transferred: 19/04/1886

Materials and processes

Material Pandanus Plant, Material Coconut Fibre Plant, Process Plaited, Process Chequer, Process Basketry

Dimensions

Width: max 205 mm, Length: max 375 mm

Object numbers

Accession number: 1886.1.1323 Other numbers: Forster 92

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]): '92. a Square matteed basket, of palm-leaves. Width: 36 cm.' [JC 20 2 2001, 13 8 2015] Listed as number 52 under ‘Tonga...Baskets’ on page 222 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): '52. Basket of pandanus (square), Oxford (92). Dimensions 36 cm. Evidence: Forster collection. Second voyage. Literature: Gathercole, n.d. (1970) [see above]'. [JP 24/7/2002] 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] Listed as catalogue number 295 on page 197 of James Cook and the Exploration of the Pacific, by Adrienne l. Kaeppler et al. (London: Thames & Hudson, 2009) with the caption: '259 Basket kato | Tonga, by June 1774 | Pandanus leaf, coconut fibre, 20.5 x 37.5 cm | Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, 1886.1.1323 (Forster 92, no ill.) | Rectangular-shaped bag of plaited pandanus leaf with a coconut-fibre carrying cord. J[eremy].C[oote]. [FB 09/04/2013; JC 13 8 2015] 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: Basketry, Basket