Flat basket of coconut fibre woven in lozenge-patterns with white shell disc or ring beads edging the lozenges and mouth. This basket is very fragile - handling should be restricted [JU 06/11/2012]T

Collection type: Object
Description: Flat basket of coconut fibre woven in lozenge-patterns with white shell disc or ring beads edging the lozenges and mouth. This basket is very fragile - handling should be restricted [JU 06/11/2012]T
Long description: Basket made from the coconut fibres obtained from the separated fibres of the coconut husk, leaf sheath or roots (kaka). Single strands of this fibre are twined in double pairs over a framework of thicker coconut fibre to form a flat basket. Dyed and undyed coconut fibres are used to create a geometric design, separated by shell and coconut shell beads. The top rim of the basket is made from a central core of plant material, covered with a binding of plaited coconut fibre cord. [JU 31/07/2012]
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 Sennit Coconut Seed Fibre Plant, Material Shell, Material Pigment, Process Plaited, Process Twill Woven, Process Dyed, Process Basketry
Dimensions: Length: max 435 mm, Width: max 335 mm
Object numbers: Accession number: 1886.1.1330 Other numbers: Forster 89
Research and responses: NB Despite the claims made in the past, this is not the basket illustrated as figure 3 in the engraving by John Record (after Charles Chapman) reproduced as plate XXI facing page 220 of A Voyage towards the South Pole and Round the World, performed in His Majesty's Ships the Resolution and Adventure, in the Years 1772, 1773, 1774, and 1775 (2 vols), by James Cook (London: W. Strahan and T. Cadell, 1777). It is of the same type as the one illustrated, but amongst other things the pattern of the motifs is distinctly different. [JC 25 8 2005]
The pattern of the basket is a genealogical metaphor known as manulua, formed by triangles meeting at their points. The design represents two birds flying together (manu = bird, lua = two), which is a metaphor for a high ranking person whose parentage is equally high on both sides. See 'The Pacific Arts of Polynesia and Micronesia' by Adrienne Kaeppler (Oxford, OUP, 2008) p46.
The shell beads have been identified by Kathie Way, Senior Curator of Mollusca at the Natural History Museum, London, as being made from a species of Dentalium [JU 19/09/2012]
Associated publications: Listed in the Catalogue de la Section Ethnographique de l’Exposition Internationale Coloniale et d’Exportation Générale tenue à Amsterdam du 1 Mai au 31 Octobre 1883, by L. Serrurier (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1883), the accompanying catalogue to the exhibition listed above (also published in Dutch), as no. 8: ‘Collection of objects from Captain Cook’s second voyage, exhibited by the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford ... 8. Pouch woven from fibres from the coconut tree, partially dyed black. The material forms triangles at the sides, into which little rings of shell have been woven. (Cook Second Voyage, p[late]. 21, fig. 3).' (Translated from the French for the PRM by Adrienne Hopkins, 2002.) [JP 24/9/2004; JC 25 8 2005] 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 Friendly Isles (Tonga)...88-90. Three baskets of coconut core with shell work. Nos. 89 and 90 similar to the outer cover of No. 87. No. 88 is an oval basket of black wickerwork, decorated with crescents and triangles of sinnet. Widths: 60 cm.; 43 cm.; 28 cm.' (NB The basket identified by Gathercole as Forster 88 has since been reidentified as Forster 86.) [NMM, undated; JC 28 5 2005, 14 8 2015] Listed with 1886.1.1333 as numbers 28-29 under ‘Tonga...Baskets’ on page 220 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): '28-29. Two baskets of kato mosi kaka type, Oxford (89, 90). Evidence: Forster collection, second voyage. Literature: Gathercole, n.d. (1970) [see above for details]'. [JP 24/7/2002; JC 25 8 2005] 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: Basketry, Basket