Fly whisk of coconut fibre with a wooden handle. [JU 12/06/2012]

Collection type: Object
Description: Fly whisk of coconut fibre with a wooden handle. [JU 12/06/2012]
Long description: Flywhisk with a wooden handle, which measures 255mm from the base to the binding, which is probably of olonga fibre. The binding is 22 mm wide, and is made up of 11 turns of a two-ply plant fibre cord. The top part of the flywhisk is made up of coconut fibres; these fibres are very coarse, similar to those fibres of the outer husk of the coconut. This part measures 300 mm in length and roughly 130 mm wide. The majority of the coconut fibres have been plaited together in three plaits, with the ends of some fibres allowed to escape from the plait at each knot, thus forming the structure of the flywhisk. Some fibres are bound directly into the plant fibre binding. [JU 17/12/2013]
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 Wood Plant, Material Coconut Fibre Plant, Process Carved, Process Bound, Process Plaited
Dimensions: Length x Width: max 575 x 210 mm
Object numbers: Accession number: 1886.1.1370 Other numbers: Forster 101
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 Friendly Isles (Tonga)...101. A fly flap of the fibres of coconut. These fly whisks had both mundane and ceremonial use, for certain chiefs could embellish their oratory by waving them. Overall length: 53 cm.' [NMM 18 12 1996; JC 29 12 1999, 14 8 2015] Reproduced as plate 4a accompanying 'Eighteenth-Century Tonga: New Interpretations of the Tongan Society and Material Culture at the Time of Captain Cook', by Adrienne L. Kaeppler, in Man, n.s., Vol. VI, no. 2 (June 1971), pp. 204-220. The flywhisk is discussed in detail by Kaeppler on page 215: 'A specimen in the Pitt Rivers Museum illustrates the usual early type of fly whisk. It is made with a slightly tapered, polished wood handle and a whisk of coconut fibre, bound by a wrapping of twisted 'olonga fibre. It is 53 cm. in length and a small section of the whisk is braided. An almost identical piece exists in the Forster collection in Göttingen, and there are two similar ones in the British Museum. The Pitt Rivers example is a good type specimen.... The fly whisk, fue kafa, was an important symbol of rank in Tonga. It was manipulated in a specific manner, called fuefue, which took practice and deftness of hand....' [JC 29 12 1999] Listed as number 5 under ‘The Friendly Isles (Tonga)...Fly Whisks’ on page 224 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): 'Fly whisk with straight wood handle, Oxford (101). Evidence: Forster collection, second voyage. Literature: Gathercole, n.d. (1970) [see above]'; Kaeppler, 1971, p. 215. [JC 29 12 1999] 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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