Narrow wooden shield with black line ornamentation made by cutting away blackened surface. [LM 07/11/2007]

Collection type: Object
Description: Narrow wooden shield with black line ornamentation made by cutting away blackened surface. [LM 07/11/2007]
Geographical reference: Solomon Islands
Oceania > Melanesia > Solomon Islands
Person: Field collector Unknown Collector; PRM source Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
Date / Period: Date made: On or before 1867, uncertain
Date collected: ?On or before 1867
Acquisition information: Transferred: 10/02/1886
Materials and processes: Material Wood Plant, Process Carved, Process Painted
Object numbers: Accession number: 1886.1.1387
Research and responses: Ashmolean letter book [page 1] 'Catalogue of Curiosities from the Figi [sic] or Cannibal Islands' is described by Arthur MacGregor of the Ashmolean as 'Ashmolean Museum, AMS ** (1) 1867, Three loose sheets 225 x 185 mm pasted into Museum letter book ... purchased in 1867, from an old Resident among the Savages' represent on the last extensive acquisitions of ethnographic specimens by the Ashmolean prior to the transfer of all such material to the Pitt Rivers Museum in 1886. Many of the specimens are described in greater detail ... [in the vellum volume]. The present list represents the primary record of these items within the Ashmolean's collections. [Title] 'Catalogue of Curiosities and Very Old Carved War clubs &c &c and Collected at the Figi or Cannibal Islands by an old Resident among the Savages'.' [quoted from A. Macgregor etc 'Manuscript Catalogues of the Early Museum Collections, 1683 - 1886' [2000?] [AP 8/5/2000]
Associated publications: Referred to on page 34 of 'From Personal Ornaments to Canoe Carvings and Shields: Re-presentations and Translations of Personal Ornaments as Social Markers, Western and Central Provinces, Solomon Islands', by Deborah Waite, in Pacific Arts: The Journal of the Pacific Arts Association, new series, Vol. 13, no. 1 (2013), pp. 27-39. In a discussion of Solomon Islands shields, Waite writes: 'some shields bore even more decoration that derived directly from personal ornaments. This was especially true of a number of shields collected by outsiders during the early-mid nineteenth century. The shields in question bear small designs of uniform size arranged in rows, usually lining the perimeter of the shield contour or along the central bands. Paramount among small designs in the triangular barava rendered either singly or in pairs. A pointed wooden shield obtained from New Georgia by Lt. Boyle Somerville clearly displays barava as defining motifs lining the edges and on noth horizontal bands (Pitt Rivers 1886.1.1387).' NB This shield is not part of the Somerville collection and its provenance is not known. (See correspondence in RDF.) [JC 24 1 2014]

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