1886.1.1560

Collection type

Object

Description

Panpipes with 10 reed pipes tied together with fibre; open ends bevelled away on both sides to give sharp edges.

Long description

Panpipes made from ten bamboo tubes, the bottom ends closed by natural nodes. The top ends are bevelled on both sides. The bamboo tubes are tied near the top and bottom with plant fibre. [JU 18/12/2013]

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 Reed Plant, Material Plant Fibre, Process Tied, Process Carved

Dimensions

Length: max 248 mm, Width: max 86 mm

Object numbers

Accession number: 1886.1.1560 Other numbers: Forster 84

Research and responses

The external length of each pipe was measured, also the corresponding internal bore length, given in brackets. Starting with the longest pipe, and giving measurements in order, these are: 249mm (244mm); 207mm (202mm); 229mm (227mm); 205mm (203mm); 180mm (177mm); 214mm (209mm); 215mm (212mm); 216mm (213mm); 192mm (190mm); 172mm (170mm). [JU 28/06/2012]

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; also published in Dutch), as no. 25: ‘Collection of objects from Captain Cook’s second voyage, exhibited by the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. … 25. Pan pipes from Tonga.' [Translated from French by Adrienne Hopkins, 2002]. [JP 23/9/2004] 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)...84. 85. Two of Pan's pipes or syringae. No. 84 is typical: ten reed pipes bound together with fibre, each with bevelled top. Maximum length: 24 cm. No. 85 is from Tana (see below p. 21).' [unsigned, NMM?, undated; JC 8 6 2007, 14 8 2015] Illustrated in black and white in Figure 6b (right) on page 123 of 'A Study of Tongan Panpipes with a Speculative Interpretation', by Adrienne L. Kaeppler, in Ethnos, Vol. 39, nos 1-4 (1974), pp. 102-28. Caption (page 128): 'Fig. 6. Panpipes in the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford. a) (left), collection data unknown [1884.111.3], length 6 3/4 ". b) (right), collected by the Forsters on Cook's second voyage [1886.1.1560], length 9 3/4".' Kaeppler writes (page 105): 'The most systematic collection made on Cook's second voyage was that of Reinhold and George Forster, who may have collected as many as eight panpipes. One of these (fig. 6b) was given by the elder Forster to the Ashmolean Museum by 1777 and is now in the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford.' [JC 5 7 2013] Listed as number 5 under ‘Tonga...Panpipes’ on page 230 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): '5. Panpipe, Oxford (84). Length 24 cm. Evidence: Forster collection, second voyage. Literature: Gathercole, n.d. (1970); Kaeppler, 1974b, p. 105'. [JC 29 5 2000] 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] Illustrated in black and white as Figure 5 on page 127 of 'Begegnungen in der Südsee: Musik zwishcen Nationalkultur und Universalismus', by Vanessa Agnew, in Brunhilde Wehinger (ed.), Aufklärung zwischen Nationalkultur und Universalismus (Aufklärung und Moderne series, no. 10), (no place [Hanover]: Wehrhahn Verlag, 2007), pp. 117-129. Caption (same page): 'Panflöten. Mit freundlicher Genehmigung der Forster Collection, Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford University'. [JC 4 12 2015] Listed as catalogue number 333 on page 205 of James Cook and the Exploration of the Pacific, by Adrienne l. Kaeppler et al. (London: Thames & Hudson, 2009) with the caption: '333 Panpipes mimiha | Tonga, by June 1774 | Reeds, plant fibre, 24.8 x 8.6 cm | Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, 1886.1.1560 (Forster 84, no ill.) | A typical set of Tongan panpipes consisting of ten reeds, each bevelled at the top, bound together with plant fibre. Cook writes: '10 or 11 small reeds of unequal lengths, bound together side by side, as the Doric Pipe of the ancients is described to have been done; the open reeds are of equal height or in a line into which they blow with their mouths' (Beaglehole 1961, p.272). J[eremy].C[oote].' [FB 09/04/2013] 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: Music, Musical Instrument, Panpipes