Barkcloth beater. [JP 25/7/2002]

Collection type: Object
Description: Barkcloth beater. [JP 25/7/2002]
Long description: Barkcloth beater. Square section with rounded handle. Each side of the mallet is grooved along the entire length of the flattened portion with rows of almost perfectly straight lines. The depth of the grooves, and the distance between the grooves varies on each side of the beater so that on one side the grooves are deep and wide apart and on the next side they are closer apart, and so on. The final side is very finely grooved. The tip of the mallet is not grooved but has been carved with a 'Z'-shape in relief. [JP 25/7/2002]
Geographical reference: French Polynesia (Overseas Collectivity of France)
Oceania > Polynesia > French Polynesia (Overseas Collectivity of France); Society Islands Tahiti
Person: Field collector Joseph Banks; PRM source Christ Church, University of Oxford; PRM source Oxford University Museum of Natural History
Date / Period: Date made: Before 09/08/1769
Date collected: Between 13 April and 9 August 1769
Acquisition information: Loaned: 1886
Materials and processes: Material Wood Plant, Process Grooved, Process Carved
Dimensions: Length: max 330 mm, Width: max 40 mm proximal end, straight, Width: max 53 mm proximal end, diagonal, Length: max 230 mm excluding handle
Object numbers: Accession number: 1887.1.383
Associated publications: For an account of the collection of which this is a part, see 'An Interim Report on a Previously Unknown Collection from Cook's First Voyage: The Christ Church Collection at the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford', by Jeremy Coote, in Journal of Museum Ethnography, no. 16 (2004), pp. 111-21. This item is listed on page 116. (Copy of article in RDF: Biographies: Banks.) [JC 8 4 2004] Listed on page 22 and illustrated in colour as Figure 19 on page 15 of Curiosities from the Endeavour: A Forgotten Collection—Pacific Artefacts Given by Joseph Banks to Christ Church, Oxford after the First Voyage, by Jeremy Coote (Whitby: Captain Cook Memorial Museum, 2004). (Copies of exhibition leaflets, poster, catalogue, etc. in RDF: Biographies: Banks.) [JC 14 4 2004; JC 25 6 2004] See also 'Forgotten Treasures from Cook's First Voyage', by Jeremy Coote and Sophie Forgan, in Cook's Log, Vol. XXVII, no. 2 (April 2004), pp. 4-6. (Copy in RDF: Biographies: Banks.) [JC 25 6 2004] See also 'Curiosities from the Endeavour: A Forgotten Collection', by Jeremy Coote, The Friends of the Pitt Rivers Museum Newsletter, no. 49 (July 2004), pp. 6-7. (Copy in RDF: Biographies: Banks.) [JC 1 9 2004] See also 'Uncovered: "Lost" Treasures from the South Seas', by Julie Webb, in Limited Edition [supplement to the Oxford Times], number 215 (December 2004), pp. 31-33. (Copy in RDF: Biographies: Banks.) [JC 15 12 2004] 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] This is the object referred to on page 417 of 'Introduction to the Smithsonian Barkcloth Project; and Tangible and Intangible Knowledge Embedded in Tahitian 'Ahu and Hawaian Kapa', by Adrienne L. Kaeppler, in Michel Charleux et al., Tapa—de l'écorce à l'étoffe, art millénaire d'Océanie de l'Asie du Sud-Est à la Polynésie orientale / Tapa—From Tree Bark to Cloth: An Ancient Art of Oceania from Southeast Asia to Eastern Polynesia, Paris: Somogy éditions de l'art; Tahiti: Association TAPA, pp. 415–21. Kaeppler writes: 'A Tahitian beater in the Banks collection in the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford is from Cook's first voyage. According to a curator at the Pitt Rivers, the side of the beater with the finest lines has 36 grooves, and they are no more than 1 mm apart. This extraordinary beater is a masterpiece of indigenous carving, either with tools such as tiny animal teeth, or the possibility of having used metal nails that were introduced to the Society Islands on the voyage of HMS Dolphin in 1767.' [JC 28 7 2018]

Search terms: Barkcloth, Tool, Beater