1885.8.3

Collection type

Object

Description

Fish hook.

Long description

Fish hook of turtleshell shank and hook with pearl shell lure and two strings of red beads. The pearl shell is bound to the shank with string. [MJD 16/04/2009]

Geographical reference

Solomon Islands

Oceania > Melanesia > Solomon Islands

San Cristobal

Person

Field collector Captain Martin

PRM source Oxford University Museum of Natural History

Date / Period

Date made: Before 1883

Date collected

?By 1883

Acquisition information

Donated: 1885, uncertain

Materials and processes

Material Pearl Shell, Material Turtleshell Reptile, Material String, Material Bead, Process Carved, Process Tied, Process Bound, Process Twisted, Process Knotted, Process Strung

Dimensions

Width: max 7 mm, Length: max 71 mm

Object numbers

Accession number: 1885.8.3

Research and responses

Tylor papers PRM ms collections, Fison 31 from Fison to Tylor dated 17 August 1883: '... By last steamer I also posted a small bamboo box & three fish hooks from San Cristoval. The box is used for containing the lime which the natives use in betel nut chewing, & the small stick forks out the lime for them. The three hooks seemed to me to be of value as representing successive approaches towards the barb. Does it not seem curious that savages who barb their spears should not also barb their hooks? I suppose you are aware of the manner in which these hooks are used. The mother of pearl on their backs is the bait. The hook being towed by a long line in the wake of a swiftly moving canoe, the mother of pearl looks like a small fish, & is seized upon by larger ones. I got the hooks & the box from Captain Martin of our Mission Schooner "John Hunt", & promised him that they should be presented to your Museum in his name. When you write next, please devote a small scrap of paper to an acknowledgment of receipt that I may hand it over to him as a bait to catch more specimens. We send the vessel once a year to New Britain, & he puts in at the Sol. Is. & elsewhere on his way for wood, water &c. The gum with which the wooden stopper at the end of the bamboo is fastened is that used by the natives.' [AP 23/01/2013]

Fison 33 ... Did I not mention in my letter to you the name of the place where the betelnut box & the fish hooks were obtained? I got them from a Captain Martin who was de retour from New Britain & the Solomons - in fact I begged them from him specially for you. I do not remember now where he got them, but most likely Mr Codrington is right in his opinion that they came from the Solomons, though I do not know of any à priori improbability that they might be found at New Britain also. ... [AP 23/01/2013]

Lorimer Fison was a friend of W. Baldwin Spencer and later to be better known as co-author of Kamilaroi and Kurnai, at one time he was a missionary on Fiji (hence accession book ending). It is clear that the compiler of the accession book was uncertain when exactly the objects had been received via Lorimer Fison [AP 20/10/99]

Search terms: Fishing, Fishing Accessory, Hook, Lure