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1896.71.4.1

Part of a model reindeer pack. For the other parts of the pack see 1896.71.4.2-3.

1896.71.4.1

Digital asset copyright: Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford

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Collection type
Object
Description
Part of a model reindeer pack. For the other parts of the pack see 1896.71.4.2-3.
Long description
Oval shaped reindeer pack made of wood, leather and string. The exterior of the pack constitutes a thin oval shaped piece of wood and the interior is made of thin strips of wood. The pack has five leather ties which attach to string stretched over the top of the pack. Thin wooden sticks in a grid pattern create the base of the pack. A leather strap on the side of the pack is designed to hook onto another part of the reindeer pack (see 1896.71.4.2) and carried on the back of a model reindeer (see 2003.33.1).
Cultural groups
Saami
Person
Maker Lars Haetta
Field collector Unknown Collector
PRM source Alfred Leonard Matsson
Date / Period
Date made: Before 1896
Date collected
By 1896
Acquisition information
Purchased: 1896
Materials and processes
Material Wood Plant, Material String, Material Animal Leather Skin, Material Metal, Process Carved, Process Tied
Dimensions
Height 50 mm, Length 132 mm, Width 87 mm
Object numbers
Accession number: 1896.71.4.1
Research and responses

Barbara Sjoholm is the author of "From Lapland to Sápmi: Collecting and Returning Sámi Craft and Culture". Sjoholm's research has shown that whilst imprisoned Hætta made two sets of Sámi models, probably 160 in all, as educational tools for professors J.A. Friis and Ludwig Daa. Daa gave a number of the models to Robert Latham, ostensibly for the Crystal Palace Museum exhibits. Latham gave Daa objects in exchange for the new Ethnographic Museum in Oslo. Silje Mathisen Opdahl’s “A record of ethnographic objects procured for the Crystal Palace exhibition in Sydenham,” (2019) provided details about Ludwig Daa’s connection with Robert Latham and the Crystal Palace Exhibition, as well as the early years of the Ethnographic Museum in Oslo. Sjoholm's research also used a history in Norwegian of the University of Oslo’s Ethnographic Museum by director Yngvar Nielsen: Universitetets ethnografiske Samlinger 1857–1907, (1907) where he discusses Ludwig Daa’s travels to England and the Continent in order buy and trade exotic objects. On pages 35-36 he discusses then-director of the museum Ludwig Daa’s visit to England in 1864. With him Daa carried Sámi objects to exchange for ethnographic artefacts from around the world. In London he made the acquaintance of “Mr. Wareham” who dealt in curiosities and did business with him. A William Wareham is listed as a possible dealer who dealt with Pitt Rivers: https://web.prm.ox.ac.uk/rpr/index.php/article-index/12-articles/139-dealers-and-auctioneers.html. He is another way that the Sámi models made by Hætta could have become part of the Pitt Rivers Museum collection, rather than coming through Robert Latham and the Crystal Palace exhibit.

Anne May Olli (director of RiddoDuottarMuseat), Johan Ashlak (Ailo) Hætta (head of the museum's branch in Kautokeino), and Anna Mossolova (MSCA postdoctoral fellow at Museum of Cultural History, University of Oslo) digitally reviewed some objects in the Pitt Rivers collection which may have been made by Lars Hætta during the time he was imprisoned in Oslo (1856–1867) for participation in the Kautokeino rebellion. Anne May and Ailo looked at this model reindeer with pack online and had doubts that it was all made by Hætta. The reindeer head itself was made by Henry Balfour in 1898, presumably to display the pack which is most probably Hætta's work. Hætta objects are usually very distinctive thanks to the handwritten labels in Sámi and Norwegian made by Hætta himself. He had very beautiful handwriting and it looks like it is his handwriting on the storage containers around the reindeer. Anna wondered if this model could therefore be some sort of bricolage. Anna also confirmed that the reindeer pack is called beassegiisá in Sámi.

Search terms: Model, Animal Gear, Transport and Travel

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