1893.27.7

Collection type

Object

Description

Ceremonial waist ornament or belt with woven waistband and plant fibre fringing at either end. [FB 2/2/2017]

Geographical reference

Vanuatu

Oceania > Melanesia > Vanuatu

Malampa Province Malakula

Person

Field collector Henry Boyle Townshend Somerville

Field collector HMS Dart

PRM source Henry Boyle Townshend Somerville

Date / Period

Date made: Before 12/1891

Date collected

Between June and December 1890 or between June and December 1891

Acquisition information

Loaned: 02/1893 Donated: 03/1893

Materials and processes

Material Plant Fibre, Process Split, Process Woven

Dimensions

Width: max 110 mm, Length: max 1430 mm

Object numbers

Accession number: 1893.27.7

Research and responses

Somerville served on HMS Dart in a survey of the New Hebrides (Vanuatu) in 1890 and 1891 (in both cases from June to December). The material in this collection was, thus, presuambly collected during this survey. See his ‘Notes on Some Islands of the New Hebrides’ (based on a paper entitled ‘Ethnological Notes on the New Hebrides’ read at the meeting of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland on 21 February 1893), in Journal of the Anthropological Institute, Vol. XXIII (1894), pp. 2–21, and ‘Ethnological Notes on New Hebrides’ (based on a paper entitled ‘Ethnological Notes on the New Hebrides’ read at the meeting of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland on 9 January 1894), in Journal of the Anthropological Institute, Vol. XXIII (1984), 363–93; see also his The Chart-Makers (Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood & Sons, 1928). [JC 26 2 2003]

Search terms: Ritual and Ceremonial, Ornament, Clothing, Ceremonial Object, Waist Ornament, Belt