PhD Opportunity: Imagaining the Pacific in Scotland

Applications are now invited for a fully funded AHRC PhD studentship on the project 'Imagining the Pacific in Scotland in the late 18th and early 19th Centuries: Collectors and Collections, Museums and Universities' at the University of East Anglia and National Museums Scotland. Applications will close at 5pm on Monday 01 June 2020. Interviews will be held on Thursday 11 June 2020 via Microsoft Teams.

For full details of the project, the studentship and how to apply visit the Sainsbury's Research Unit website.

Appeal for Information on John Hewitt and Ethnographic Collections from Sarawak in the UK

Rosanna Nicolson, NMS is looking for some information, she writes: 

Over the last nine months I have done some provenance research on National Museums Scotland (NMS) collection of around 500 objects from Borneo. I recently presented a paper at the European Association for Southeast Asian Studies conference in Berlin titled 'Advantageous Opportunities: Securing Objects from Borneo for Scotland's National Museum' to share some of my findings.

One of these collections purchased by NMS in 1909 was the purchase of eighty ethnographic items from John Hewitt (1880-1961), the Curator of the Sarawak Museum in Kuching, East Malaysia, from 1905 to 1908.

Hewitt was originally from Dronfield, near Sheffield, and NMS must have purchased this collection whilst he was briefly back in the UK before leaving for a new museum post in South Africa. He was appointed the Director of the Albany Museum in Grahamstown in 1910 where he worked until his retirement in 1958.  

As a zoologist it seems likely Hewitt's link with NMS initially came through our Natural Sciences department as we purchased thousands of specimens from him. However, I think that ours could be the only ethnographic collection assembled during his time in Sarawak and brought to the UK.

There appears to be very little supplementary or archival information about John Hewitt's time at the Sarawak Museum. However, many of the objects have a handwritten label with a number which presumably corresponded to an inventory compiled by him. One can assume that once this information was transferred to the register the original list was discarded.

The collection formed by Hewitt that’s now in Edinburgh includes models and spirit figures, wood carvings, basketry, domestic utensils, betel chewing equipment, musical instruments, personal ornamentation, and examples of weaving and dying tools and processes as well as finished textiles. 

 Basket A.1909.330   

    Cap of plaited rattan A.1909.365

Annual reports for the Sarawak Museum during Hewitt's time as Curator mention similar types of material in their lists of acquisitions. Many of which could have been specifically commissioned for the museum. For example, a group of Melanau spirit figures (dakan) about which Hewitt co-authored an article with A. E. Lawrence (Resident of Mukah) titled 'Some Aspects of Spirit Worship Amongst the Milano of Sarawak' published in JRAI in 1908 (Vol. 38, pp.388-408).

The Melanau produced a whole range of spirit figures, called dakan, carved out of softwood or sago pith. These figures were used to heal the sick so they had to have the correct characteristics and attributes to be easily recognizable, for example as a spirit which causes headaches and fevers. Arm position, headgear, facial expression, and clothing indicated which of the many spirits the dakan was supposed to represent. After a ritual was performed to cure the sickness, the spirit figures were returned to their own domain, either in the jungle, the air or the water.

The Sarawak Museum's Annual Report for 1906 lists 'one complete set of 'Dakan' from Mukah. […] which number in all about 80 […] This collection, which was obtained for us by Mr. A. E. Lawrence, is the most interesting addition to our collection for some years' (p.9). It seems likely that the figures now in Edinburgh were also acquired by Mr Lawrence and were extras or duplicates not needed for the Sarawak Museum's collection.

Another example is a set of Iban (Sea Dayak) wood carvings documenting different patterns and their names. The Sarawak Museum's Annual Report for 1907 lists two different groups of wood carvings acquired during that year, one being 'Sea Dayak carving executed by Sarawak rangers from the Undup region.' Interestingly one example in our collection is said to be a copy of the Kayan asu (dog/dragon) pattern, so a design predominantly used but another cultural group.

Sadly, as no correspondence survives, we don’t know whether the curator in Edinburgh asked Hewitt to assemble an ethnographic collection representative of the indigenous peoples and cultures in Sarawak for the museum, or if Hewitt was just trying to sell this material before moving to South Africa. The answer to this may become clearer if I can establish whether any other UK collections purchased, or were given, ethnographic artefacts from Hewitt.

I would also very interested to find out more generally about other UK holdings of material from what was formally British North Borneo (Sabah) and Sarawak.

Please contact me on r.nicolson@nms.ac.uk or 0131 247 4184.   

Collections in Circulation: Mobile Museum Conference, 9-10 May 2019

C19th Japanese paper sample from Kew’s Economic Botany Collection

Registration has opened for this Conference, to be held at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, on Thursday 9^th and Friday 10^th May 2019.

Full details of the programme and a link to booking registrationare now available.

The conference will bring together scholars from the UK and overseas with a shared interest in the mobility of museum collections, past and present. Their papers will address various aspects of the history of the circulation of objects and their re-mobilisation in the context of object exchange, educational projects and community engagement.

Confirmed speakers include Claudia Augustat, Paul Basu, Joshua Bell, Martha Fleming, Sally Gregory Kohlstedt, Luciana Martins, Wayne Modest, Catherine Nichols, Jude Philp, Daniel Simpson, Alice Stevenson and members of the Mobile Museum project team.

This conference is organised by the Mobile Museum project, a collaboration between Royal Holloway, University of London and the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.

Looking for RGR Piper: plea for information

Aaron Glass recently came across two small collections from the Northwest Coast of North America in the ethnology museums in Munich and Frankfurt that were sold around 1910/1911 by a man named RGR Piper, who was from Bishop's Stortford and apparently was an antique furniture dealer. Neither museum has any information about him or the sources of his collections, and he doesn't show up as a donor to the major UK ethnology museums or other major Northwest Coast collections. 

If anybody has any information on potential pieces acquired by him in smaller UK or European museums, he'd love to know about it . Please contact him directly on glass@bgc.bard.edu.

Job opportunity: Medicine Galleries Research Fellowship – Culturally Sensitive Objects

Do you have experience of working with culturally sensitive objects, ethnographic collections or museum policies? Do you have experience of delivering significant research projects?

The Science Museum Group has an astonishingly diverse and internationally significant collection of 7.3 million items from science, technology, engineering, medicine, transport and media. The Group also cares for Sir Henry Wellcome's Museum Collection, which contains thousands of objects related to health and medicine on long term loan from the Wellcome Trust. This material covers a broad range of cultures and includes a small number of objects which may be considered sacred, secret or otherwise culturally sensitive.

The Science Museum Group and Wellcome Collection are examining how we store, interpret, document and display these objects. Thanks to funding from the Wellcome Trust - provided to encourage greater academic engagement with the medical collections during the Science Museum's medicine galleries redevelopment project - we are delighted to offer a year-long fellowship to identify and review best practice concerning the care of culturally sensitive objects and collections originating from indigenous cultures, including items from Australasia and North America. 

In this role you will identify objects which may be defined as sacred, secret or otherwise culturally sensitive and identify, review and report on relevant policy statements (both nationally and internationally) regarding the care, storage, documentation and display of such objects, as well as best practice regarding access. You will also be tasked with planning, delivering and documenting workshops at key project milestones to discuss issues relevant to the research project with internal and external stakeholders. 

More details can be found on The Science Museum website.

The deadline is 02/12/2018.

Collection of tourist Arts and Crafts

I am looking for a permanent home for my collection.

I have a fairly extensive collection of what is broadly described as ’Tourist Arts and Crafts’. My interest started around 50 years ago, when I made some collections for the Pitt-Rivers Museum.  I travel fairly widely have and been collecting in a small way ever since. I also regularly buy in flea markets etc, particularly if there is any information on provenance.

My collections involve two main types of objects: those collected personally in my capacity as a tourist, and these can be further subdivided in to objects made specifically for the Tourist market,and those objects that have become out dated and discarded and are sold o tourists. Those collected at flea markets and junk shops are generally discarded souvenirs or gifts brought back by tourists for friends and relatives. Nearly all the collection is of objects best described as ‘portable’. Which is also typical for the international tourist market – they have to be transported home.

The emphasis in my collecting, has been to ensure that as much data as possible is associated with each specimen. Except for those purchased in England with little or no background, the objects are labelled at the time of collection.

Within this rather random collecting there are several foci.  My own professional interests relate to wildlife, and as a consequence the collection features animals. In particular, there is an extensive collection of snakes. There are also a large number of bird whistles and bird calls.  

Another focus has been artisans; models of people doing daily tasks.

But on the whole it is fairly idiosyncratic,  particularly the discarded category – whatever was popular in flea markets and charity shops. Miniature totem poles, thornwood carvings, masks, shadow puppets for example.

I also have a very extensive collection of arts and crafts from Paraguay. This collection of some 200+objects aims to be more comprehensive, and contains a significant number of weavings which are likely to become extremely rare in the future, as the nomadic indigenous tribals that made them disappear. This collection has (mostly) been catalogued on a database. It is also part of ongoing collecting.

Ideally, I would like to donate this collection to a single location, but of course, by their very nature the objects in the collection have multiple classifications, and will fit numerous taxonomies.  Having visited numerous ethnographic museums, I can say with confidence that much of the collection is of ‘museum quality’, and the groupings within the collection often make interesting study material. And taken as a whole may be of interest in representing one person’s collection of a period of half a century. Finally, it is an ongoing project; I have not completed the labelling and cataloguing, which includes cross referencing much of the material to reference books, photographing the objects for recording in my data base. I felt it would be appropriate to establish any desire to give it a home, so that future development can be in accord with its future. Much of the material is accessible at present, although shortly to be packed away. If there is any interest I will be more than happy to answer questions or show the collection, or photos of specific objects. 

John Burton

JBurton@worldlandtrust.org