Identifications for the Kent and Sussex Uniques project

Australian headdress 1997.5 Bexhill, BEXHM : 1997.5

This is described as a ‘Headdress with parrot feathers’, and was donated by a Miss C P Wills. I think these are emu feathers because of the similarity of the feathers to a Leeds example, LEEDM.F.1970.0010:

The Leeds example has an old label: "Head ornament of emu feathers worn by aboriginal men at some of their dances. N.Queensland”. Unfortunately the source details are lost, and now recorded as Unknown. The date is estimated at 1890-1920.

As laid out in the photo the Leeds headdress looks more like a waist ornament (?). The Bexhill example seems to have a much thicker group of cord ties at the sides, and the feather strands seem very untidy. As Len Pole comments, It is 'impossible to see what this might look like without putting it on a head-shaped mount; it could be imposing’. Do the cords separate out to form a semi-regular fringe? Or when worn would the fringe be spiralled round to make a chunky cluster or plume? The most frequent good photos online of Queensland emu feather headdresses are of a Mornington Island type headdress, from the Gulf of Carpentaria, north Queensland. For example, see the discussion thread 'Australian Aboriginal artifacts 8 – Mornington Island ceremonial headdress’ 

This took me to a photo of a similar headdress at the National Museum of Australia which has lots of contextual historical detail.

Gambling tokens, Sudan? Bexhill Museum BEXHM : 2004.5.23

This group of engraved brown nut shells are presumed to be gambling tokens, one is said to be carved with a sexual symbol.. they are used in a gambling game banned for its destructive influence. Sudan. Len Pole says see similar examples at Powell-Cotton museum.

I had not come across anything like these before, but some of the designs look similar to modern gourd carvings from West Africa, particularly one piece from Ghana, which is possibly Asante.

Carved gourd ornament, Ghana, 1960-1980. Leeds LEEDM.F.2009.5.30. Transferred from Hampshire County Museum and Archive Service.

I checked out Brazil seed carvings on this website but nothing similar there.

There is a huge range of game counters illustrated on these pages at Etsy, but again no direct similarities, and nothing either here which has a good list with short descriptions and illustrations of the different board games in Africa.




Large rooster puppet with pendant dangles, Bexhill Museum BEXHM : 1999.35

This is described as “Santali instrument an aboriginal tribe of N. Bengal, wood with bird ornament on top and hanging wooden blocks below”. Wikipedia now has a detailed well-referenced entry on the Santhal or Santal people of India, and they were one of the peoples whose art featured in the Quay Branly exhibition ‘AutreMaitres de L’Inde’ (Other Masters of India) in 2010. However, I found this website difficult to read, and it seems to link closely to another exhibition in Germany on Santal musical instruments. There was nothing here on Santal rooster bird puppets or bird scarers, and similarly there is nothing in another website I was hoping would be useful here.

MEG and Bexhill would love to hear from anyone who has seen similar items to these, or has them in their museum collections. The contact at Bexhill Museum is Julian Porter.

Antonia Lovelace

MEG Chair and Curator of World Cultures, Leeds Museum

Identifications for the Kent and Sussex Uniques project

Huge Japanese pot with Buddhist figure on lid Horsham Museum

This vase, collected by Robert Henderson, father of the donor, is said to have been obtained in 1885 from the Higeyan monastery in Kyoto, and was thought to be ‘over 700 years old’. The donor, Emma Henderson, reported that ‘Lord Banstead .. said it was ‘raku saku’ [ie a form of decorated earthenware?]. Go to a recent blog on Horsham and the Hendersons for more detail on the family’s links with the Far East here. The author, Revd Rupert Toovey, suggests the pot is Satsuma ware, one of the most common export wares in the late 19^th century, and this fits in terms of its huge size and elaborate decoration. There are a pair of more traditional cream and gold Satsuma vases on show in a National Trust property at Polesdon-Lacey. Many Satsuma pieces are shown on the V&A Collections website, but none quite like this Horsham pot. Huge Japanese and Chinese pots were popular decorative items in many UK country houses, and Leeds has a shop interior photograph, of Kuhn and Komor’s shop, Water Street, Yokohama, probably dating to the late 1890s, showing a full range of sizes buyers could choose from. 

Shop interior photograph from the album LEEDM.F.L. 1981.066, on loan to Leeds from Clifton Park Museum, Rotherham  

Xhosa ‘three-wife’ pipe, South Africa, Maidstone Museum

The three wooden bowls on this pipe are lined in metal and the gummed label reads “Maidstone Museum. 242”. A card label says: Pipe Zulu-Kafir tribes. South-east Africa.

I found one exact match on a web search on 11 Mar 2015 here where this type is described as a ‘three  wife’ Xhosa pipe. This website illustrates several different types of pipes from different cultural groups. What the previous website calls Xhosa here they call Xhosa / Thembu / Pondo, and you can see that the triple bowl one here is a version of this. The well-known photo souvenir book ‘Vanishing Cultures of South Africa’ by Peter Magubane (Struik Publishers 1998), has many photos of Xhosa women smoking on pp 21, 22 and 23, but none are ‘three wife’ pipes.  The caption that goes with these photos includes: ‘Once they have passed menopause, married women are socially on a pair with men, they are entitled to smoke a long-stemmed pipe and to attend traditional rituals and beer-drinking occasions’.

West Indies seed items, Maidstone Museum – Moo28 waistband, Antigua, and M0043 Waistband West Indies

Leeds has one seed bag, and a multi-seed necklace from the Caribbean similar to these, but also some seed bags and armlets from Damaraland, Namibia, made of the same or similar looking brown seeds. I’ve pasted in a screen shot from our database to show you these below:

The Herero of Namibia were heavily missionized and I suspect that the use of these seeds was introduced by Christian missionaries in the late 19^th century. I searched on-line for an exact identification of the seeds, and found this useful photo essay which tells us the seeds are wild tamarind, see the very good photo match, a fair way down the article. The photographs are  copyright W P Armstrong. Quote:

Wild tamarind (Leucaena leucocephala) produces thousands of elongate, flattened legume pods containing numerous seeds. The shiny brown seeds are commonly strung into elaborate necklaces in Caribbean and Hawaiian islands. They are often used as spacers between bright red seeds from coral trees (Erythrina) or other species.

Go to this site to see similar modern products for sale in Antigua.

But see also the very similar looking ipil seed novelty bags and jewellery from Tasmania illustrated at here, a brilliant blog article. As one of the Maidstone Museum items is clearly labelled Antigua it’s best to stick with this as the geographical provenance, and ditto for Caribbean re the other.

Antonia Lovelace

MEG Chair and Curator of World Cultures, Leeds Museum

Folklore Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow

The Folklore Society's AGM conference, 17-19 April. Sheffield University, Halifax Hall, Endcliffe Vale Rd, Sheffield S10 3ER



In Britain, as elsewhere, folklore is currently in a peculiar position. Popular interest has rarely been greater. Scholarly research and publication continues. Given its foundation in comparative methodologies, folklore is ideally places to be at the centre of the interdisciplinary research approaches being championed across academia. However, declining academic funding has marginalised folklore in regard both to other disciplines and to our colleagues internationally. 







The conference will be focus on the following:

•The history of Folklore

•Theoretical questions within Folklore

•Popular and scholarly understandings of Folklore

•Theoretical questions raised by fieldwork and other research

•The place of British folklore scholarship in the discipline internationally, and the impact of international scholarship on the development of folklore in Britain 

•Applications of Folklore, including its place in interdisciplinary scholarship

•Reflections on the future development of Folklore and folklore research

The Folklore Society's AGM (FLS members only) will take place during the conference. The Presidential address by Professor James H Grayson is entitled 'Chumong and Tan'gun: The Politics of Korean Foundation Myths'. Conference registration will open from 14.30 Friday 17 April at Halifax Hall. Lunch is provided. Mid-afternoon refreshments will be provided, on the Friday. There will be a wine reception on Friday evening (everyone welcome.) This will be followed by an optional conference dinner (price £30). Saturday's proceedings will begin around 9.00 - 9.30 am. Lunch will be provided. The afternoon sessions will end at around 5.30. Saturday evening will be free to roam and enjoy Sheffield. There'll be a conference pub venue. Sunday's proceedings will begin at 10.00am. Lunch is provided, and a short afternoon session is anticipated.

Speakers include: James H. Grayson, Victoria Newton, Seana Kozar, Graham Seal, Helen Frisbym David Hopkin, WIlliam Pooley, Matthew Cheeseman, Daria Radchenko, Simon Haywood and Olimpia Gargano.

£150.00 for full 3 day conference. Concessionary rate (speakers FLS members, students, pensioners, unwaged) £110.00. Friday's conference dinner £30.00. Day rates available.

Wachiya! Some of your members might remember me from when I worked at the Pitt Rivers Museum or Bristol City Museum &Art Gallery! After 3 years in Qatar, I am now back in Canada, living in a Cree community and working in a fascinating Cree museum as the Coordinator of Collections & Exhibitions. I wanted to share some information about where I am working with the Museum Ethnographers Group!

ACCI from the exterior

ACCI to the right, with Ouje Bougomou band office to the left and ice rink/multi use community shaptuan in the centre and frozen lake Opemiska in the background (after the buildings and before the tree line. 

Introducing Aanischaaukamikw Cree Cultural Institute [ACCI]

ACCI, open from 2011, is the cultural centre for the nine Cree communities of EeyouIstchee in Northern Quebec, Canada. This major new facility was designed by celebrated architect Douglas Cardinal and is located in the Cree community of Oujé-Bougoumou, QC, overlooking Lake Opemiska.

ACCI is a multi-purpose cultural entity, bringing together regional cultural programming for the Cree Nation for all to share on-site, and throughout the communities. Our building features 3,000 square feet of long-term and temporary exhibition spaces; visible storage; a documentation and resource centre; state-of-the-art collection storage (including archaeology) and work space for 40 staff. From 2013 we have been designated as a Category ‘A’ designated institution for cultural property. Our facilities are equivalent to the provincial and national museums in Canada.

Aanischaaukamikw has as its foundation the concept of aanischaa, which refers to ‘a bridging or continuity’, to ensure that Cree traditions, knowledge and values are passed on from generation to generation. ACCI is both a place of healing and a place in which to practice, protect and enhance Cree language and culture.

Ouje Bougoumou cultural village, where traditional events and activities are held

Our goal is to preserve and pass on Cree traditions to the growing Cree communities through the presentation of Cree culture as part of contemporary modern society with continuity from the traditional past. Our programs emphasise the contribution of elder’s knowledge and wisdom, which is shared with younger generations using state of the art technology alongside traditional methods. Our remit includes gathering of oral history, acquisition of artefacts of Cree traditional and modern material culture; research of Cree material culture through identification, preservation, research, permanent and travelling exhibitions, grant programs, and professional development for our Cree staff who are working at the first Cree museum in Eeyou Istchee.

Beaded hood by Paula Menarick

 Our inaugural exhibition ‘Reclaiming the Ways of Our Ancestors’ features objects from our small (but growing) permanent collection, as well as many national, and even international, loans. One of the exciting events during our opening ceremony was the opportunity to re-unite a pair of late 18^th century quill work moccasins, one of which is in the collections of the North America Native Museum in Zurich, while the other is in the collections of the Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto, Ontario. To date, we have had Cree objects on loan from the Royal Ontario Museum, the Manitoba Museum, the Musée du Civilisation Quebec, the Canadian Museum of History (formerly Canadian Museum of Civilisation), the Canadian Guild of Crafts, Glenbow Museum, the Royal Alberta Museum and the McCord Museum (to name a few!). A recent project involved our Collections Officer, Paula Menarick, who is also an accomplished Cree/Inuit craftswoman, undertaking research into beaded hoods. She spent 600 hours recreating a hood in the traditional style, with the consultation of elders who remembered the hoods being worn during winter travels between camps. This is now on display alongside hoods on loan from the Hudson Bay Company collection at Manitoba Museum. 

Camp theme case as referred to below

Due to the fragile nature of many of our collections, we undertake a 6 month rotation schedule in our exhibit hall. In January we changed the themes of three cases to include a contemporary ‘Camp’ theme; hide processing tools and a contemporary costume from a girl’s ‘First Snowshoe Walk’ ceremony. The ‘Camp’ case features a chainsaw, a water carrier, camp shoes, a goose decoy, a medicine bottle and camp crockery – some of which are new acquisitions from 2014. We also used some contemporary winter camp photographs that were entered by community members in the ‘Ouje Bougoumou Winter Photography Competition’ at the end of the year. The hide processing tools were found in Chibougamau Lake in the 20^th century, and were a transfer from Cumberland Museum in British Columbia, who felt these objects suited our remit more than theirs!

Hide processing tools on display

First Snowshoe Walk costume, on loan from Paula Menarick: embroidered parka, sealskin mittens, cap, kamiks with duffle lining, socks, wrist warms, scarf and shawl and skirt. 

First Snowshoe Walk toboggan and makaahikan (walking stick/shovel)

It is an exciting time for ACCI with our expanding collections and plans for new temporary 
exhibitions, both to hold in-house and to travel! We are also looking for international partnerships with any museum that holds objects from the James Bay region of Quebec to work together on long term loans and to help provide contemporary interpretation from our communities for your James Bay Cree collections. If your museum has any collections from our region we would be happy to hear from you! We would also love to have you visit our institute – we are located about 7 hours (driving) north of Montreal, just 3 hours past the touristic Lac St Jean region.
 
Please feel free to contact me.
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Laura Phillips
Coordinator of Collections & Exhibitions
Aanischaaukamikw Cree Cultural Institute

The Gardens Pavilion at the Horniman Museum, London, was the setting for a recent (26-27 March 2015)  and extremely interesting and successful conference entitled ‘Weapons and the Anthropological Museum’ organised by Tom Crowley, Assistant Curator of Anthropology at the museum. In fact the conference, obviously, could really apply to any museum with a holding of weapons of any kind; the questions raised by the conference applied equally to arms from wherever-and whenever- they originated. The conference attracted some 40 participants who came from a number of institutions from around the world (such as France, Austria and the USA) which ranged from local authority museums, such as Brighton, to nationals, such as the Royal Museum for Central Africa, Brussels.

The presentations were of uniformly high quality and it is difficult to single out papers for special praise, but mention should be made of Stefanie Lotter’s (School of Oriental and African Studies) all-encompassing talk on ‘Wood, Vegetable, a Bull or the Head of an Enemy: A discussion of the khukuri’ and Shawn Rowland’s (Bard Graduate Centre and American Museum of Natural History) forensic and moving account  of ‘An Artefact of Violence?: Early twentieth century anthropology’s marginalisation of colonial violence, as evidenced by a west Australian Kimberley Plateau shield’, to name but two.

The conference was not only enjoyable and very well worthwhile but was thought provoking throughout, even if it didn’t exactly come to any firm conclusions about certain aspects of weapons, such as how to display the trauma of weapons; but such is the nature of the subject! But asking questions is a very good thing and in the hectic life of most museum workers today it seems that we have far too little time in which to be reflective and ‘think’ about things, and this event allowed that opportunity. It also made one consider both the multiple uses and meanings of the tool we call a ‘weapon’ and what constitutes such an implement. The conference papers are apparently going to be  published and there is also discussion of a subject specialist network being set up. The present reviewer, also a speaker at the event, must admit to coming out of the conference feeling quite enthused and inspired by the subject and discussions and was not alone in feeling this! One can’t ask for more out  of a conference and there was already discussion regarding the possibility of a ‘Weapons II’ at some point in the future.

Robert C Woosnam-Savage, Curator of European Edged Weapons

Executive Board Member ICOMAM