Names
The Revered William Wyatt Gill Collection
IDs
AM0030
Offline Only
Descriptions
From 1884 to 1898, Missionary Reverend William Wyatt Gill donated 98 objects to the Australian Museum. Collected during his travels on behalf of the London Missionary Society, the objects are largely from Papua New Guinea, as well as several objects from the Cook Islands, Indonesia and India.
From 1884 to 1898, Missionary Reverend William Wyatt Gill (1828 – 1896) donated and sold 98 objects to the Australian Museum. Collected during his travels on behalf of the London Missionary Society, the objects are largely from Papua New Guinea, as well as several objects from the Cook Islands, Indonesia and India. Objects include clothing items and accessories, body ornaments, bark cloths and fish hooks.
Reverend Gill lived in Mangaia, Cook Islands (1852-72) and Rarotonga (1873-83) before retiring to Sydney. Whilst working for the London Missionary Society, Gill visited fellow missionaries in Papua New Guinea and Torres Strait, and installed teachers into New Guinea. Gill was a prominent member of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science, and wrote a number of accounts of his voyages, including in Gill and James Chalmers Work and Adventure in New Guinea 1877 to 1885, and texts on Polynesia. Gill was also responsible for revising the Raratongan bible.
The objects collected by Reverend Gill give an important insight into objects used by the people of Papua New Guinea, particularly on a daily basis, such as clothing items (dresses, bags, fans, skirts and headdresses), equipment (combs and fish hooks) to decorative and ornamental objects for the arm, neck, head and mouth. They are also demonstrative of the various items that were obtained by foreigners in trade with the Papua New Guinean natives.
Subjects
Body ornaments; Ethnography; Indigenous artefacts; Missionaries
Clothing; Tools
Coverage Spatial
Cook Islands; Papua New Guinea; Indonesia; India
Coverage Temporal
1884
1898
Dates
2012-05-30 23:42
2011-03-24 09:58