Museum Metadata Exchange

Names

Name PrimaryMiss E A Farran Collection, Fiji artefacts, early 20th century

IDs

ID LocalAM0043

ID UriOffline Only

Descriptions

Brief DescriptionMiss E A Farran sold 27 artefacts to the Australian Museum in 1920. Originating from Fiji, the items within the collections include which bark cloths, and whale tooth and reptile bone neck ornaments.

Full DescriptionIn 1920, Miss E A Farran sold 27 artefacts to the Australian Museum, all from Fiji. The collection includes an interesting variety of objects, including baskets, pots, neck and arm ornaments, clubs, adze heads and bark cloths.

There are six white bark cloths in the collection. These are un-decorated, which are extremely finely beaten and delicate in contrast to the more heavily decorated and thicker bark cloths within the Australian Museum collection. Another significant piece is a clay water container (saqa moli). Due to the limited access to good clay, only a small number of villages produced pots such as this one, which is comprised of a cluster of connected spheres, joined by the stems.

Also purchased from Miss Farran were several interesting neck and arm ornaments. This includes three whale tooth neck ornaments (Tabua), two with a single tooth and one displaying 20 teeth. The collection also contains two bone necklets and two bone armlets, all made from reptilian vertebrate.

Subjects

localBark cloths; Early 20th century; Indigenous artefacts; Melanesian Culture; Neck ornaments; Pacific Island Culture

pontTapas cloths

Coverage Spatial

TextFiji

Coverage Temporal

From1900

To1920

Dates

Date Record Updated2012-05-30 23:43

Date Created in MME2011-04-19 15:29